Welty Faculty Fellow

Image of campus building with green trees and bushes, sunlight shining through the trees

December 31, 2011

In 2011 OSU Professor Emeritus Jim Welty extended his OSU legacy by creating the endowed Welty Faculty Fellowship Fund in the School of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (MIME).

Jim Welty sitting outside on steps Welty is recognized worldwide for his contributions to thermal fluids, the area of mechanical engineering concerned with heat transfer, fluid mechanics, and thermodynamics. He earned his bachelor's degree at OSU in 1954, spent four years working in the aircraft industry and on active duty with the U.S. Air Force, then returned to OSU where he earned his doctorate and taught for 38 years. He was head of the mechanical engineering department from 1970 to 1986 (in 2006 the department joined with industrial and mechanical engineering to form the School of MIME).

Over the course of his long and productive OSU career Welty received numerous teaching and research awards, including being named an Honorary Member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, its highest recognition. He served on the national ASME Board of Governors for three years.

Long-standing donors to the university, Welty and his wife Sharon Hastings-Welty, a 1975 OSU graduate in home economics, previously created the James R. Welty Professorship in Thermal-Fluid Sciences.