visit author page

Autar Kaw is a professor of mechanical engineering and Jerome Krivanek Distinguished Teacher at the University of South Florida, USA. He holds a Ph.D. in engineering mechanics from Clemson University. His main scholarly interests are in engineering education research methods, open courseware development, bascule bridge design, body armor, and micromechanics of composite materials. With major funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, he is the lead developer of award-winning online resources for an undergraduate course in numerical methods (http://numericalmethods.eng.usf.edu). He is the recipient of the 2011 ASEE Outstanding Teaching Award and the 2004 U.S. Florida Professor of the Year Award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT). He has authored several textbooks on subjects such as composite materials, numerical methods, matrix algebra, and computer programming.

visit author page

visit author page

Ali Yalcin is an Associate Professor at the Industrial and Management Systems Engineering Department. His research interests include systems modeling, analysis and control, production planning and control, industrial information systems, data analysis and decision support in healthcare, and engineering education research. He teaches courses in the areas of systems modeling and performance analysis, information systems design, production planning, facilities design, and systems simulation. He is also the co-author of the Design of Industrial Information Systems textbook which was awarded the 2007 IIE/Joint Publishers Book-of-the-Year Award.

visit author page

visit author page

Gwen Lee-Thomas, Ph.D., is currently serving as the Assistant to the President and Provost for Special Projects at Old Dominion University and CEO of Quality Measures, LLC. Lee-Thomas has been an external consultant for more than 13 years, serving businesses as well as two- and four-year private and public colleges and universities in the states of Washington, California, Florida, Indiana, Illinois, Nebraska and Virginia in diversity, STEM education, organizational culture, and leadership strategies. Gwen has conducted more than 30 workshops and presentations on cultural, racial, and generational diversity; assessment, evaluation, and accreditation; teaching and learning; and leadership.

Lee-Thomas teaches organization administration and culture and the project management capstone course as an Adjunct at Old Dominion University in the graduate program of the Darden College of Education. Prior to ODU, she was the Executive Assistant to the President from 2004 – 2005 and Director of Assessment from 1998 through 2004 at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, a small private STEM college in Indiana. She has also served as an editorial associate of a literary journal and office manager of a multi-million dollar construction company. Additional teaching experiences have included Career Switchers of the U.S. Department of Education and the Diversity Institute—both of which are housed at Old Dominion University.

Lee-Thomas’s leadership service has included State Board Chair of the Indiana Minority Health Coalition, which is a legislated grassroots organization that provides education, advocacy, and research to eliminate health disparities among minority populations in the state of Indiana; and Commissioner on the Indiana Commission for Higher Education appointed by the late Governor Frank O’Bannon.

Other service has included serving on the community relations board for the U.S. Penitentiary of Federal Bureau of Prisons, the United Way Grants Sub-Committee of Vigo County, and Academic Business Council of the Greater Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce in Indiana.

visit author page

visit author page

Duc T. Nguyen (http://eng.odu.edu/cee/directory/dnguyen.shtml) has been a civil engineering faculty member at Old Dominion University (ODU) since 1985. His teaching activities (including his four textbooks, published in 1999, 2002, 2006, and 2010, respectively), research works with more than 150 published articles (in referred journals, conference proceedings, and technical reports), and funded projects (approximately $3.5 million funded projects, from various government research laboratories, industrial sectors, and universities) in numerical methods, large-scale parallel algorithms and software developments, finite element analysis and optimal design, and linear/nonlinear equation and Eigen-solutions have led to several international (1989 Cray Research, Inc. GigaFlops Award), national (NASA Langley Research Center Tech Brief Award, in 1993; Recipient of NASA-ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Awards [11 summers]), and regional awards (A. Rufus Tonelson Distinguished Faculty Award, in 2001; ODU Shining Star Award, in 2010; and ASCE Faculty of the Year Award, in 1990).

Nguyen has been added to the ISIHighly Cited.com’s list of most highly cited engineers/researchers. Individuals on the list are the most highly cited within each category (such as engineering, life science, medicine, physical sciences, and social sciences) for the period 1981-1999, and comprise less than one-half of one percent of all publishing researchers in the world.

As a Senior Investigator of the (already completed) NSF educational grant (Aug. 2004 – Aug. 2007) and two on-going STEM educational grants, as a PI (Feb. 2009 – July 2011) and Co-PI (June 2008 – Dec. 2012), respectively, Nguyen's team has developed the Stiffness Matrix Method (SMM) modules on the internet for teaching purposes, which includes theoretical, computer simulation, and computer self-assessment test (with automated grading test scores, delivered to students by emails). More details can be found at http://www.lions.odu.edu/~amoha006. Preliminary results for Game-Based Learning (GBL) for reordering, and symbolic factorization phases of Simultaneous Linear Equations (SLE) can be viewed/played at http://www.lions.odu.edu/~amoha006/Fillinterms/FILLINTERMS.html, and also at http://www.lions.odu.edu/~skadi002 (then SELECT/click CEE-305, and view the YOUTUBE Lectures #23, #25).

Practical/large-scale applications of parallel-sparse matrix computation in computational biology, finite element numerical modeling of oceans, etc. have also been considered as areas of interests by Nguyen’s Multidisciplinary Parallel-Vector Computation Institute’s research activities in the past recent years.

visit author page

visit author page

Ram Pendyala is a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University. He specializes in transportation systems engineering and has published extensively on topics related to the planning, operation, and design of various modes of transportation. His professional activities include service on several journal editorial boards, leadership of committees for the Transportation Research Board and the American Society of Civil Engineers, and organization of international conferences related to sustainable transport development. He is also involved in the implementation of new pedagogical techniques and web-based resources for instruction in courses on numerical methods for engineers. He has his Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of California, Davis.

visit author page

visit author page

Glen Besterfield has been a faculty member of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at USF for 23 years. He received his B.S. degree from the Missouri University of Science and Technology, M.S. degree from Purdue University, and his Ph.D. from Northwestern University, all in mechanical engineering.

During his tenure in mechanical engineering at USF, he performed research in the areas of computational mechanics and numerical methods, bascule bridges, and rehabilitation engineering, all of which has been funded via NSF, AFOSR, and the Florida Department of Transportation, among others. Further, Besterfield has also co-written a book entitled “Total Quality Management” in the 3rd Edition published by Prentice-Hall.

In 2005, Besterfield assumed the position of Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies at USF. In this role, Besterfield supervised many different units and initiatives: retention initiatives and accountability; academic enrichment center for student athletes; university-wide tutoring and earning services; freshman and transfer student orientation; all academic advising, including the transitional advising center; university experience, college preparatory and academic support courses; first generation access programs; pre-collegiate programs; and tracking the academic progress of students.

In early 2010, Besterfield was appointed the Center Director and Executive Academic Director for INTO USF. As Center Director, he supervises admissions, immigration, academic credential evaluations, student support, financial operations, business operations, and marketing. In his role as Executive Academic Director, he supervises the academic programs such as Academic English, General English, and Pathways, along with the English faculty.

visit author page