Robert W. Pitz, professor of mechanical engineering, has received a 2025 Sustained Service Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The award recognizes sustained, significant service and contributions to AIAA by members of the Institute.
The award winners have made contributions at the local section or regional level, or the national level over a period of time, typically 10 years or more. The Institute recognized Pitz for more than three decades of distinguished and continuous service to AIAA, especially in national leadership roles involving publication, honors, ethics, and technical committee activities.
Pitz’s combustion research and laser diagnostics relates to energy for heating, energy production and propulsion. He has published more than 200 articles in laser diagnostics, laminar and turbulent combustion, turbulence-chemistry interactions, oxygen-enriched combustion, Raman scattering, laser-induced fluorescence and molecular-tagging velocimetry.
In 1987, he received the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award for his research. He received the AIAA Best Paper Award in Propellants and Combustion in 1996. He is a past chair of the AIAA Propellants and Combustion Technical Committee and the AIAA Publications Committee.
Pitz is a fellow of the AIAA, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Combustion Institute. He is a registered professional engineer in the state of Tennessee. He served as chair of the mechanical engineering department from 1998 to 2017, and director of graduate studies from 1991 to 1998.
Contact: brenda.ellis@vanderbilt.edu