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Messac Named Fellow of ASME
Achille Messac, associate professor of mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineering, has been elected a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Messac is being honored for “pioneering contributions to the field of control structure integrated design, which later led to the broader field of Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO).” According to ASME, Messac has made “seminal contributions in the field of deployment dynamics for shuttle and space station applications. He developed the physical programming method, which makes optimization easily accessible to industry engineers.”
Physical programming can be used to facilitate the optimal design of consumer products, as well as that of large systems. Messac’s research focuses on optimal design and structural dynamics.
“Professor Messac's election as an ASME fellow reflects both his outstanding fundamental research contributions that have in fact defined the field of Multidisciplinary Design Optimization, and the application of these innovative optimization methods to a diversity of critical industry applications," said William “Bud" Baeslack, dean of engineering.
Messac, who joined the Rensselaer faculty in 2000, received his bachelor's (1981), master's (1982), and doctoral (1986) degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to joining Rensselaer, he was an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering at Northeastern University, where he led the successful reform of the academic design program. Messac also was a senior member of the technical staff at Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass., 1991-1994, where he led and participated in numerous research and development efforts.
Messac is an associate fellow of AIAA, former chair of the AIAA Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) Technical Committee, and a former member of the AIAA Structural Dynamics Technical Committee.
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