Dr. Alison Flatau to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award

Dr. Alison Flatau, Professor of Aerospace Engineering, at the University of Maryland is the recipient of the 2010 SPIE Smart Structures and Materials Lifetime Achievement Award that recognizes outstanding contributions to research in smart structures and materials as well as exemplary service to SPIE. Dr. Flatau is also Interim Associate Dean for Research of the Clark School of Engineering at Maryland. She began her professorial career at Iowa State University (1990-1998), and subsequently joined the NSF where she served as Program Director for Dynamic Systems and Control (1998-2002), and administered the CAREER program across the entire NSF.

In 2002, Dr. Flatau joined the faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Maryland. She served as Chair of the Undergraduate Affairs Committee, Director of the Honors Program, and Faculty advisor for the AIAA Student Chapter. Her research accomplishments include the characterization, modeling and application of magnetostrictive materials as sensors and actuators to control noise, vibration and external flows in aerospace systems, and she holds several patents on these applications.

Dr. Flatau is a Fellow of the ASME and an Associate Fellow of AIAA, and has co-authored over 50 archival journal articles and book chapters and over 100 conference papers. Dr. Flatau’s extensive service to the SPIE Smart Structures and Materials / NDE Symposium includes chair of the student paper competition (1999-2003), co-Chair (2003) and Chair (2004, 2005) of the SPIE Smart Structures and Integrated Systems Conference, and most as co-Chair (2006 and 2007) and Chair (2008 and 2009) of the SPIE Symposium. She also served as the Chair of the ASME Adaptive Structures and Materials Technical Committee that coordinates five SPIE conferences.

Published October 15, 2009