Dean Aubry is Shaping the Future of Engineers

Growing up in France, Nadine Aubry knew that she wanted to har­ness the power of engi­neering to make a pos­i­tive impact on the world. She loved math and sci­ence and drew inspi­ra­tion from her father, an engi­neer him­self, who con­tin­u­ously encour­aged his daughter to pursue her dream.

“He taught me about the excite­ment of being an engi­neer, of cre­ating new things for the very first time to help people,” Aubry recalls. “I knew it was going to be hard, but I was con­vinced that I could become an engi­neer and have a tremen­dous impact on society.”

Mis­sion accomplished.

Today, Aubry is dean of the Col­lege of Engi­neering at North­eastern and a member of the National Academy of Engi­neering. Her ground­breaking con­tri­bu­tions to the field of fluid dynamics have earned her the dis­tinc­tion of ‘fellow’ of some of the world’s most schol­arly orga­ni­za­tions, including the Amer­ican Society of Mechan­ical Engi­neers, the Amer­ican Phys­ical Society, the Amer­ican Insti­tute of Aero­nau­tics and Astro­nau­tics, the Amer­ican Asso­ci­a­tion for the Advance­ment of Sci­ence, and the National Academy of Inven­tors.

Notable recog­ni­tion

Over the past few months, Aubry has been appointed to sev­eral other lead­er­ship posi­tions and selected to receive a major award.

In August, she was elected pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tional Union for The­o­ret­ical and Applied Mechanics, an affil­i­a­tion of some 500 dis­tin­guished rep­re­sen­ta­tives of national mechanics com­mit­tees, soci­eties, and orga­ni­za­tions from 50 coun­tries world­wide. Aubry, who will also serve as the IUTAM rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the Inter­na­tional Council for Sci­ence, is the first woman to hold the four-​​year posi­tion and just the fourth person in the U.S. to be selected for the role.

“This is a great honor and a won­derful oppor­tu­nity,” Aubry says. “IUTAM is an exciting orga­ni­za­tion because it stands firm behind a rig­orous sci­en­tific approach to a field so cru­cial to many chal­lenges facing the world, ranging from the sus­tain­ability of our planet to the improved health of all people.”

In Sep­tember, she was selected as the 2017 recip­ient of the G.I. Taylor Medal from the Society of Engi­neering Sci­ence for her out­standing research con­tri­bu­tions in the field of fluid mechanics. She will be for­mally rec­og­nized at the 54th annual Tech­nical Meeting of the Society of Engi­neering Sci­ence, to be held at North­eastern in July 2017.

Aubry, who  cur­rently serves as chair of the NAE’s Fron­tiers of Engi­neering Edu­ca­tion Advi­sory Com­mittee, was also recently elected sec­re­tary of the NAE’s Mechan­ical Engi­neering Section.

“Dean Aubry is a world class scholar and engi­neer and a proven admin­is­trator who, as Dean of the Col­lege of Engi­neering, has advanced many new inno­v­a­tive aca­d­emic pro­grams both within COE and in col­lab­o­ra­tion with other col­leges at North­eastern,” said Art Kramer, senior vice provost for research and grad­uate edu­ca­tion. “Her recent awards and acknowl­edg­ments from the Inter­na­tional Union for The­o­ret­ical and Applied Mechanics,  the Society of Engi­neering Sci­ence, and the National Academy of Engineering’s Mechan­ical Engi­neering Sec­tion are well deserved given her many years or out­standing con­tri­bu­tions to engi­neering research.”

The ground­work for a ground­breaking career

Aubry’s path to becoming a global leader in engi­neering was paved in the 1980s. She started out in France, receiving a “diplome d’Ingenieur” from the National Poly­technic Insti­tute of Grenoble and a master’s degree from the Sci­en­tific and Med­ical Uni­ver­sity of Grenoble. She then moved to the United States, earning her doc­torate from Cor­nell University’s Sibley School of Mechan­ical and Aero­space Engineering.

Aubry became known for her pio­neering work on the devel­op­ment of reduced models of tur­bu­lent and other com­plex flows, which are used to design air­planes, sub­marines, and tur­bo­ma­chines, to name just a few appli­ca­tions. Her interest later turned to flows in microflu­idics, the sci­ence of designing, man­u­fac­turing, and for­mu­lating devices and processes that deal with extremely low vol­umes of fluids.

Over the past 30 years, she has held a number of lead­er­ship posi­tions both at her own insti­tu­tions and in pro­fes­sional soci­eties and orga­ni­za­tions. Some of her recent appoint­ments include head of the depart­ment of mechan­ical engi­neering at Carnegie Mellon Uni­ver­sity, chair of the U.S. National Com­mittee on The­o­ret­ical and Applied Mechanics, and chair of the Amer­ican Phys­ical Society’s Divi­sion of Fluid Dynamics.

“It is very impor­tant that our stu­dents acquire strong tech­nical and mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary knowl­edge. But it’s just as impor­tant that we make sure that they’re able to apply their knowl­edge and develop the nec­es­sary skills to make sig­nif­i­cant and mean­ingful con­tri­bu­tions to the advance­ment of human society.”
—Dean Nadine Aubry

A bold path for­ward

As dean of the Col­lege of Engi­neering at North­eastern since 2012, she has over­seen the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of sev­eral novel cen­ters, depart­ments, and pro­grams within the col­lege. Under her watch, the col­lege has hired nearly 60 new fac­ulty mem­bers and more than dou­bled the number of stu­dents in master’s degree pro­grams from approx­i­mately 1,300 to 2,670 this fall.

In the fall of 2013, the col­lege opened the Michael J. and Ann Sherman Center for Engi­neering Entre­pre­neur­ship Edu­ca­tion, whose inno­v­a­tive cur­riculum is designed to arm engi­neering under­grad­u­ates with the entre­pre­neurial skills to suc­cess­fully pitch and com­mer­cialize their inno­va­tions. And in the spring of 2014, the col­lege cre­ated the Depart­ment of Bio­engi­neering, which incor­po­rated the college’s existing doc­toral pro­gram in bio­engi­neering and devel­oped new bachelor’s and master’s degree pro­grams in the field.

Last fall, the col­lege launched the Edward G. Galante Engi­neering Busi­ness Pro­gram, which offers a pro­gres­sive, multi-​​degree oppor­tu­nity for engi­neering stu­dents. The result is a pro­gram in which stu­dents leverage courses across bachelor’s, master’s, and MBA cur­ricula to achieve a unique set of tech­nical, engi­neering man­age­ment, and busi­ness skills while earning a cer­tifi­cate and poten­tially three degrees—a BS, MS, and MBA—from Northeastern.

Aubry, together with her col­leagues in the Civil and Envi­ron­mental Engi­neering Depart­ment, is cur­rently working to create a new bachelor’s degree pro­gram in envi­ron­mental engi­neering. “Our new major in envi­ron­mental engi­neering will focus on making an impact on the envi­ron­ment and sus­tain­ability, but it will also attract high num­bers of women and under­rep­re­sented minori­ties,” she says, adding that half of the stu­dents cur­rently enrolled in the college’s bio­engi­neering under­grad­uate pro­gram are women. “National data show that more women enroll in envi­ron­mental engi­neering than any other engi­neering dis­ci­pline, with bio­engi­neering being close behind.”

Aubry has also spear­headed research growth both within the Col­lege of Engi­neering and in col­lab­o­ra­tion with other col­leges, resulting in a 50 per­cent increase in research funding over the past four years.

For her, North­eastern is the per­fect place to shape the future of the field as well as the next gen­er­a­tion of engi­neers. “It is very impor­tant that our stu­dents acquire strong tech­nical and mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary knowl­edge,” she says. “But it’s just as impor­tant that we make sure that they’re able to apply their knowl­edge and develop the nec­es­sary skills to make sig­nif­i­cant and mean­ingful con­tri­bu­tions to the advance­ment of human society.”