Yashashree Kulkarni, the Bill D. Cook Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Cullen College of Engineering, will serve as the president of the Society of Engineering Science (SES) in 2024.
SES dates back to 1963, when it was founded as a non-profit organization, dedicated to the advancement of interdisciplinary research at the interface of engineering and science. Today, it is a vibrant society with close to 1,000 members. Two major annual activities of the SES board include hosting an annual conference that brings together people from different disciplines of engineering sciences and recognizing the accomplishments of members of the engineering science community through awards.
“It is indeed an honor to serve my scientific community as the president of SES. The SES has made enormous strides over the past decades, and along with an illustrious team of board members, I am excited to further increase its impact through different initiatives,” Kulkarni said.
One of the first announcements she made as the president was the establishment of a new mid-career award named after a woman scientist.
“The SES Emmy Noether medal celebrates women in engineering and recognizes Noether’s fundamental contributions to the development of conservation laws which are foundational to the field of engineering sciences,” she said.
Kulkarni joined the UH faculty in 2009. She earned her Ph.D. and M.S. in Applied Mechanics from the California Institute of Technology, and her Bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay.
In addition to serving on the SES board, Kulkarni serves as an associate editor for two flagship journals for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in the field of mechanics — Applied Mechanics Reviews and Journal of Applied Mechanics.
She became an ASME Fellow in 2022 and recently received $675,000 from a pair of National Science Foundation awards for her interdisciplinary and collaborative research investigating the role of mechanics in materials science and biology.