San Andres appointed inaugural holder of Mast-Childs Professorship

COLLEGE STATION, Texas - Vice Chancellor and Dean of Engineering Dr. G. Kemble Bennett has appointed Dr. Luis San Andrés inaugural holder of the Mast-Childs Professorship in Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University. San Andrés joined the Texas A&M Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1990 as an assistant professor. He was previously a principal professor at Escuela Politécnical Nacional in Quito, Ecuador. San Andrés became a full professor at Texas A&M in 2000 and led the Systems and Controls Division for the mechanical engineering department from 2001 to 2004. San Andrés holds a bachelor’s degree from Escuela Politécnica Nacional, a master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh and a Ph.D. from Texas A&M, all in mechanical engineering. His research interests are in the analysis, design and testing of fluid film bearings, and gas bearings and seals for oil-free turbomachinery; rotordynamics of turbomachinery; structural vibrations; and computational mechanics. San Andrés is a Fellow of the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers (STLE) and a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). He is presently chairman of the structures and dynamics committee of the ASME International Gas Turbine Institute and a member of the executive committee of the ASME Tribology Division. He has received the Outstanding Graduate Teaching award from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and the Dresser Industries Professorship, the E.D. Brocket Professorship, the Plank Co. Faculty Fellowship and the Ruth and William Neely’52 Faculty Fellowship, all from the Dwight Look College of Engineering. San Andrés is a member of Texas A&M’s Mexican-American U.S. Latino Faculty Association (MALFA) and a past secretary and vice president of the Professional Hispanic Network (PHN). The Organization of American States (OAS) recognized his contributions with a Latin-American Applied Science Award. The Mast-Childs Professorship in Mechanical Engineering was established in 2005 by Mildred and Charles A. Mast, a retired Amoco executive and Texas A&M Class of 1951 mechanical engineering graduate. Mast is a Distinguished Alumnus of the department and a longtime member of its advisory council. The endowment also honors Dr. Dara Childs, a Texas A&M Regents Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station’s Turbomachinery Laboratory.