National Engineering Academy Elects 3 More UCSB Professors

Three UC Santa Barbara professors have been elected members of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering.

Glenn H. Fredrickson, Sanjit K. Mitra, and Shuji Nakamura were among 77 new members and nine foreign associates elected last month by the academy's members. This election raised the total U.S. membership to 2,138, plus 165 foreign associates.

All three professors serve on the faculty of the College of Engineering, which now boasts 22 NAE members among its total faculty of 122.

Chancellor Henry T. Yang, who is himself a member of the NAE, called this year's addition to the academy of three of his faculty colleagues "a stunning achievement that brings great honor to our campus and our community."

Fredrickson, professor of chemical engineering and director of the Mitsubishi Chemical Center for Advanced Materials, said his election was "a nice surprise and significant distinction early in my career." He was cited by the academy for "advancing our understanding of the behavior of block copolymers and other polymeric and complex fluids."

"I am truly honored to have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering," said Fredrickson, who joined UCSB in 1990 and served as chair of the chemical engineering department from 1998-2001. "This is a great recognition of my research and teaching contributions to the fields of chemical engineering and soft materials science."

Mitra, professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been on the UCSB faculty since 1977. "I am honored and pleased," he said. "I owe this and other honors I have received to my former students and many colleagues from UCSB and other institutions with whom I had the opportunity to work."

Long-term collaborations with researchers from many countries is a hallmark of his work. He was cited by the academy "for his contributions to signal and image processing, for research supervision, and for writing pioneering textbooks."

Nakamura, professor of materials, was elected as a Foreign Associate. He was cited for "contributions to optoelectronic engineering of gallium-nitride materials, culminating in the development of violet/blue lasers and light-emitting diodes." He invented the first blue laser while working for Nichia Chemical Industries in his native Japan.

He joined the UCSB faculty three years ago and is director of the Center for Solid State Lighting and Displays. Nakamura continues to work in the areas of blue lasers, gallium nitride, white light emitting diodes, and solid state illumination. "I'm very pleased, very honored," he said. "I'm also very lucky to have come to UCSB. Santa Barbara is the best place for studying and for living."

Election to the National Academy of Engineering is one of the highest professional distinctions that can be accorded an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made "important contributions to engineering theory and practice."

"Being elected by one's peers is an important affirmation of the hard work and creativity that have gone into years of research," said Yang. "I am proud to salute my distinguished colleagues and I know that our campus and community join me in applauding their achievement."

Said Matthew Tirrell, dean of the College of Engineering and a National Academy member: "The faculty in engineering is extraordinary, and we have the numbers in the National Academy to prove it. I am pleased to congratulate our newest members. Their professional achievements are indeed of the highest order."

The academy is an independent, nonprofit institution that provides leadership and guidance to the nation on the application of engineering resources to vital problems and issues. Established in 1964, it operates under the Congressional charter granted to the National Academy of Sciences in 1863.