Autar Kaw is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of South Florida, Tampa. He is a recipient of the 2012 U.S. Professor of the Year Award (doctoral and research universities) from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching.
Professor Kaw obtained his B.E. (Hons.) degree in Mechanical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, India in 1981. He received his Ph. D. degree in 1987 and M.S. degree in 1984, both in Engineering Mechanics from Clemson University, SC. He joined the faculty of the University of South Florida, Tampa in 1987. He has also been a Maintenance Engineer (1982) for Ford-Escorts Tractors, India, and a Summer Faculty Fellow (1992) and Visiting Scientist (1991) at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base.
Professor Kaw’s current main scholarly interests are in engineering education research, adaptive learning, blended classroom, flipped learning, open courseware development, and the state and future of higher education. His research has been funded by National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Florida Department of Transportation, Research and Development Laboratories, Systran Co, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, and Montgomery Tank Lines.
He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and a member of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). He has authored textbooks on Mechanics of Composite Materials, and Introduction to Matrix Algebra, and co-authored a book on Numerical Methods with Applications. He is also a contributor to the MaterialsnetBase, an online library of material science texts, references, and handbooks.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, under Professor Kaw’s leadership, he and his colleagues from around the nation have developed, implemented, refined, and assessed online resources for an open courseware (OCW) in Numerical Methods. This courseware annually receives 1,000,000+ page views, 2,000,000+ views of the YouTube lectures, and 90,000+ visitors to the “numerical methods guy” blog.
He has written more than 100 refereed papers, and his opinion editorials have appeared in the Tampa Bay Times, Tampa Tribune, and Chronicle Vitae. His work has been covered/cited/quoted in many media outlets including Chronicle of Higher Education, U.S. Congressional Record, Florida Senate Resolution, ASEE Prism, and Voice of America.