After a decade of service, Professor Yoav Peles has announced that he is stepping down as chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Central Florida.
During his 10 years of leadership, the department has been fundamentally transformed, and the breadth and depth of the department’s research and educational endeavors have continuously reached new heights. He championed for the development of three academic programs – the Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering, the Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and the Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering – which are all thriving. Graduate enrollment more than tripled and the graduation rate of doctoral students has quadrupled with Peles at the helm.
The academic programs have also continued to climb in the U.S. News and World Report rankings, with UCF now consistently recognized for its graduate program education in the fields of mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering and biomedical engineering. The university was also ranked the top supplier of graduates to the aerospace and defense industries for six consecutive years because of his efforts.
The MAE department also became renowned for its research, with research expenditures growing from $3.2 million in 2015 to more than $14 million in 2024. The number of faculty members with multimillion grants has also expanded from one in 2015 to seven in 2024. Additionally, the total number of department faculty has steadily increased over the years, with four to five faculty members joining the department every semester over the past academic year. The number of National Science Foundation CAREER award recipients has also increased from two to 10 under Peles’ guidance.
Over the past decade, the Senior Design program has been completely restructured into a new model, now called I-Design, that ushers the MAE education enterprise in a new direction. Industry partners are more interested than ever in sponsoring student capstone design projects at about $500,000 a year. The model has gradually expanded to include numerous multidisciplinary projects executed by students from other departments in the College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS).
“As Professor Peles is stepping down from the MAE chair position, I would like to express to him, and all who have worked with him, gratitude for the many notable MAE successes,” says Michael Georgiopoulos, the dean of CECS. “I reaffirm my belief that a greater future, relying on a solid present, belongs to all of you, under a new leadership.”
Peles’ role as chair will officially end on Jan. 31, 2025. Associate Chair and Professor Hyoung Jin “Joe” Cho will take over as interim chair while the nationwide search for a new department leader commences.
- Written by Marisa Ramiccio