Assistant Professor Bogdan Epureanu and Professor Galip Ulsoy are the recipients of the 2005-06 ME Department’s Outstanding Achievement Awards. Among ME’s many excellent faculty members, Epureanu and Ulsoy stand out for their significant contributions to the excellence in Dynamics, Systems and Controls for which the ME Department is recognized internationally.
In a short amount of time, Epureanu’s research has made substantial impact in several important areas in the field of non-linear dynamics and fluid-structure interactions, including structural health monitoring, aerodynamics and aeroelasticity, and computational dynamics. His contributions to research appear in more than 35 journal articles. In parallel, he has established himself as an outstanding and passionate teacher both inside and outside the classroom, as evidenced by his consistently high teaching evaluations, his involvement as faculty advisor of Pi Tau Sigma and his outreach activities with the Ann Arbor Hands-on Museum. His prestigious honors include the American Academy of Mechanics’ 2004 Junior Achievement Award, the 2003 ASME-Pi Tau Sigma Gold Medal Award, and the ASEE 2004 Outstanding New Mechanics Educator Award.
In his exceptional career over the past 30 years, Ulsoy has made seminal contributions to the dynamic modeling, analysis, and control of mechanical systems, with emphasis on manufacturing and automotive systems. He has served as the Founding Deputy Director of the NSF ERC on Reconfigurable Manufacturing and has published over 200 papers, several of which have received best paper awards. As an educator, Ulsoy has advised more than 30 doctoral students and founded the highly successful Program in Manufacturing which set a new paradigm for professional education in the College of Engineering. He has provided outstanding leadership to the Department of Mechanical Engineering in literally every capacity, and most commendably as Department Chair just before my term. Nationally, he has served as Journal Editor, President of the American Automatic Control Council and Director of the Civil and Mechanical Sciences Division of the National Science Foundation. Ulsoy has received numerous prestigious awards for his research accomplishments, including the William C. Ford Professorship of Manufacturing and his recent election as NAE member.
