Antoinette Maniatty ’87, Ph.D., has been named head of the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering (MANE) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). MANE is one of the largest academic departments at RPI, with 53 faculty members and over 1,400 students.

A member of the MANE faculty at RPI for 31 years, Maniatty’s research is in the areas of solid mechanics and computational mechanics, with a range of applications from multiscale modeling of materials to semiconductor packaging.

The School of Engineering has an increasingly diverse leadership team. Maniatty is the first woman to lead MANE. She joins a growing group of women leaders in Engineering, including Emily Liu, Ph.D., head of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Associate Dean Liping Huang, Ph.D., Mercer X-Lab Director Shayla Sawyer, Ph.D., and Design Lab Director Kathryn Dannemann, Ph.D.

“Antoinette is a highly respected educator and mentor and an accomplished researcher, who has an excellent understanding of the school and the Institute and has many excellent ideas to work across boundaries to move us forward,” said Shekhar Garde, dean of the School of Engineering. “MANE has been a laboratory for innovative pedagogy, research, and student experience. As department head of MANE, Antoinette is eager to develop a long-term vision and roadmap for the growth of research, faculty size and diversity, and to strengthen current and grow new educational programs within the department.”

“MANE is an amazing community of talented people — faculty, staff, students, and alumni —rooted in a long and impactful history, working together to address the most pressing technological problems,” said Maniatty. “We equip and empower our graduates to be leaders, life-long innovators, and to work on the big challenges facing humanity. I am enthusiastic to be a part of this and look forward to helping shape the future of MANE.”

She has received many accolades and honors throughout her academic career. She was one of four women scientists and engineers nationwide to be awarded a Luce fellowship by the Luce Foundation in 1992. In 1993, she received a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award. She was a member of the Defense Science Study Group in 2000 and 2001, and in 2001, she was the first Loewy Visiting Professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Lehigh University. In 2005, she was named a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). She is a member of the ASME, SME, American Society for Engineering Education, Tau Beta Pi, Pi Tau Sigma, and Sigma Xi. 

Maniatty received her B.S. degree in mechanical engineering with highest honors from RPI in 1987. She earned two M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering, one from the University of Minnesota in 1988 and a second from Cornell University in 1990, followed by a Ph.D. from Cornell in 1991. After spending one year as a visiting lecturer at the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa, she joined the faculty at Rensselaer in 1992. She was the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor from 1992-1997.