Prof. Ken P. Chong, P.E.earned hisAM, MSE, Ph.D. in Mechanics from Princeton University.He is aResearch Professorat  the Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Dept. of the George  Washington University, and an Associate at NIST, writing a text book on  Elasticity; editing an Elsevier structures journal, a new Taylor &  Francis journal of Smart and Nano Materials and a Spon book series on  structures and mechanics; serving on university boards, doing lectures,  teaching, mentoring young professors, research, and consulting. He has  beenthe Engineering Advisor and Director of Mechanics and Materialsfor  the past 21 years at the National Science Foundation (NSF). He was the  Interim Division Directorat NSF in 2005. He retired from NSF in 2010. He  specializes in solid-mechanics/materials, nano-mechanics, and  structural mechanics, including nano-technology, green engineering and  sustainability.At NSF in addition to managing 120 university research  projects in mechanics/materials, he was involved in the development of  civil infrastructure systems, model-based simulation, non-destructive  evaluation, structural control, durability and accelerated tests,  life-cycle engineering, nano science and engineering, and other  initiatives; established the NSF Summer Institute on Nano  Mechanics/Materials at Northwestern University; co-created a new NSF  program in Nano- & Bio-Mechanics and founded the Engineering  Distinguished Lecture Series involving numerous Nobel laureates and  distinguished speakers. Under his leadership the NSF Blue Ribbon Panel  on Simulation-based Engineering Science [SBES, chaired by Tinsley Oden]  was formed in 2005 and came up with bold recommendations in  computational mechanics, simulation and other related areas. This effort  is continuing at NSF with other Federal agencies.

After  he graduated from Princeton he was a senior research engineer at the  National Steel Corp. for 5 years, during whichhe worked on building  systems and pioneered the R&D of architectural sandwich-panel. Prior  to joining NSF, he was a professorand chair of solid  mechanics/structures at the University of Wyoming for 15 years;invented  and developed new semi-circular bend (SCB) fracture specimens for  brittle materials, now being considered as a test standard; built up  graduate programs, experimental and computer facilities; developed new  research programs funded by ERDA, DOE, DOD, NSF, AMF, etc and new  courses; established joint seminars with Rocky Mountain universities.  His experimental research on sweet spots in the 70’s changed the design  of tennis rackets.  He has published 200 plus technical papers and  authored several books including 2 textbooks on mechanics by Wiley, in 3^rdand 2^ndeditions.