Ottino Receives Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award

Northwestern Engineering’s Julio M. Ottino has received the 2025 Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award, a joint award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and Pi Tau Sigma National Mechanical Engineering Honor Society. 

The award recognizes one individual each year for demonstrating outstanding achievement in mechanical engineering for 20 years or more following graduation. Ottino is the fourth member of the McCormick School of Engineering faculty to earn the honor since 2010, joining Wei Chen (2021), Jian Cao (2017), and Yonggang Huang (2010).

Distinguished Robert R. McCormick Institute Professor and Walter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Ottino’s current research is focused on problems where order and disorder compete, including granular mixing, segregation, fluid mixing, and other complex systems studied with tools like agent-based models and network theory. Previous honors for Ottino include delivering the Albert Michelson Memorial Lecture at the United States Naval Academy (2024), the Society of Engineering Science’s G.I. Taylor Medal (2023), election to the National Academy of Sciences (2022), and the National Academy of Engineering’s Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education (2017).

ASME is a not-for-profit professional organization that enables collaboration, knowledge sharing, and skill development across all engineering disciplines, while promoting the vital role of the engineer in society. Established in 1944, the award honors Charles Russ Richards—founder of Pi Tau Sigma at the University of Illinois, former head of mechanical engineering and dean of engineering there, and later president of Lehigh University. Richards was also an ASME member and served on its Board of Governors