Prabhat Hajela is the Edward P. Hamilton Professor of Aerospace Engineering, He received an undergraduate degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and his graduate degrees from Iowa State University (MS in Aerospace Engineering) and Stanford University (MS in Mechanical Engineering & Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics). He was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Hajela previously served as Provost and Chief Academic Officer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and as Vice Provost & Dean of Undergraduate Education. He also served as Administrative Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at Rensselaer.

Hajela has conducted research at NASA’s Langley and Glenn Research Centers, the Eglin Air Force Armament Laboratory, and as the Boeing-A.D. Welliver Fellow in 1995. He has authored over 300 papers and articles and co-authored/edited 4 books on structural and multidisciplinary optimization. A recipient of the AIAA’s Biennial Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Award in 2004, Hajela is a Fellow of AIAA, ASME, and AeSI.

Dr. Hajela is a past Vice-President of the International Society of Structural & Multidisciplinary Optimization. He has also a past Chair of ASME’s Aerospace Division, an organization that serves over 10,000 ASME members with interest in Aerospace Engineering. In 2003, he served as a Congressional Fellow responsible for Science and Technology Policy in the Office of US Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT). He worked on several legislative issues related to aerospace and telecommunications policy, including the crafting of the anti-SPAM legislation (CAN-SPAM) that was signed into law in December 2003. Hajela has served on National Academies Panels related to Aerospace and Aviation research, including the first Decadal Survey of Aeronautics and a review of Aeronautics Research Programs at NASA. He is the former Chair of the NRC Panel on Information Sciences research at the Army Research Laboratory and currently Chairs the NRC Technical Assessment Board for the Army Research Laboratory.