Horea T. Ilies

Pratt & Whitney Professor of Digital Design and Manufacturing
School Director

Horea Ilies is the Pratt and Whitney Professor and Director of the School of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Connecticut (UConn), and a director of the DREAM research center at UConn. He earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and holds M.S. degrees in Mechanics and Mechanical Engineering from Michigan State University and the Technical University of Cluj, Romania. Before transitioning to academia, Dr. Ilies gained extensive industrial experience at Ford Motor Company, working in research, manufacturing, and product design and development. His research focuses on geometric and physical computing, shape synthesis, geometric reasoning, and the theoretical and computational foundations of the systematic design and manufacturing of engineered systems. Dr. Ilies is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2007) and together with his graduate students received several Best Paper awards for his contributions to the field. He is also an elected member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE) and a Fellow of ASME.