RIT - Department of Mechanical Engineering | People | Faculty

Alan Nye Alan Nye

Professor
Phone: 585-475-6121
E-mail: AHNeme@rit.edu
Office: 2181 Gleason

Biography:
Professor Nye earned his BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineering from Clarkson University in 1969 and 1970. He subsequently earned a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Sciences at the University of Rochester in 1975. From 1975-1977 he held a post-doctoral appointment at the Sacramento Peak Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico doing research in magnetohydrodynamics of the solar atmosphere. Dr. Nye joined the Mechanical Engineering Department of Rochester Institute of Technology in 1977. He has risen through the academic ranks and was appointed Professor in 1990. During this time Dr. Nye has held visiting positions at the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder, Colorado; the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.; and the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii. Professor Nye joined SAE in 1980 and has been a member of the governing board of the Western New York section since 1982. He has held various positions including Chair in 1987-88 and in 1998-99. At the national level, he has served on several committees and boards and served on the SAE Board of Directors from 1994 to 1998.

At RIT, Professor Nye has been involved in research in the areas of solar energy and alternative fuel vehicles and taught courses in Mechanics, Dynamics, Machine Design, Problem Solving with Computers, and is currently the course coordinator for the capstone design courses Senior Design I and II. Dr. Nye was also the chairman of the faculty committee that developed the Automotive Engineering Option for the Mechanical Engineering Department. He has been faculty advisor of the RIT student chapter of SAE since 1978. The student chapter has been very active, participating in 15 Mini Baja regional competitions, the Methanol Marathon, the Methanol Challenge, GM Sunrayce USA, Sunrayce 93, two American Tour de Sols, fifteen Formula SAE competitions, and three SAE Aero Design competitions. They have been named Outstanding Student Branch four times. Dr. Nye has been selected by SAE as Outstanding Faculty Advisor three times and was given the Ralph R. Teetor Award in 1983.

Dr. Nye’s interests lie in the design area. As course coordinator for the Senior Design course sequence, he is responsible for generating about thirty projects per year. These are mostly industrially sponsored and many have a multidisciplinary component. Professor Nye enjoys working with design teams on both classroom and extracurricular projects.