Ajay Malshe, Distinguished Professor of mechanical engineering in the University of Arkansas College of Engineering, was named a Fellow of the International Academy of Production Engineering (CIRP) at the academy's 2013 General Assembly in Copenhagen.

This prestigious award was bestowed on nine distinguished manufacturing-engineers across the world, from industrialized and currently industrializing nations including Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan and the United States. CIRP with the headquarter in Paris (France), is the world's eminent academy of manufacturing and production engineering lead by world-class academicians and industrial practioners from 50 countries.

"Professor Malshe is internationally established manufacturing engineer, due to many of his contributors to the discipline of manufacturing, for example, through original contributions in nano-electro machining, nano-engineered cubic boron nitride coatings for cutting tools and bio-inspired functional surfaces and materials for innovative product applications," said professor K.P. Rajurkar, Distinguished Professor of engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Rajurkar, who himself is well accomplished world expert of nontraditional manufacturing and previously NSF program director for manufacturing added: "I have collaborated with professor Malshe over the years, and he has extraordinary abilities to inspire others and build successful teams to accomplish and publish breakthrough research. ... Over the years, professor Malshe's leadership in manufacturing discipline is visible and respected nationally and internationally. Recently he has been elected to serve as the chairman of the Scientific and Technical Committee on Physical and Chemical Machining of the CIRP."

"I met Malshe at multiple CIRP annual international meetings and also had opportunities to host him at the Fraunhoffer Institute in Aachen, Germany," said Fritz Klocke, director of Fraunhofer Institute for Produktion Technology, which is Germany's flagship academic-industries collaborative institute for manufacturing research for long-term industrial and economic impact. "His abilities to seamlessly weave science, engineering and technological issues of complex subjects such as bio-inspired functional surfaces and production, and present those to the world experts are impressive.

"These new emerging directions of manufacturing are vital for advanced and sustainable production to create jobs and cater to a growing world population, and CIRP's role as the eminent global organization is vital," said Klocke, who is also the past-president of CIRP.

"I have had the privilege to know Malshe over the years from his days as a younger rising assistant professor, and was impressed with his life-long passion for new ideas, speed to experiment and exercise those ideas in teams and transfer and communicate those discoveries to industry partners," said Ralph Resnick, previously the chief technology officer of Extrude Hone and now the president and executive director of the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and founding director of "America Makes."

"It is humbling and acknowledging to receive this prestigious award for contributions with my students, post-docs, and national and international collaborators over all these years with support of government and industrial institutions," Malshe said.

Malshe holds the 21st Century Endowed Chair of Materials, Manufacturing and Integration at the University of Arkansas. His areas of interest are surface engineering, nanomanufacturing and electronics packaging. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, delivered more than 120 keynote and invited talks, and has multiple commercialized patents. He has won 35 national and international awards. He is also a fellow of three distinguished organizations including the Institute of Physics (London), American Society of Mechanical Engineering, and American Society of Materials.

CIRP is the world leading organization in production engineering research and is at the forefront of design, optimization, control and management of processes, machines and systems. The Academy has restricted membership based on demonstrated excellence in research and has some 600 academic and industrial members from 50 industrialized countries. The Vision of CIRP is to promote research and development among its members from Academia and Industry to contribute to the global economic growth and well being of society. The Mission of CIRP is to develop the highest level international network of eminent Researchers and Industrialists for the purpose of marshalling their knowledge and insights.