The dean of the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science joined the ranks of the National Academy of Engineering on Thursday.

The NAE is a private nonprofit organization that honors exceptional engineers from around the world. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which is based in Washington, D.C.

Dean Jayathi Murthy joins 36 other faculty members at UCLA who have been awarded the honor. She most recently follows UCLA engineering professors Stanley Joel Osher and Ann Karagozian, who earned the designation in 2018.

Murthy is the Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean of the School of Engineering and is a distinguished professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. She became dean of the School of Engineering in January 2016 and is the first woman to hold the position, according to a university press release.

Murthy’s research focuses on computational methods for simulating fluid dynamics, heat transfer and electromechanical systems. Current NAE members elected Murthy for her work in developing algebraic methods for simulating momentum, mass and heat transport, according to the press release.

Murthy earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1984. She is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and has authored more than 300 technical articles. Additionally, she sits on the editorial boards of Numerical Heat Transfer and the International Journal of Thermal Sciences.

Murthy was also the director of the Center for Prediction of Reliability, Integrity and Survivability of Microsystems, a federally funded center at Purdue University, from 2008 to 2014. The center develops nanotechnologies for applications in energy, computation and security.

Before coming to UCLA, Murthy served as the chair of the department of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas and was the Ernest Cockrell Jr. memorial chair in engineering. Prior to that, she was the Robert V. Adams professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue from 2008 to 2011. She has also held faculty positions at Carnegie Mellon University and Arizona State University.