Dr. Mario A. Rotea
- Professor of Mechanical Engineering
- Jonsson School Chair (Former)
The Erik Jonsson Chair was established anonymously to support the research and scholarly activities of the faculty member to benefit the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science.
“Through my work in academia, industry and the federal government, I have become a strategist who enjoys working with faculty, students and other stakeholders to create high-quality academic programs that deliver new knowledge to society and the talent to apply it.”
Dr. Mario Rotea’s pursuit of intellectual challenges led him to apply his training as a control engineer to fields in modern society in need of advanced algorithms for control systems.
He spent 17 years at Purdue University as a professor of aeronautics and astronautics, developing and teaching methods for the analysis and design of control systems. He also worked for the United Technologies Research Center as senior research engineer on advanced control systems for helicopters, gas turbines and machine tools. Rotea was the head of the mechanical and industrial engineering department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he expanded the department in the area of wind energy and applications of industrial engineering to the health care sector. His career includes terms as director of the Control Systems Program and division director of Engineering Education and Centers at the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Rotea’s most recent research focus has been on advanced control systems to improve the reliability of wind turbines, the performance of wind farms and the integration of wind energy into the electric grid. He is the co-founder and site director of WindSTAR, an NSF Industry University Cooperative Research Center to advance wind energy through industry-relevant research and education.
His current priority at UT Dallas is growing the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He has recruited faculty members renowned in the field, and strategically structured academic programs. Since he joined UT Dallas in 2009, the number of mechanical engineering students has grown from 140 to nearly 1,300 in 2018, the PhD program in mechanical engineering was created and the bachelor’s degree program received ABET accreditation.
Rotea earned an electronic engineer degree from the Universidad Nacional de Rosario in Argentina, a master’s degree in electrical engineering and doctoral degree in control science and dynamical systems from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Rotea is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.