Michael W. Hyer, of Blacksburg, a professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Virginia Tech, received the 2005 Alumni Award for Research Excellence at Virginia Tech.

The Alumni Association established the Alumni Award for Research Excellence to recognize the contributions of members of the university faculty who have made outstanding contributions in research. Alumni, students, faculty, and staff members make nominations for the award. The selection committee is composed of a chair appointed by the vice president for research and faculty who are previous recipients of the award.

Hyer's research centers around mechanics of materials and structures, with particular emphasis on composite and other contemporary materials. His research interests span both modeling and experimental efforts. He has written more than 300 publications and presented more than 100 talks in North America, Europe, Asia, and the former Soviet Union. He is a former president and fellow of the American Society for Composites and a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Society of Mechanical Engineering, and the American Academy of Mechanics. He also has served as vice president of Region 3--the Americas--on the International Committee on Composite Materials.

He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Composite Materials and the Mechanics of Advanced Materials and Structures. He is a past editor for the Society of Engineering Science and has organized or held office in several national and international conferences. Hyer is the author of the text Stress Analysis of Fiber-Reinforced Composite Materials published by McGraw Hill and guest editor of a special issue of Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing, to be published soon.

He has won the CRC Press Award in Composites and an Award of Appreciation from the American Society for Testing and Materials. He won the Frank A. Maher Award for Excellence in Education given by the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics.

The College of Engineering at Virginia Tech is internationally recognized for its excellence in 14 engineering disciplines and computer science. The college's 5,600 undergraduates benefit from an innovative curriculum that provides a "hands-on, minds-on" approach to engineering education, complementing classroom instruction with two unique design-and-build facilities and a strong Cooperative Education Program. With more than 50 research centers and numerous laboratories, the college offers its 2,000 graduate students opportunities in advanced fields of study such as biomedical engineering, state-of-the-art microelectronics, and nanotechnology.

Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become among the largest universities in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech's eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 180 academic degree programs.

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