Kececioglu Memorial Lecture

2024 Speaker: Wei Chen

October 24, 2024

Wei Chen, Wilson-Cook Professor in engineering design and professor and chair of mechanical engineering at Northwestern University, presented "Data-Driven Design of Engineered Material Systems."

The Dr. Dimitri B. Kececioglu Memorial Lecture Series

Dimitri B. Kececioglu

The Dr. Dimitri B. Kececioglu Memorial Lecture was established in 2015 to recognize the lifetime achievements of the late professor in the field of reliability engineering. Distinguished speakers are invited to address topics where reliability, risk assessment and uncertainty quantification play a crucial role. Discussions range from fundamental engineering problems to solutions for high-impact societal challenges – such as infrastructures in a changing climate or the use of artificial intelligence as a predictive tool in engineering and healthcare. The lecture is hosted annually by the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Arizona and is made possible through the generosity of the Kececioglu family.

About Dr. Dimitri Kececioglu

Dr. Dimitri Basil Kececioglu was born in 1922 in Istanbul, Turkey of Greek heritage. He completed his PhD at Purdue University in 1953.

After graduation, he served for several years as director of reliability at Allis-Chalmers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1963, he joined the U of A as a professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, where he taught for over 40 years. He developed a highly regarded graduate-level reliability program, which was so influential that it became a model for other universities. He trained a host of students throughout the years, many of whom had transformative careers in the field.

Kececioglu was a Fulbright scholar, a pioneer in reliability engineering and a highly sought-after consultant to industry. He published more than 150 papers and authored eight books, including the two-volume Reliability Engineering Handbook. He was a fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers and the American Society for Quality, as well as an award-winning educator.

Previous Lecturers

  • 2015: Sankaran Mahadevan – John R. Murray Sr. Chair of engineering and professor of civil and environmental engineering and mechanical engineering, director of the NSF-IGERT doctoral program in reliability and risk engineering and management and co-director of the Laboratory for System Integrity and Reliability at Vanderbilt University, presented "Uncertainty Quantification and Decision-making for Engineering System Reliability."
  • 2016: Mohammad Modarres – Nicole Y. Kim Eminent Professor of engineering and director of the Center for Risk and Reliability with the A.J. Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, presented "Frontiers in Risk and Reliability Research."
  • 2017: Kyung K. Choi – Professor in mechanical and industrial engineering Department at the University of Iowa, presented "Developments of Reliability-Based Design Optimization and Confidence-Based Uncertainty Quantification and Reliability Assessment."
  • 2018: Ali Mosleh – Distinguished professor of civil and environmental engineering and Evelyn Knight Chair in engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, presented "Reliability Science and Engineering: Evolution of the Discipline and Perspective on Future."
  • 2019: Bilal Ayyub – Professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Center for Technology & Systems Management at the University of Maryland, College Park, presented "Infrastructure Resilience: Definitions, Quantification and Associated Economics."
  • 2022: Michael Pecht – Director of the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) and professor of applied mathematics and mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, presented "Using Artificial Intelligence to Ensure Product Reliability."
  • 2023: Dan Frangopol – Fazlur Rahman Khan Endowed Chair of structural engineering and architecture and  professor of civil engineering with the ATLSS Center at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, presented "Life-Cycle Multi-Objective Optimization of Structures and Infrastructure Systems under Uncertainty."