Parkinson wins SAE Teetor Educational Award

University Park, Pa. -- The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International, a professional organization dedicated to advancing mobility engineering, has selected Matthew Parkinson, assistant professor of engineering design and mechanical engineering, as a recipient of the 2009 SAE Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award. The award will be presented this April at the SAE 2009 World Congress in Detroit, Mich.

Established in 1953, the Teetor Award recognizes outstanding young engineering educators and provides them the opportunity to connect with practicing engineers in their fields. Ralph R. Teetor, for whom the award is named, was a former SAE president who believed that engineering educators are the most effective link between engineering students and their future careers.

A member of Penn State's engineering faculty since 2005, Parkinson's research expertise is in rigorous methods for the design of artifacts for use by people, including areas like biomechanics and biomedical design, ergonomics, rehabilitation engineering, motion modeling and prediction and mechanical design. Parkinson was recently granted a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for a project titled, "Foundations of Designing for Human Variability." The project's objective is to provide a foundation to improve design for the accommodation for diverse populations, such as the elderly and the disabled.

In addition to teaching graduate and undergraduate-level courses at Penn State, Parkinson is active in publishing and presenting at professional conferences. He also serves as director for both the Center for Research in Design and Innovation and the OPEN Design Lab. Parkinson holds a doctoral degree in biomedical engineering and a master's degree in industrial and operations from the University of Michigan. Parkinson holds a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Brigham Young University.

This is not the first award Parkinson has received from SAE International. In 2008, he received the Lloyd L. Withrow Distinguished Speaker Award and in 2007 received the Excellence in Oral Presentation Award at the SAE Digital Human Modeling for Design and Engineering Conference and Exhibition. In 2005, SAE presented Parkinson with the Arch T. Colwell Merit Award for outstanding paper in mobility engineering for 2003.

Since its inception, the Teetor Program has provided more than 800 engineering educators the opportunity to develop closer relationships with practicing engineers.