Engineering professor named Presidential Faculty Fellow

Dr. Bradley Lehman, a faculty member since 1992, has received notice from the White House that he was one of 15 engineers selected for the annual award. Fifteen scientists also were named.

Each award carries a grant from the National Science Foundation of $100,000 per year for up to five years. Through the awards, the president annually recognizes young faculty members who demonstrate excellence and promise both in scientific or engineering research and teaching at universities and colleges in the U.S.

"Awards are intended to allow Fellows to undertake self-designed, innovative research and teaching projects, to establish research and teaching programs, and to pursue related activities early in their academic careers," according to NSF.

Lehman is the first faculty member at any Mississippi university or college to be so recognized.

"This news about a faculty member's winning a major national award is the most exciting report a university president can receive," said Dr. Donald W. Zacharias. "It means that one of the best teachers in the nation is in the classroom on this campus. NSF has given us another reason to take great pride in Mississippi State."

Lehman is one of only a handful of researchers in the world exploring a new control technique called vibrational control. "The work is theoretical," he explained. "Every application we try has never before been investigated."

Dr. Ralph Powe, vice president for research at Mississippi State, said Lehman's work has significance both on campus and off.

"Though still early in his career, Dr. Lehman has already developed a reputation as a world-class researcher, and has made significant contributions to his field through pioneering work in control of certain physical processes."

Lehman and others in the field develop complex algorithms having applications for control systems in chemical, environmental, aeronautical, mechanical, civil, and electrical engineering.

Lehman's research has yielded new capacitor switching algorithms to control power flow in power systems; improved recycling techniques that improve overall conversion of chemical reactions and decrease their costs; and led to new methods of manufacturing transistors with significantly fewer defects. His work as a research intern at International Business Machines in 1985-86 resulted in a joint patent application.

The NSF review panel also looked at teaching innovations being developed at Mississippi State. Lehman is working with electrical engineering professor Donald Trotter to develop interactive multimedia computer tutorials for linear systems. When complete, the tutorial can be accessed through the Internet, a worldwide computer network linking more than 30 million users.

Lehman's award is an honor both for him and for the university, said Dr. Derek Hodgson, provost and vice president for academic affairs. "It demonstrates that our engineering faculty are fully competitive in this most prestigious national arena, which in turn speaks very highly of the quality of the instruction and scholarship at Mississippi State."

From May to August of this year, Lehman was a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He received a bachelor's degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1987, a master's from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 1988, and a Ph.D. from Georgia Tech in 1992.