MAE Professor Is Rutgers Excellence in Cross-Disciplinary Research Award Recipient
Onur Bilgen, an associate professor in the School of Engineering Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, has received the Rutgers University Provost Award for Excellence in Cross-Disciplinary Research.
The award, which was presented during the March 6, 2025, Chancellor and Provost Celebration of Faculty Excellence event, carries a monetary grant of $5,000.
“I’m very honored to receive this award and can’t thank the Chancellor’s office and nominating colleagues enough for selecting me,” says Bilgen, who was nominated for the honor by his colleagues. “This is one of the most valuable recognitions of various multi-disciplinary teams that I have been lucky to be part of. It also recognizes the efforts of many students and colleagues, and I thank them for working with me.”
In announcing the Chancellor and Provost Awards for Faculty Excellence, Rutgers-New Brunswick Chancellor Francine Conway and Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Saundra Tomlinson-Clarke, wrote, “It is a privilege to honor distinguished faculty members, who inspire the next generation of citizens and uphold our mission to serve the common good through excellence in education, research, and service.”
Bilgen’s multidisciplinary research is noted for coupling system modeling, design optimization, and experimental system identification of adaptive/smart structures, small aircraft, wind and hydrokinetic turbines, and wearable energy harvesting systems.
His research has applications for aircraft systems such as multi-rotor drones, fixed-wing, flapping-wing and rotary-wing aircraft; energy-conversion and harvesting systems; soft/compliant robotics, manipulators and biomechanical systems; and mobile biomedical devices.
Bilgen’s collaborative federal-funded projects include a DOE-ARPA-E Sharks project and ARPA-E ATLANTIS project for which he served as a co-PI and PI respectively. These projects focus on the development of computational frameworks for design analysis and optimization of offshore wind turbines and ducted moored-submerged hydrokinetic turbines.
