A native of Clarksville, Tennessee, Dr. Hodges received the Bachelor of Science (with high honors) in Aerospace Engineering in June 1969 from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He received the Master of Science in June 1970 and the Doctor of Philosophy in January 1973, both in Aeronautics and Astronautics, from Stanford University in California. Prof. Hodges has been at Georgia Tech since fall 1986. He has been the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on over 50 externally sponsored research projects with expenditures in excess of $10 million in the fields of aeroelasticity, structural mechanics, rotorcraft dynamics, finite element analysis, and computational optimal control. In recent years his research group has been developing methods for accurate analysis and stress recovery in composite beams (including helicopter and wind turbine rotor blades), plates, and shells. The computer programs VABS (for composite beams) and VAPAS (for composite plates and shells) are in use around the world. He has published five books and over 225 technical papers in refereed journals. He has advised 35 PhD and 40 MS graduates. Prof. Hodges is a Fellow of the American Helicopter Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American Academy of Mechanics. He is on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Fluids and Structures, the Journal of Mechanics of Materials and Structures, and Nonlinear Dynamics. He was previously on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Solids and Structures and has served as an Associate Editor of the ASCE Journal of Engineering Mechanics, AIAA Journal, and Vertica. He has served multiple terms on the AHS Dynamics Committee and the AIAA Structural Dynamics Technical Committee. For sixteen years he was a research scientist for the U.S. Army Aviation Systems Command, located at the NASA Ames Research Center near Mountain View, California. During this time he also lectured at Stanford University and spent half a year as guest research scientist at DLR in Germany. Dr. Hodges has received several awards in his professional career including the 2018 AIAA Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Award, the 2015 ASME Spirit of St. Louis Medal, the 2014 AHS Alexander Nikolsky Honorary Lectureship, the 2013 AIAA Ashley Award for Aeroelasticity, the 2011 Sigma Xi Sustained Research Award, three Sigma Xi thesis awards, two U.S. Patents, seven official commendations, the prestigious Research and Development Achievement Award, two technical paper awards from Science Applications International Corporation, and a Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration Special Recognition Award.
Dr. Hodges embraced Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior* in 1970 while he was a graduate student at Stanford. He began conducting weekly, lunch-hour Bible studies and prayer meetings at the NASA Ames Research Center in 1971 and encouraged and assisted others at Ames to start meetings similar to his. Since coming to Georgia Tech, he has continued to conduct similar weekly studies. While living in California he served as an Elder of Christian Community Church in San Jose. He developed and taught courses at Northern California Bible College (also in San Jose) in Cults, Apologetics, and Creation versus Evolution. He also taught courses on church history, systematic theology, conducting small group Bible studies, and various books of the Bible. On several radio talk shows he discussed scientific aspects of creation versus evolution. Dr. Hodges served as a guest lecturer in Hank Hannegraaf’s “Objections Overruled” series and twice as a lecturer at American Vision’s Christian Worldview Student Conferences. Dr. Hodges and his wife Margaret have been married 49 years and reside in Dunwoody, Georgia. They have five sons, 15 grandsons, and 12 granddaughters.
*Some who read this may want to delve more deeply into the history of this event. Caution: It’s somewhat long and quite politically incorrect. Click here to read the details.
Some have asserted with virtual certainty that being a scientist or engineer is incompatible with being a Christian. It only takes a counterexample to disprove such assertions. Click here for several.
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