Dr. Ronald Matthews, mechanical engineering professor at The University of Texas at Austin, is this year’s recipient of the Joe J. King Professional Engineering Achievement Award. The award was established to recognize College of Engineering faculty who show exemplary leadership in the engineering profession.
Matthews’ significant contributions to mechanical engineering result from his hands-on approach to teaching, researching and leading. Of course his approach effectively complements his expertise, not to mention the black oil under his fingernails. He builds engines.
In his classroom and in his support of student extracurricular activities Matthews offers the quintessential experience for the conventional mechanical engineer: building cars.
Early on Matthews recognized his inherent fit with the Society of Automotive Engineers, and fostered the creation of a University of Texas at Austin branch of the organization in 1980. He became the group’s first faculty advisor, expanding his involvement from professional development to his students’ active participation.
Under his guidance, the UT Austin’s student chapter won the national Outstanding Student Branch award 14 times. He spends countless hours helping the society’s local members prepare for national automobile-building contests.
“It is an unusual weekend that does not find Ron on campus working with students to complete a competitive racing machine for a national competition,” says Dr. Joe Beaman, chairman of the mechanical engineering department.
As advisor to the society, Matthews’ formal goal is “to improve engineering education by involving students in hands-on, real world, complex engineering design problems.” To further this goal, he founded Formula SAE in 1981. Now with 140 entries annually from across the globe, this is the world’s largest intercollegiate student engineering design contest. More than 10,000 students have participated since its inception.
Fittingly, Matthews received the national society’s Faculty Advisor Award for 2001-2002 and its Excellence in Engineering Education (Triple E) Award in 2002.
Since the society is the major technical organization for Matthews’ research, he has served on numerous local and national committees and organized many local and national meetings.
The society made him a Fellow in 2002, an honor given to a small, elite group—less than 15 of its 60,000 members in any given year.
Outside of his involvement with the society, Matthews’ contributions to his field are also numerous. He has consulted widely for industry, and served on many U.S. Department of Energy, National Academy of Engineering and National Institute of Standards and Technology committees.
He also maintains an active and productive research program, focusing on direct injection spark ignition engines, the spark ignition process and engine friction. He heads the General Motors Foundation Combustion Sciences and Automotive Research Labs at UT Austin and has published more than 60 refereed journal articles, more than 60 refereed meeting papers and numerous technical reports.
Among Matthews’ outstanding research contributions is the on-board distillation system for gasoline-powered vehicles he designed with one of his graduate students. It reduces emissions by 82 percent, and the system was patented by the university and Ford Motor Company in 2001.
Matthews is the C.J. Eckhardt Fellow in Mechanical Engineering.
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