UC aerospace engineering professor honored for mentorship

Aerospace Engineering professor Ou Ma, Ph.D., has received the University of Cincinnati’s Excellence Award for Faculty-to-Faculty Research Mentoring.

Sponsored by UC’s Office of the Provost and the Office of Research, the Excellence Award for Faculty-to-Faculty Research Mentoring honors professors who have demonstrated outstanding research mentorship with their peers at various stages of their careers.

Over the past two years, Ma, the Alan B. Shepard Chair Professor in UC's Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, worked with faculty across departments to develop a program for the NASA University Leadership Initiative. This program applies advanced robotics and machine intelligence technologies to automation challenges in aviation manufacturing.

Ma has also developed a new Master of Engineering degree program in robotics and intelligent systems by working with faculty across departments in the College of Engineering and Applied Science.

“It is most refreshing to see an endowed chair work so intensively for the enhancement of our younger faculty,” said interim department head of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Kelly Cohen, Ph.D.

Ma earned his bachelor’s degree from Zhejiang University in China and his master’s and Ph.D. from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. He spent 15 years at New Mexico State University as a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering before coming to UC. Prior to joining NMSU, he worked as a senior project engineer for MDA Space Missions in Brampton, Ontario.