Rate My Professor Ahmed Elsawy

Ahmed Elsawy served as Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Manufacturing and Engineering Technology in the College of Engineering at Tennessee Technological University from July 1999 until his retirement in 2020. He earned a B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Cairo University, Egypt, with an emphasis on materials processing and manufacturing engineering. Prior to joining Tennessee Technological University, Elsawy was Professor and graduate program coordinator in the Department of Industrial Technology at the University of Northern Iowa for seven years, Professor and Director of the Manufacturing Engineering Program at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota from 1987 to 1992, Project Manager at the Center for Manufacturing Productivity and Technology Transfer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Visiting Scholar at TU-Berlin, Germany.

His academic interests encompassed material processing, metallurgy, manufacturing systems, renewable energy, and bioenergy production from waste to reduce carbon footprints and preserve resources. Elsawy secured approximately $2 million in state, federal, and industrial grants for laboratory development and research projects, advised several master’s and doctoral students who now hold positions in academia and industry, and published numerous papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings. Notable publications include “Impact of ultrasonic mixing on virgin and waste vegetable oils for biodiesel production” (2023), “Improving the Yield of Biodiesel Production Using Waste Vegetable Oil Considering the Free Fatty Acid Content” (2023), “Performance Analysis of Multi-Pass Cross-Flow Heat Exchangers” (2018), “An investigation into combined concentrated photovoltaic and fluidic thermal extraction in harnessing the power of the sun” (2015), and “Solar and wind generation to power medical facilities in Haiti” (2012). He served on the editorial board of the International Journal for Modern Engineering, held leadership roles such as Vice Chair of Research & Development for the Association of Technology, Management, and Applied Engineers (2013-2016) and Vice President of the Association of Egyptian American Scholars (2013-2015), and participated in university committees including the Administrative Council and Curriculum Committee. He is a member of ASEE, AWS, and ASM.