Dr. Michael W. Plesniak is Professor and Chair of the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at the George Washington University, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Prof. Plesniak is the Director of GW’s Center for Biomimetics and Bioinspired Engineering. He was formerly Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University and Eugene Kleiner Professor for Innovation in Mechanical Engineering at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, NY. He served as the Director of the Fluid Dynamics & Hydraulics program at the National Science Foundation from 2002-2006. Prof. Plesniak earned his Ph.D. degree from Stanford University, and his M.S. and B.S degrees from the Illinois Institute of Technology; all in Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Plesniak is a Fellow of AIAA, ASME, the American Physical Society (APS), the American Society of Thermal & Fluids Engineers (ASTFE), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Washington Academy of Sciences. He has authored over two hundred fifty refereed archival publications, conference papers and presentations, and has presented numerous invited seminars and keynote addresses. His research group is currently studying the pulsatile flows, physics of phonation, cardiovascular flows and tissue engineering. Prof. Plesniak was a recipient of the 2018 Washington Academy of Sciences Distinguished Career in Engineering Award, 2017 ASME Fluids Engineering Award, and the 2011 NASA DC Space Grant Consortium’s Outstanding STEM Faculty Award, awarded to faculty that make an outstanding contribution to STEM that goes above and beyond the classroom. Dr. Plesniak was also named the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Capital Section Engineer of the Year 2010-2011.
