Nadine Aubry Elected to Royal Academy of Engineering

Nadine Aubry, a professor in the Tufts University Department of Mechanical Engineering, was recently elected as an international fellow of the United Kingdom’s Royal Academy of Engineering. This prestigious honor recognizes engineers who have made significant contributions to their respective fields. Aubry joins an exclusive group of fewer than 1,700 fellows who have been inducted since the organization’s founding in 1976.

Aubry earned a Ph.D. from the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace engineering at Cornell University. From 2019 to 2021 she was provost and senior vice president of Tufts, overseeing the university’s eight degree-granting schools and numerous interdisciplinary programs, centers, and institutes.

Prior to joining Tufts, Aubry held university leadership positions, including dean of the College of Engineering at Northeastern University and head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Raymond J. Lane Distinguished Professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

Founded in part by His Royal Highness Prince Phillip, the Royal Academy of Engineering is the U.K.’s pre-eminent national academy of engineering. Each year, the academy selects 60 new fellows who are U.K. citizens or long-term residents, up to 10 international fellows, and five honorary fellows.

As a native of France and a U.S. and French citizen, Aubry was selected as an international fellow. New fellows must be nominated by current fellows and are evaluated on their engineering contributions and adherence to the values of the organization. According to the academy’s mission statement, the Royal Academy of Engineering aims to “harness the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone.” 

Aubry is widely recognized as a leader in the field of fluid dynamics. In particular, she made notable contributions to the reduced modeling of turbulence and other flows for significantly faster flow representation, prediction, and control for increased efficiency, and to novel technologies including microfluidics. From ocean currents and air flow around airfoils to blood flowing through arteries and miniature flows in tiny devices such as lab-on-a-chip, fluid flows are abundant across nature and industry and impact fields including aerospace, medicine, and many more.

In addition to her groundbreaking research, Aubry has served the field through her academic leadership in numerous national and international boards and committees. Her current leadership roles include the George and Virginia Bugliarello International Secretary and Programs Chair of the National Academy of Engineering, and vice president of the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, for which she served as president in 2016-2020.

Aubry’s election to the Royal Academy of Engineering is the most recent in a career decorated with recognition from prestigious organizations. Among other awards, she received the Fluid Dynamics Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Fluids Engineering Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the G.I. Taylor Medal from the Society of Engineering Science.

She has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Academy of Mechanics, European Academy of Sciences and Arts, National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Inventors, and as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Physical Society, and American Society of Mechanical Engineers.