ASME President, 2004 - 2005

Harry Armen is the 123rd president of ASME serving the 2004-2005 term. An ASME Fellow, Armen has served the Society in a number of leadership positions during his 22-year affiliation.

Armen joined the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1982, becoming active in the ASME Applied Mechanics Division. He served as chair of the Committee on Computing in Applied Mechanics and received the Applied Mechanics Division Award in 1995. He also has a strong record of service in the ASME Council on Public Affairs where he served on the Board on Government Relations from 1992 to 1997, and was vice president of that board from 1994 to 1997. He also served as senior vice president of the Council on Public Affairs from 1997 to 2000, and as a governor from 2000 to 2003.

As an ASME Congressional Fellow, Armen worked in the office of Sen. Jeff Bingaman, of New Mexico, and assisted on the formulation and implementation of the multi-agency Technology Reinvestment Project of 1993. This project was designed to expand business opportunities for defense contractors, as the U.S. defense budget decreased, by transitioning their scientific and engineering capabilities to the commercial sector.

Currently, Armen is the chief technologist in the Airborne Early Warning and Electronic Warfare Systems business area of the Integrated Systems Sector at Northrop Grumman Corp., a large U.S. defense contractor, headquartered in Los Angeles, Calif. He is responsible for the planning of research and development programs supporting strategic corporate goals.

In 1961, Armen received his undergraduate degree in engineering education at the Cooper Union in New York. In 1964, Armen joined Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp.; the same year he received a Sc.D. in engineering sciences from New York University. He began his work as a research scientist in the company’s Applied Mechanics Laboratory. In his initial work, Armen applied then-emerging finite element analysis methodologies to understand and predict the nonlinear behavior of complex, highly redundant aircraft structures. Much of his research and development work was supported by NASA, which in the mid-1960s was leading the U.S. space program, as well as developing technologies for vehicles capable of supersonic transport. Armen was appointed head of the Applied Mechanics Laboratory at Grumman in 1972.

From 1980 to 1988, Harry Armen headed the Structural Mechanics Group, which developed methods of analysis for the stability, damage tolerance and life prediction of metallic and composite structures. During his tenure as an engineering scientist, Armen has authored and co-authored more than 40 papers and reports on computational mechanics, fracture mechanics, and related topics in the area of applied mechanics. In 1993, Armen was selected as Director of the Corporate Research Center of the Grumman Corporation. Subsequent to the formation of the Northrop Grumman Corporation, Armen served as Director of the Technology Development organization until April 2004.

A recipient of the Certificate of Recognition Award from NASA and the Founder’s Day Award from New York University, Armen is a licensed professional engineer in New York State. In addition to his ASME experience, he has served as member and chair of the Advisory Committee of the Engineering Directorate at the National Science Foundation and the Advisory Board of the International Technology Education Association.