Julio M. Ottino

Distinguished Lecturer

R.R. McCormick Institute Professor
Walter P. Murphy Professor, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Former Dean, R.R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Professor of Management and Organizations, Kellogg School of Management
Northwestern University 

With a research portfolio that includes projects in chemical, mechanical, polymer engineering—as well as nonlinear dynamics, complex systems, geophysics, oceanography, and environmental sciences—Julio M. Ottino is known for developing and operationalizing whole-brain engineering, which merges analytical left-brain skills with right brain creative skill to develop whole-brain engineers.

His early research focused on chaos theory and applications. Today, he investigates a broad class of problems in complex systems where there is a competition between order and disorder. He co-founded and was the initial director of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems.

Ottino earned his doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota.

He is a member of National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is a past Guggenheim Fellow.

Honors include the National Academy of Engineering ‘s Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education, the William H. Walker Award and the Founder Award from American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and the first-ever Presidential Young Investigator Award. He has served as the Paul J. Flory Lecturer at Stanford University and presented at the Danckwerts Memorial Lecture in London.

He has produced three books and more than 270 peer-reviewed publications.

Ottino will collaborate with faculty, researchers and students in the College of Engineering and elsewhere within the university.