The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) has awarded the Holt Ashley Award for Aeroelasticity for 2013 to Professor Dewey H. Hodges of the AE School. The AIAA Ashley Award for Aeroelasticity recognizes outstanding contributions to the understanding and application of aeroelastic phenomena. It commemorates the accomplishments of Prof. Holt Ashley, who dedicated his professional life to the advancement of aerospace sciences and engineering and had a profound impact on the fields of aeroelasticity, unsteady aerodynamics, aeroservoelasticity, and multidisciplinary optimization.

The citation reads, "For lasting contributions to analysis methodology for aeroelasticity of rotorcraft and high-aspect-ratio wings, and development of educational materials for undergraduate study of aeroelasticity."  The award consists of an engraved medal, a certificate of citation, a rosette pin and an honorarium.

Bio:

Prof. Dewey Hodges obtained the Bachelor of Science degree (with high honors) in Aerospace Engineering in June 1969 from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.  He received the Master of Science degree in June 1970 and the Doctor of Philosophy degree in January 1973, both from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University.

He spent 16 years at the U.S. Army Aeroflightdynamics Directorate at Ames Research Center.  The last five years there, from 1981-1986, he served as Group Leader of the Theoretical Group in the Rotorcraft Dynamics Division.  During this time, he was also a lecturer at Stanford.  In 1984, he was guest research scientist at the German Aerospace Research Facility (DFVLR) in Braunschweig, West Germany.

Prof. Hodges has been at Georgia Tech since the fall of 1986 where he has been the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on over 43 externally sponsored research projects, total expenditures of which exceed $9 million.  He has advised 28 PhD and 35 MS graduates.  He is the author of four books and over 180 refereed journal papers.  His research spans the fields of aeroelasticity, dynamics, computational structural mechanics and structural dynamics, perturbation methods, computational optimal control, and numerical analysis.  In recent years his research group has been developing methods for accurate analysis and stress recovery in composite beams (including helicopter and wind turbine rotor blades), plates, and shells.  The computer programs developed in his group including VABS (for composite beams), VAPAS (for composite plates and shells), and NATASHA (for HALE aircraft aeroelasticity), are in use around the world.  Prof. Hodges has received several awards in his professional career including a NASA Technology Utilization Award, two U.S. Patents, a U.S. Army Commendation Medal, six official U.S. Army Commendations, the prestigious U.S. Army Research and Development Achievement Award, two SAIC Technical Paper Awards, and four Sigma Xi Research Awards, including the Sustained Research Award in 2011, and the AIAA Ashley Award for Aeroelasticity in 2013. 

He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), of the American Helicopter Society, and of the American Academy of Mechanics.  He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.  He is presently on the Editorial Boards of theJournal of Mechanics of Materials and Structures, of the Journal of Fluids and Structures, and ofNonlinear Dynamics.  He previously served as an Associate Editor for the AIAA Journal and for the ASCE Journal of Engineering Mechanics and on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Solids and Structures.