By Sally Pobojewski
News and Information Services
College of Engineering Dean Peter M. Banks and Albert B. Schultz, the Vennema Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, have been elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).
Election to the Academy is one of the highest professional distinctions an engineer can receive. Academy membership honors “those who have made important contributions to engineering theory and practice and those who have demonstrated unusual accomplishments in new and developing fields of technology.”
Banks was cited for his “contributions to space research and engineering and for helping to define the nation’s space program.” Dean since 1990, Banks is also professor of atmospheric, oceanic and space sciences, and of electrical engineering and computer science.
Banks has been the principal investigator on several NASA scientific projects, including three Space Shuttle experiments in the last decade. He has worked with NASA on studies of space-related information systems, launch systems operations, development of the Earth Observing System and other programs.
Schultz was cited by the Academy for “contributions to the biomechanics of the spine, treatment of lower back pain, and understanding of falls in the elderly.”
Schultz, who joined the U-M in 1983, studies the application of biomechanics to biological and medical problems. An international authority on the mechanics of the human spine, he also has made contributions to the study of the mechanical behavior of metals and composite materials.
Other faculty members in the National Academy of Engineering include William Brown, Lynn A. Conway, James J. Duderstadt, Gerard M. Faeth, Robert D. Hanson, Emmett N. Leith, Frank E. Richart, Chen T. Tai, Walter J. Weber Jr. and Chia-Shun Yih.
