New Mexico State University bestowed prestigious awards for creative scholarly work to six faculty members during its spring semester kick-off Jan. 17 on the Las Cruces campus. Among them was Abdessattar Abdelkefi, an associate professor in NMSU’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, who received the Distinguished Career Award.

Abdelkefi’s research interests include energy harvesting, aeroelasticity, bio-inspired systems and smart materials. He has received about $4 million in external funding from the National Science Foundation, Army Research Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. With students and collaborators, Abdelkefi has published one book, one patent, 220 conference presentations and 225 journal articles.