A Short Biography of Sudhir Mehta

Dr. Sudhir Mehta is a professor of mechanical engineering at North Dakota State University (NDSU). His areas of interest are enhancing student learning, measurements, automatic controls, mechanics, computer vision, robotics, and design optimization. Mehta has co-authored instructional resource materials, "Statics: The Next Generation," that will be published by Prentice Hall in summer 2001. He has also co-authored two CD-ROMs on instrumentation and communication multimedia modules, and this project was selected for the NSF showcase in 1997. He has developed innovative methods for active learning and instant classroom assessment. He has received several grants from NSF, 3M, and HP for enhancing engineering laboratories and has authored or co-authored more than fifty refereed papers. Mehta and his colleagues received the Best Paper Award from the ASEE Division of Experimental Laboratory Oriented Studies in 1995 and from the ASEE Engineering Mechanics Division in 2000.

The Carnegie Foundation named Mehta "1997 North Dakota Professor of the Year." In 1999, he was the recipient of the HP award for excellence in laboratory instruction. He has received the Carnot (departmental teacher of the year) Award four times from the students of Pi Tau Sigma Society. In 1999, his peers inducted him into the honor society Phi Kappa Phi and in April 2000, he was awarded university's prestigious Peltier Award for Innovative Teaching. He also received an award for outstanding and dedicated service to the faculty-in-residence program at NDSU in April 2000.

Mehta is an active member of American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) both regionally and nationally for more than a decade. He is currently on the executive committee member of Engineering Mechanics Division and the section campus representative of the North Midwest Section. He was the conference and the section chair in 1996-1997, during which the members' participation was at one of the highest levels. He has served on the national executive committees of the New Engineering Educators and Graduate Education Divisions. Mehta was named Outstanding ASEE Section Campus Representative in 1997 and 1999. He also received awards for promoting ASEE membership in the North Midwest Section in 1998, 1999 and 2000.

Mehta is currently serving on the Board of Directors of the NDSU Research Foundation, the NDSU Advisory Board for Student Affairs, and the Faculty in Residence Advisory Board. He is the chair of the Bush Foundation Proposal Sub-Committee on the Next Generation Interactive Classroom and the director of the Faculty Institute for Excellence in Learning and leads the faculty development effort in active / cooperative /problem-based learning on NDSU campus. He is the founder of the E-cube (Exploring Excellence in Education) Club in the College of Engineering and Architecture at NDSU. He is a Co-PI of the NSF project on working with K-12 teachers. He has conducted seminars and workshops on the scholarship of teaching, active learning, funding opportunities in education, and how to make classes exciting and rewarding. Mehta received his B.Tech. and Ph.D. degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and his MS degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo.