Alison B. Flatau is an American aerospace engineer whose research involves smart materials and magnetostriction, changes in the physical shape of materials under magnetic fields, and in the application of nanowires built from these materials in controlling the flight of micro air vehicles.
[1] She is a professor and department chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Next, she spent four years as a research engineer at the National Small Wind Systems Test Site[3] in Colorado, a predecessor organization to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
[4] Returning to graduate study, Flatau studied mechanical engineering at the University of Utah, where she earned a master's degree and Ph.D.[2][5] From 1990 to 1998, she was a faculty member in the Iowa State University Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Department, and from 1998 to 2002 she worked as a program director for the National Science Foundation, in the Dynamical Systems Modeling Sensing and Control Program.
[5][8] She was the recipient of the 2010 Aerospace Engineering Educator of the Year Award of Women in Aerospace,[5] of the 2010 SPIE Smart Structures and Materials Lifetime Achievement Award,[5][9] and of the 2013 Adaptive Structures and Materials Systems Prize of the ASME.