Alper Erturk has been named the 2015 recipient of the ASME Gary Anderson Early Achievement Award. This prize is awarded to "a young researcher in his or her ascendancy whose work has already had an impact in his/her field within Adaptive Structures and Material Systems." The award will be presented to Professor Erturk during the ASME Conference on Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems in Colorado Springs, CO in September.

The award is given for notable contribution(s) to the field of Adaptive Structures and Material Systems. The prize is awarded to a young researcher in his or her ascendancy whose work has already had an impact in his/her field within Adaptive Structures and Material Systems.

Erturk began at Georgia Tech in May 2011 as an assistant professor. Prior, he worked as a research scientist in the Center for Intelligent Material Systems and Structures at Virginia Tech. His postdoctoral research interests included theory and experiments of piezoelastic structures for applications ranging from aeroelastic energy harvesting to nonlinear vibrations of electroelastic systems.

His Ph.D. dissertation was centered on experimentally validated electromechanical modeling of piezoelectric energy harvesters using analytical and approximate analytical techniques. His theoretical and experimental research interests are at the intersection of dynamical systems and smart structures with applications to novel multiphysics problems.