Newsletter Archives; Winter 1999
William R. D. Wilson named new chair
Denice D. Denton, Dean of the College of Engineering, has announced the appointment of Dr. William R. D. Wilson as Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Professor Wilson is expected to join the Department in March, 1999.
Professor Wilson was born and educated in Northern Ireland. He received his B.Sc. and Ph. D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Queen's University of Belfast College of Technology. During this period he also trained in shipbuilding at Harland and Wolff and served as an Engineer Officer in the British Royal Naval Reserve.
After immigrating to the United States in 1967 with his wife Elizabeth (Lyla) Wilson, Professor Wilson became a Senior Research Scientist in the Lubrications Mechanics Division at Battelle's Columbus, Ohio Lab. He moved to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1971 and to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 1981.
Professor Wilson currently holds the James N. & Nancy J. Farley Chair of Manufacturing and Entrepreneurship in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Northwestern. He has served as the Director of the Center for Manufacturing, Associate Director of the Steel Resource Center and Director of the Center for Surface Engineering and Tribology. In these positions, and in his personal research, he has worked to build effective collaborations with industry.
Our new Chair has played an important role in creating the Manufacturing Engineering programs at the University of Massachusetts and at Northwestern University. In addition to developing and teaching a wide variety of graduate and undergraduate courses, he has been active in the communication of research results to industry through teaching short courses and consulting.
Professor Wilson is internationally known for his research in the field of tribology and surface generation in metal forming processes. He has also conducted research on a broad range of topics in manufacturing engineering including design for manufacture and flexible automation. This work has resulted in over 130 publications.
Professor Wilson is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. He received the Arch T. Colwell Merit Award from the Society for Automotive Engineers in 1993 and the Blackall Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1996.He is immediate Past President of the North American Manufacturing Research Institute of SME.
