ASME Fellow Robert L. Norton, the Milton Prince Higgins II Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), has been named the Professor of the Year for Massachusetts by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). Recognized as one of the most prestigious awards for college professors, the CASE U.S. Professors of the Year program annually salutes the nation's most outstanding undergraduate instructors - those who excel as teachers and mentors. The program is sponsored jointly by CASE and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Norton and the other national and state winners were recognized last month at an awards luncheon at the in Washington, D.C. Norton, the second WPI professor to receive this honor, earned undergraduate degrees in mechanical engineering and industrial technology at Northeastern University and a master's degree in engineering design at Tufts University. He joined the WPI faculty in 1981 after more than 20 years in industry and academia. As head of the Design Group in the Mechanical Engineering Department at WPI, Norton teaches undergraduate and graduate courses that focus on design, kinematics, vibrations, and dynamics of machinery, advises undergraduate design projects as head of the Gillette Project Center, supervises graduate research, and is active as a consultant to industry on a wide range of engineering projects, which have included disposable medical products and high-speed production machinery. Norton has been an ASME member since 1982.

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