The College of Engineering has announced the appointment of David Jiles as the Palmer Department Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECpE) and Richard Wlezien as the Vance and Arlene Coffman Endowed Department Chair in Aerospace Engineering.
Jiles, who has served as director of the Wolfson Centre for Magnetics and professor of magnetics at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom since 2005, is making his return to Iowa State. He previously held a joint appointment in ECpE and materials science and engineering. Jiles will resume the rank of Anson Marston Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Iowa State, which he was awarded in 2003. He is also a research associate with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory on the Iowa State campus, where he formerly held an appointment as senior scientist.
His research interests include nonlinear and hysteretic behavior of magnetic materials; magnetoelasticity, magnetostriction, and magnetomechanical effects; development of novel magnetic materials; and applications of magnetic measurements to nondestructive evaluation. Jiles has authored more than 450 scientific papers, has published three books, and holds 19 patents.
The Palmer Department Chair was announced in March 2010 and had been awaiting its first recipient. The chair was created through additional earnings from an endowed faculty position established by Iowa State alumni Barbara R. and James R. Palmer in 1986. Proceeds from the Palmer Department Chair will be used to strengthen the efforts of ECpE by supporting the scholarly research and educational initiatives of Jiles, continuing the cutting-edge research and educational programs in the department, and recruiting world-renowned faculty and top students to ECpE.
Current ECpE department chair Arun K. Somani had announced last year that he would step down after serving seven years in that role. He will remain on the ECpE faculty.
Wlezien is coming to Iowa State from Tufts University where he is currently professor and chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He will begin at Iowa State on August 16. Wlezien’s career includes extensive experience in industry, academia, and the federal government. He joined Tufts University in 2006 after more than 15 years at NASA and DARPA, where he advanced through a number of research and management positions, eventually serving as a program director at NASA headquarters.
Wlezien’s research areas include fluid mechanics, turbulent shear flows, laminar and turbulent flow control, aircraft drag reduction, wind engineering, and aerogel processing. In 2006, he was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal and was also named a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Wlezien will be the first to hold the recently created Coffman departmental chair. Vance Coffman, an Iowa State engineering alum (BS’67), is an Honorary Distinguished Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Iowa State and a retired CEO of Lockheed Martin.
Professor Thomas Rudolphi has served as interim chair of aerospace engineering since August 2009. He had previously been chair of the department from 1996 to 2003.