Ali H. Nayfeh

In a career spanning four decades, he made important contributions to a number of fields, including perturbation techniques, nonlinear oscillations, aerodynamics, flight mechanics, acoustics, ship motions, hydrodynamic stability, nonlinear waves, structural dynamics, experimental dynamics, linear and nonlinear control, and micromechanics, and fluid dynamics. He authored over a thousand publications, which have collectively been cited at least 43,364 times by other scholars, as of 2017. His contributions have had a significant influence on the lives of many people.

Nayfeh received the Pendray Aerospace Literature Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1995; the J. P. Den Hartog Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1997; the Frank J. Maher Award for Excellence in Engineering Education in 1997; the Lyapunov Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2005; the Virginia Academy of Science's Life Achievement in Science Award in 2005; the Gold Medal of Honor from the Academy of Trans-Disciplinary Learning and Advanced Studies in 2007; and the Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award in 2008. In 2014, Nayfeh was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in mechanical engineering.

Nayfeh received his B.S. with great distinction in engineering science (1962) and his M.S. (1963) and PhD (1964) in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University. He was a University Distinguished Professor of engineering at Virginia Tech since 1976. He was a volunteer at the University of Jordan. He was the editor-in-chief of Nonlinear Dynamics. He was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Vibration and Control from 1995 until his resignation in May 2014, shortly after he had uncovered a fraudulent peer-review ring.

Ali Hasan Nayfeh (21 December 1933 – 27 March 2017) was a Palestinian-Jordanian mathematician, mechanical engineer and physicist. He is regarded as the most influential scholar and scientist in the area of applied nonlinear dynamics in mechanics and engineering. He was the inaugural winner of the Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award, and was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in mechanical engineering. His pioneering work in nonlinear dynamics has been influential in the construction and maintenance of machines and structures that are common in daily life, such as ships, cranes, bridges, buildings, skyscrapers, jet engines, rocket engines, aircraft and spacecraft.

Ali Hasan Nayfeh was born on 21 December 1933, in the neighborhood of Shweikeh in Tulkarem city, in Mandatory Palestine. He was born to an illiterate and poor Palestinian family, who encouraged him to pursue education. He worked as a mathematics teacher at towns and villages in Jordan for ten years, up until he won a scholarship at the age of 26 to study at Stanford University in the United States.