UC Professor Named ASME Fellow

 Urmila Ghia, professor of mechanical engineering, is being recognized by her peers for her exemplary record of engineering achievements in education, research and professional development at the University of Cincinnati.

Ghia is one of just 2.7 percent of ASME members to be elected an ASME Fellow signifying this distinct honor of recognition by one's professional peers.

According to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), a fellow is one who has had 10 or more years of active practice and at least 10 years of active corporate membership in ASME.

Ghia’s career at UC spans more than four decades. Her research expertise spreads over the areas of fluid mechanics, heat transfer, computational fluid dynamics, and numerical methods.

She is internationally recognized for her renowned research and development in grid generation for computational fluid mechanics and particularly for unsteady flow analyses leading to noteworthy advances in understanding fluid-structure interactions in high-altitude aircraft and in turbomachinery flows.

Since joining UC, Ghia’s research has resulted in 82 grants and contracts with $28.6 million in support, and more than 400 articles. Her papers have been cited more than 2,300 times.  

She credits UC with aiding her in her achievements and activities and is grateful for the interactions that working at the university provides. “Academic institutions provide a unique environment meaning the opportunity to work with students through teaching and research,” she said. “I’ve had some wonderful students along the way because UC has given me the platform to work with students with very bright young minds,”

For over 40 years, Ghia has established a solid track record of consistently obtaining excellent teaching evaluations. “Professor Ghia is an excellent teacher and communicator, consistently inspiring her students to learn and then encouraging them to adopt a mode of life-long learning,” said CEAS Interim Dean Teik C. Lim. “In appreciation for her concerns about their education, her students have repeatedly recognized her with outstanding teaching awards.”

Ghia has received several recognitions during her tenure at the university including Professor of the Year in the college, the university’s George Barbour Award for Outstanding Faculty-Student Relations, the BP (British Petroleum) Teaching Excellence Award, and she was named a Master Engineering Educator in CEAS.

Ghia tirelessly advocates for increasing the number of women studying science and engineering and has been the chair of the university’s Women in Science and Engineering organization (WISE) since 2003 and served as chair of the Research Experience for Women Undergraduates (REWU) from 1999 to 2003.

Most recently, she serves as a co-principal investigator on a $3.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Program, which will help to bolster UC’s efforts to increase the participation and advancement of women faculty, including women of color, in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines.

Ghia says she is honored to receive this recognition, and she attributes the support of her mechanical engineering colleagues, particularly Professor Ron Huston, an ASME Fellow himself, who was instrumental in preparing Ghia's nomination materials. “Any career of 40 years cannot be handled singly or without the interactions of others,” she said. “It’s very exciting to be working alongside colleagues with enormous reputations and accomplishments.”

She also wishes to recognize her mechanical engineering colleagues Rupak Banerjee, Milind Jog, and Raj Manglik, all elected ASME Fellows within the past few years.