AME Director and LA Comp Chair Farrokh Mistree’s passion is to have fun while providing an opportunity for his students to learn how to define and achieve their dreams.  He can often be heard throughout corridors of Felgar Hall urging students to get advanced degrees, loudly exclaiming, “Being a professor is the best job in the world!”

Mistree’s success as an engineer and educator was recognized once again this year when he was named a 2012 distinguished alumnus of his alma mater, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.  He accepted the award in India from Shri Pranab Mukherjee, president of India.

This commendation was bestowed to a select group of alumni.   Among the other recipients are deans and directors of colleges, presidents of large corporations, and researchers on the forefront of discoveries in fields like technology, engineering and medicine.

“This is a great honor,” said Mistree.  “To be recognized by the institution that was the foundation for my career, and to be named among such an esteemed group of individuals, is at once humbling and an immense honor.”

In 1967 Mistree received a bachelor’s of technology degree with honors in naval architecture from IIT Kharagpur.  While a student, he helped found a monthly news magazine called IMPACT, and was later asked to serve as editor-in-chief of Udhyog, an annual magazine.  He was the recipient of the General Proficiency Award and received the Best Thesis in Naval Architecture Award.

Mistree went on to receive a Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of California at Berkley.    Prior to coming to the University of Oklahoma, Norman he spent 17 years at the Georgia Institute of Technology Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, and served as the school’s associate chair.

Throughout his long and prestigious career, he has co-authored two textbooks, one monograph, and more than 350 technical papers dealing with the design of mechanical, thermal and structural systems, ships and aircraft.  He has supervised 28 doctoral students and more than 50 master’s students, all of whom are well-placed around the world.  Twelve of his doctoral students are pursuing highly successful careers in academia.  He mentored two students who now own several for-profit colleges in Orissa, India.