Black History Month Spotlight: Dr. Okenwa Okoli

Dr. Okenwa Okoli
Dean and Professor
Herff College of Engineering

Research Focus: Manufacturing Engineering

Research Highlights

• Cost effective, environmentally benign manufacture of advanced composites and multiscale, multifunctional structures.
• Development of flexible MXene-polymer composites for wearable devices.
• The enhancement of safety in critical structures through novel in-situ structural health monitoring techniques.
• Development of 3D photovoltaic devices for energy harvesting and transport.
• The transformational development of vascular ceramics for structural and bio-inspired applications.

Short Biography
Before coming to the University of Memphis Herff College of Engineering in Spring 2023, Dean Okenwa Okoli was at the Florida A&M-Florida State University College of Engineering where he was a professor and former Chair of the Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department and the Associate Director of the High-Performance Materials Institute (H PMI) at FSU. Dr. Okoli’s innovative research efforts encompass the cost-effective manufacture of customizable multiscale multifunctional composites; re-engineering and optimization of UHMWPE recipe in combination with the confinement of ceramic structures to achieve enhanced personnel protective armor; and a paradigm shift creating inherent and ubiquitous damage sensing in advanced composite structures. His research efforts have garnered $36M as Pl or Co-Pl in external funding.

He has 10 US patent applications (awarded and pending). He received the R&D 100 Award (2004), the ACMA Best Processing Technical Paper (2004) and the SAM PE Outstanding Paper Award (2015). A recipient of FSU's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Distinguished Service Award, Dr. Okoli has contributed to efforts to recruit and retain US students in STEM graduate programs with a focus of bridging the achievement gap in the underrepresented minorities. He is a chartered engineer and a chartered scientist of the Engineering and Science Councils (UK) respectively.

Dr. Okoli received a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Lagos (Nigeria), a Master of Science in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from the University of Warwick (UK) and a PhD in Engineering from the University of Warwick (UK).