Simpson Honored for Excellence in Academic Integration

(from the PSU Newswire, University park, PA) -- Timothy W. Simpson, professor of mechanical engineering, industrial engineering and engineering design at Penn State’s University Park campus, has been awarded the 2007 President’s Award for Excellence in Academic Integration.

The award is given to a full-time faculty member who has exhibited extraordinary achievement in the integration of teaching, research or creative accomplishment, and service. It was established in 1996 to recognize faculty members who have excelled in all three areas of their profession.

Simpson, who joined the faculty in 1998 with a joint appointment in the mechanical and nuclear engineering department and the industrial and manufacturing engineering department, developed and taught a new graduate course in product design and customization and a new undergraduate two-course sequence related to product development and manufacturing. He currently serves as director of a minor in product realization, which promotes collaborative learning by students on interdisciplinary teams.

Simpson is recognized for pioneering new methods and tools for designing families of products and using product dissection as a means for enhancing classroom learning. His contributions in these areas span a variety of novel educational and outreach activities, including industry partnerships with companies such as Boeing, Bosch and Whirlpool, and multidisciplinary research projects that integrate engineering with information science and technology and computer science. These activities have been supported by more than $9 million in funding from industry and government agencies, including three multi-university awards, led by Simpson and funded by the National Science Foundation.

His accomplishments in integrating teaching, research and service have been recognized by numerous awards, including the Outstanding Service Award of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Society of Automotive Engineering’s Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award and the Outstanding Research Award and Premier Teaching Award from the Penn State Engineering Society. He currently serves as associate editor of the ASME Journal of Mechanical Design and the International Journal of Mass Customization.

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