Dean Martin-Vega elected to National Academy of Engineering
Louis Martin-Vega, dean of the College of Engineering, has been elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer.
Martin-Vega, elected in recognition of distinguished contributions to engineering “for support of engineering and engineering education through industry-academic collaboration and opportunities for underrepresented groups,” is one of 106 new members and 23 international members elected for 2021. With his election, the faculty of the College of Engineering includes 19 NAE members.
“While I am very honored and humbled by my election to the NAE, I am also glad and proud for the bright light that it also shines on our College of Engineering and all of the progress that we have made in our research, education and outreach endeavors,” Martin-Vega said. “A recognition of this nature, even when associated with an individual, is never really the result of one person’s effort. In my case I owe it to the efforts of numerous academic faculty colleagues, students and staff, as well as government and industry colleagues that I have been privileged to collaborate and work with over so many years.
“Last, and most importantly, I owe this recognition to my wife, Maggie, and my children and extended family whose support has enabled so much of what has gone into making a recognition of this nature possible.”
Under his leadership, NC State’s College of Engineering has grown to more than 10,500 students, 750 faculty and staff members and more than $200 million in annual research expenditures. The College is internationally recognized for the excellence of its research, education and outreach programs. It also has the distinction of being one of only two colleges of engineering to lead two National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Centers at once and one of only two colleges to ever take the lead role in three.
The College is also ranked among the “top 10” colleges of engineering nationwide in annual research expenditures and is listed by U.S. News & World Report as the 11th best public graduate engineering program in the country.
Martin-Vega joined NC State in 2006 after serving for five years as dean of engineering at the University of South Florida. He has also held several prestigious positions at NSF, including acting head of its Engineering Directorate and director of the Division of Design, Manufacture and Industrial Innovation. Additionally, he has served as chairman of the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at Lehigh University and Lockheed Professor in the College of Engineering at Florida Institute of Technology. He has also held tenured faculty positions at the University of Florida and the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez.
Martin-Vega served as the 2013-15 chair of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Deans Council Executive Board and as president of ASEE from 2016-17.
He also served as president of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering (IISE) in 2007-08 and received the Frank and Lillian Gilbreth Award, IISE’s highest honor, in 2012. He received the Tampa Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) National Hispanic Scientist of the Year Award in 2007 and was inducted into the Hispanic Engineering National Achievement Awards Corporation Hall of Fame in 2011. He is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) and is a member of INFORMS, Tau Beta Phi, Alpha Pi Mu and Sigma Xi.
He received his B.S. (magna cum laude) in industrial engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, an M.S. in operations research from New York University and M.E. and Ph.D. degrees in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Florida.
NAE membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing / implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.”
Election of new NAE members is the culmination of a yearlong process. The ballot is set in December and the final vote for membership occurs during January.
The new class of NAE members brings the total U.S. membership to 2,355 and the number of international members to 298.
Return to contents or download the Spring / Summer 2021 NC State Engineering magazine (PDF, 52.0 MB).
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