Four new academic leaders appointed

The Ohio State University College of Engineering’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Knowlton School of Architecture have recently appointed new leaders.

Gregory selected as chair of mechanical and aerospace engineering

Professor James W. Gregory will become the new chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE), effective June 1, 2020. He will succeed Professor Vish Subramaniam, who has served as chair since 2016.

Currently an MAE professor and Director of the Aerospace Research Center (ARC), Gregory came to Ohio State in 2008. Under his leadership, ARC has expanded interdisciplinary collaborations to include colleagues from industrial engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and medicine. The center’s research output also has grown substantially, with a doubling of research expenditures over the past two years. In August 2017, Gregory led a team of researchers and students in setting official world records for speed and distance for an autonomous drone.

Gregory received his Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech and received his doctorate and master’s degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Purdue University in 2005 and 2002, respectively. Following his doctorate, he was a policy fellow at the National Academy of Engineering, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the U.S. Air Force Academy. While at Ohio State, he was selected as a Fulbright fellow to conduct research at the Technion in Haifa, Israel. Gregory’s research interests are at the intersection of unsteady aerodynamics, drones and advanced measurement techniques.

Imbert named director of Knowlton School

Landscape Architecture Professor Dorothée Imbert has been named the new director of the Knowlton School of Architecture, beginning autumn semester 2020. She will succeed Walter H. Kidd Professor Michael B. Cadwell who has served as director for nine years.

Imbert joined the Knowlton faculty in 2013 as the inaugural Hubert C. Schmidt ’38 Chair in Landscape Architecture. Before joining Knowlton, Imbert established the Master of Landscape Architecture program at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis and taught at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.

Imbert's research includes work on landscape modernism with an emphasis on Europe and California. She is the author of the Landscape Inventories: Michel Desvigne Paysagiste (2018), Between Garden and City: Jean Canneel-Claes and Landscape Modernism (2009), Garrett Eckbo: Modern Landscapes for Living (2005), The Modernist Garden in France (1993), and the editor of the volume Food and the City: Histories of Culture and Cultivation (2015). Imbert’s current research is on urban agriculture and productive landscapes. She is a Senior Fellow in Garden and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks (Washington D.C.), a research institute of Harvard University.

Imbert received her architect's diploma from the Unité Pédagogique d'Architecture nº 1 and holds an MArch and MLA from the University of California, Berkeley. She practiced landscape architecture at Peter Walker and Partners. Imbert was named one of the 25 Most Admired Educators in the 2019 DesignIntelligence landscape architecture category.
 

Clark appointed head of City and Regional Planning Section

Jennifer Clark was appointed head of the Knowlton School’s City and Regional Planning Section. She succeeds Rachel Kleit, associate dean for faculty affairs in the College of Engineering, who served as section head since 2012.

Clark is a Fellow of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) and the Regional Studies Association. She is the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the journal Regional Studies and served as chair of the Economic Geography Specialty Group of the AAG (2017-2019). Clark earned her PhD from Cornell University, a master’s degree from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and a BA from Wesleyan University.

Clark’s books include Uneven Innovation: The Work of Smart Cities (2020), Working Regions: Reconnecting Innovation and Production in the Knowledge Economy (2013), Remaking Regional Economies: Power, Labor, and Firm Strategies in the Knowledge Economy (2007) and the 3rd edition of Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning (2012). She is also co-editor of two books and has written numerous articles and book chapters.

Clark researches and teaches courses on urban and regional economic development theory, analysis and practice as well as research design and methods. She has provided expert testimony before the U.S. Congress and policy consulting to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the Canadian, U.K. and U.S. governments. Before joining the Knowlton School, Clark taught at Cornell University and the Georgia Institute of Technology where she was also director of the Center for Urban Innovation.

Cheramie selected to lead Landscape Architecture Section

Associate Professor Kristi Cheramie has been named head of the Knowlton School’s Landscape Architecture Section. She succeeds Hubert C. Schmidt ’38 Chair in Landscape Architecture Dorothée Imbert who has served as section head since 2013.

Cheramie joined the Knowlton faculty in 2014. Before joining Knowlton, she taught at Louisiana State University. Cheramie has received widespread recognition for her research and teaching. Her research explores the many ways we use building to respond to and cope with environmental fluctuation. Using speculation as a tool to reconstruct the historical systems, scales, and materials that give rise to adaptability and transformation in the landscape, her work reveals interconnections between story, memory, ground, and time. Her first book, Through Time and the City: Notes on Rome, will be released later this year from Routledge. In 2016-2017, Cheramie received the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture from the American Academy in Rome.

Cheramie also works on the implications of early 20th-century flood control infrastructure in the Lower Mississippi River Basin. In addition to writing, Cheramie’s visual work has been exhibited throughout the US. Her work on Louisiana coastal communities compromised by land loss, sea level rise, and competing industrial interests has been supported by the Van Alen Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Cheramie holds a bachelor’s from the University of Virginia and a master from the University of California, Berkeley, both in architecture.