Dr. Jacqueline Chen and Dr. Nancy Sottos have been selected as members of the 2021-22 class of Hagler Fellows. Both Chen and Sottos are members of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and will be collaborating with students and faculty from the J. Mike Walker '66 Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University.
The Hagler Institute for Advanced Study was founded in 2010 to bring world-class scholars, called Hagler Fellows, to Texas A&M to collaborate with faculty and students at the university. The institute's purpose is to recruit talented faculty-researchers who strive for innovation and excellence in their respective fields. Since its inception, the institute has hosted more than 80 fellows, including NAE member Dr. James Hubbard, Jr. Hubbard joined the mechanical engineering faculty at Texas A&M after his time as a fellow.
"We look forward to collaborating with Dr. Chen and Dr. Sottos in their time as Hagler Fellows," said Dr. Guillermo Aguilar, head of the mechanical engineering department. "They both bring incredible experience and expertise which will serve as a great benefit to the faculty and students of our department."
Chen is a senior scientist at the Sandia National Laboratories Combustion Research Facility and has contributed broadly to research in direct numerical simulations of turbulent combustion. These interactions govern overall combustion rate, emissions, degree of local extinction and ignition timing.
Chen is also a fellow of the Combustion Institute and the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics.
Sottos holds the Maybelle Leland Swanlund Endowed Chair and is head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She leads the Autonomous Materials Systems group at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and serves as director of the University of Illinois component of the BP International Center for Advanced Materials.
Sottos is also a fellow of the Society for Experimental Mechanics and the Society for Engineering Science.