Autar Kaw

Autar Kaw is a professor of mechanical engineering and Jerome Krivanek Distinguished Teacher at the University of South Florida. He is a recipient of the 2012 U.S. Professor of the Year Award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching.

Professor Kaw received his BE Honors degree in Mechanical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) India in 1981, and his degrees of Ph.D. in 1987 and M.S. in 1984, both in Engineering Mechanics from Clemson University, SC. He joined University of South Florida in 1987.

Professor Kaw’s main scholarly interests are in engineering education research, open courseware development, bascule bridge design, fracture mechanics, composite materials, computational nanomechanics, and the state and future of higher education. His research has been funded by National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Florida Department of Transportation, Research and Development Laboratories, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, and Montgomery Tank Lines.

Professor Kaw has written several books on subjects such as composite materials, numerical methods, computer programming, matrix algebra, and engineering licensure examination.

Since 2002, under Professor Kaw's leadership, he and his colleagues from around the nation have developed, implemented, refined and assessed online resources for open courseware in Numerical Methods. This courseware annually receives more than a million page views, 900,000 views of the YouTube lectures and 150,000 annual visitors to the "numerical methods guy" blog.

Professor Kaw's work has appeared in the St. Petersburg Times, Tampa Tribune, Chance, Oracle, and his work has been covered/cited in Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, Congressional Record, ASEE Prism, Tampa Bay Times, Tampa Tribune, Campus Technology, Florida Trend Magazine, WUSF, Bay News 9, Times of India, NSF Discoveries, Voice of America, and Indian Express.

Professor Kaw is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and a member of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). He has also been a Maintenance Engineer (1982) for Ford-Escorts Tractors, India, and a Summer Faculty Fellow (1992) and Visiting Scientist (1991) at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.