Bahram Ravani and Stephen Robinson receive College of Engineering Outstanding Faculty Awards

By Noah A Pflueger-Peters

Distinguished Professor Bahram Ravani and Professor Stephen Robinson received Outstanding Faculty Awards from the UC Davis College of Engineering for their outstanding work during the 2018-19 academic year. Ravani received the Outstanding Senior Faculty Research Award and Robinson received the Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award. These awards are the college's highest honors given to faculty.

They will be recognized, along with all of their colleagues who received awards in the last year, at the Celebration of Faculty Excellence awards ceremony and reception on October 10 from 5 – 6:30 p.m. in the Shields Library Courtyard.

Senior Faculty Research Award:  Bahram Ravani

Bahram Ravani is a distinguished professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, the director of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society at UC Davis and co-director of the Advanced Highway Maintenance and Construction Technology Research Center, a collaborative effort with the California Department of Transportation. This center applies robotics, automation and information science in engineering to the civil infrastructure including the highway system. Ravani also initiated an international research training group in Germany to train Ph.D. students in manufacturing. During his 31-year career at UC Davis, Ravani has led research in the areas of design and manufacturing, automation, robotics, highway safety, mechatronics and informatics, intelligent transportation systems, dynamics and biomechanics resulting in over 140 technical publications and a graduate-level textbook. He is also a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and a past recipient of several achievement awards including the Machine Design Award, Design Automation Award, Mechatronic and Embedded Systems and Applications (MESA) Achievement Award and the ASME Gustus Larson Memorial Award.

Teaching Award: Stephen Robinson

Stephen Robinson joined the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering as a distinguished professor in 2012, after retiring from NASA. He recently served as MAE department chair and is also the Director of UC Davis Center for Human/Robotics/Vehicle Integration and Performance. Professor Robinson has brought his vast experience in both space and aeronautics to the college. He has taught eight courses in the last five years. Two of these courses are new space courses, taught for the first time at UC Davis and have become the core of the new space program. He has also re-engineered two important courses, an undergraduate course on applied aerodynamics and a graduate course on advanced fluid dynamics. His areas of research include turbulence flow physics and modeling, experimental techniques, instrumentation, 3D scientific visualization, applied aerodynamics, safety engineering and applied cognitive psychology. Student evaluations show Professor Robinson is truly passionate about teaching and mentoring.

Here is a full list of Ravani and Robinson's colleagues who received major awards between July 1, 2018 and August 31, 2019:

• Bahram Ravani, Mechanisms and Robotics Award (American Society of Mechanical Engineers)
• Ron Hess, deFlorez Award for Flight Simulation (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics)
• Valeria La Saponara, American Society of Mechanical Engineers Fellow
• Cristina Davis, UC Davis Academic Senate Scholarly Public Service Award, 2018 Commander’s Public Service Award (Department of the Air Force)
• Maury Hull, Paolo Aglietti Award (International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Orthopaedic Sports Medicine)
• Kazuo Yamazaki, Takagi Award (Japan Society of Precision Engineering)

Visit the College of Engineering website for a full list of winners.

Full article originally posted by the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, College of Engineering.