May 2, 2019
Two faculty members in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics received 2019 Cockrell School of Engineering teaching awards.
Professor Chad Landis is the recipient of the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company Award for Excellence in Engineering Teaching. Established in 1956, the award honors a Cockrell School faculty member with the rank of Professor for who has shown to be outstanding in the field of engineering teaching. Only one nomination is allowed from each department and student input is required.
Landis teaches courses such as statics, mechanics of solids, computational methods for structural analysis, and advanced strength of materials. He received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of California as Santa Barbara in 1999 and joined the ASE/EM faculty in 2007. His research interests include mechanics of materials, including fracture mechanics, plasticity, micromechanics, composites, and finite element methods, with specific interests in active/smart materials such as ferroelectrics and ferromagnetic shape memory alloys.
Assistant professor Brandon Jones received the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Teaching by an Assistant Professor. This award recognizes outstanding classroom teaching by an assistant professor and encourages exceptional teaching early in faculty member’s career. Nominations are made by engineering students and faculty, and recipients must demonstrate effective teaching through mechanisms such as course instructor surveys and show a genuine concern for students while also imparting knowledge and challenging students to conduct independent inquiry.
Jones teaches spacecraft dynamics and has also taught a graduate level class on orbital debris. He began working at UT Austin in the Spring of 2016 after receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he also worked as an assistant research professor. Prior to his graduate education, Jones worked as a contractor at NASA Johnson Space Center and received undergraduate degrees in physics and mathematics at The University of Texas at Austin. His current area of research expertise is in orbital mechanics and focuses on the tracking and detection of orbital debris and robust mission design for spacecraft missions in highly perturbed environments.
Both Landis and Jones are also recipients of the ASE/EM LUNAR Council Teaching Award which is presented annually to an ASE/EM faculty member by student organization leaders.
