Three Georgia Tech engineers - one faculty member and two alumnus - have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). 

William J. “Bill” Cook, Chandler Family Chair and professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, is one of 68 new members and nine foreign associates elected. Cook is known widely for his work with the traveling salesman problem and his research in combinatorial optimization and integer programming. In November, Cook was also elected fellow by the Institute for Operational Research and Management Sciences.

Cook joins Parker H. "Pete" Petit, who earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and master’s degree in engineering mechanics, as well as Linda Griffith, a professor of teaching innovation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in 1982, as new NAE members.

Petit endowed the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences at Georgia Tech. In 2001, he helped fund the biotechnology building at Georgia Tech, which bears his name, Griffith is a biotechnologist who is shaping the frontiers of tissue engineering and synthetic regenerative technologies.

Election to NAE is considered among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. According to NAE, membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature," and to the "pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education."