Lakhtakia named outstanding teacher by engineering alumni society
04/02/2016
Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Charles Godfrey Binder Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, has been named a recipient of the 2016 Penn State Engineering Alumni Society (PSEAS) Outstanding Teaching Award.
Hosam Fathy, Bryant Early Career Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, is the other recipient of the award.
The Outstanding Teaching Award recognizes and rewards outstanding engineering educators for excellence in teaching and for contributions to the art of teaching. These teaching awards are established to confer honor on individuals whose inspiration and contributions to learning are truly memorable.
Individuals are nominated by engineering students, faculty, or department heads and those nominations are reviewed by a committee, appointed by the dean, which is comprised of PSEAS Executive Board members and the Associate Dean for Academic Programs.
Lakhtakia, who strongly supports graduate and undergraduate research students in multiple disciplines and highly interdisciplinary fields, has supervised or is supervising the research theses of 22 B.S. Honors undergraduates, 19 master’s students, five Master of Professional Studies students, and 17 doctoral students at Penn State, and four international doctoral students.
Overall, six of his bachelor’s undergraduate Honors research students have won National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, one won a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, and two bachelor’s research students won Goldwater Fellowships. Four Ph.D. students won the Penn State Alumni Association Dissertation Award, and seven won SPIE scholarships and Research Excellence Awards.
Lakhtakia was also the recipient of the 2008 PSEAS Premier Research Award, the 2005 PSEAS Outstanding Advising Award, and 1996 PSEAS Outstanding Research Award.
All PSEAS award winners will be formally recognized and presented with their awards during a reception on April 27 at the Nittany Lion Inn.
For a full list of 2016 PSEAS award winners, click here.
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