KU Engineering recognizes 2 alumni and a longtime educator for distinguished service

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas School of Engineering will recognize three people with the school’s highest honor, the Distinguished Engineering Service Award. Alumni Willem Anemaat and Frank Tsuru and longtime faculty member David Darwin will be honored in a ceremony set for 6 p.m. May 8. 

The Distinguished Engineering Service Award (DESA) is given each year to individuals who have maintained close association with the school and have made outstanding contributions to the engineering profession and to society.

“Whether it’s through research and teaching, creating groundbreaking software or developing new cost-effective processes for the energy industry, each of this year’s awardees have advanced the engineering profession in significant ways,” said Mary Rezac, dean of the School of Engineering. “Each are dedicated Jayhawk engineers who have made major contributions to school and the university throughout the years.”

The School of Engineering Advisory Board has given the Distinguished Engineering Service Award annually since 1980. The award is made on the basis of an individual’s contribution to the public good, governmental service or the educational system, or contributions to the theories and practices of engineering, research and development in new fields of engineering or direction of an organization that has made exceptional contributions in design, production and development.

Willem Anemaat

Colleagues describe Anemaat as a brilliant aircraft designer with tremendous creativity. The global acclaim earned through his development of one of the world’s most utilized aircraft design software programs is a key reason for KU aerospace engineering’s worldwide status as a leader in this space.

Anemaat earned his master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands in 1987 and received his doctorate in aerospace engineering from KU in 2007.

While at KU, Anemaat studied under the late aerospace engineering professor Jan Roskam, who wrote several textbooks foundational to aircraft design.

In 1991, Anemaat and Roskam co-founded DARcorporation in Lawrence. Anemaat, who has served as president of the company since Roskam retired in 2004, took Roskam’s teachings and developed the Advanced Aircraft Analysis (AAA) software, which encodes methods of Roskam’s design books into an accessible suite of software that the company uses in consulting for aircraft design.

Industry leaders said Anemaat’s work on the software has been transformative, offering a comprehensive tool that integrates all facets of aircraft design into one package and bridges the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application. It is considered the industry-leading aircraft preliminary design, stability and control software, and it is installed in over 50 countries.

Through his success in industry, Anemaat is one of KU’s most public figures in the field, and he remains generous in his support of his alma mater.

Since 2011, he has taught more than 40 aerospace engineering short courses to more than 2,500 attendees. He is a collaborative research partner on numerous federal grants, with direct cost-share donated well in excess of $100,000. He spent years coordinating exit interviews with graduating seniors in aerospace engineering to help the department evaluate its instruction and the overall undergraduate experience. He served on the aerospace engineering advisory board for 15 years, including one year as chair, and was inducted into the KU Aerospace Engineering Honor Roll in 2017.

With more than 60 published papers, he is also a prominent figure at major global symposiums and conferences. 

He’s also actively involved in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). For 19 years, he was a member of the Aircraft Design Technical Committee and served as associate editor for the AIAA Journal of Aircraft. In 2009, he was named an AIAA Associate Fellow and received the AIAA Sustained Service Award in 2021.

David Darwin

With more than six decades of service to KU and the civil engineering profession and a career defined by industry-leading research and award-winning teaching — David Darwin stands as one of the most decorated and influential faculty members in the 134-year history of the KU School of Engineering.

Darwin earned his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Cornell in 1967 and — while on activity duty in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — a master’s in structural engineering and materials science from the same institution in 1968. After four more years on active duty, including a year in Vietnam, he enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, receiving his doctorate in civil engineering in 1974.

That same year, he began his career at KU in what was then the Department of Civil Engineering, where he remains active in teaching and research as Deane E. Ackers Distinguished Professor. His 51 years on the faculty is thought to be one of the longest tenures in the history of the school.

From his earliest days at KU, colleagues said Darwin’s dedication to teaching was evident and that he challenged students to do their best work. 

Darwin earned the title of Distinguished Professor in 1990 and continued to grow his research portfolio and serve KU and the profession through activity on dozens of boards, committees and councils.

In 2013, Darwin was appointed chair of the Department of Civil, Environmental & Architectural Engineering, a position he held for 10 years.

Under his guidance, the department hit unprecedented heights in research expenditures, faculty growth, student enrollment, and facilities expansion and renovation. He also helped create online programs for graduate courses and developed a collaborative relationship between KU and the Qingdao University of Technology.

Darwin also championed dramatic growth in the department’s financial resources, fundraising for scholarships, laboratories and graduate student offices with great success.

He oversaw construction or renovation of new steel, concrete, asphalt, soils, driving simulator, HVAC and lighting laboratories. He was also instrumental in creating a departmental graduate student office, which he helped finance, named after his late wife, Diane Darwin, a 1979 civil engineering graduate. He also established Chair’s Council professorships, which have proven to be a critical tool in faculty retention.

Beyond his 50-plus years of support for the KU community and his department, Darwin has a  history of scholarly research of civil engineering structures and materials that establishes him as an international leader in structural engineering.

Industry leaders said Darwin’s expertise in concrete materials and structural engineering is well-respected by the engineering community for its depth and breadth. He has always been considered a “concrete man,” and his research focuses on reinforcing steel bond with concrete, durability of concrete and reinforcing steel, and cracking in bridge decks.

His research centers on better understanding of these complex structural issues and improving the accuracy of prevailing design codes. For example, composite web opening research he led culminated in steel construction design specifications that remain unchanged 35 years later.

He has co-written two textbooks used by tens of thousands of engineering students and has a lengthy history of service to the university and the industry.

He’s a past-president of the American Concrete Institute (ACI) and made major contributions to ACI’s Concrete Building Code, which is the standard of design in the United States and many other parts of the world. For decades, he’s served on numerous committees for the American Society for Testing and Materials and was active for years in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

Darwin’s career has been recognized with highest honors from major professional organizations in his areas of interest, including election as an ASCE Distinguished Member in 2012 and an ACI Honorary Member in 2016.

Frank Tsuru

Known by colleagues as a visionary entrepreneur who has a decorated history of community service and support for KU, Frank Tsuru has made significant contributions to the oil and gas industry and been instrumental in creating world-class learning environments for Jayhawk engineers.

Tsuru earned his degree in petroleum engineering from KU in 1983 and is the CEO of Momentum Midstream, a Houston-based oil and gas company that specializes in building out infrastructure into previously undeveloped areas.

After earning his degree from KU, Tsuru initially worked for TXO Production Corporation as a drilling and production engineer, a position that prepared him to move on as an executive in petroleum-related companies. In 1990, he founded his first company, Southwestern Production, which eventually sold to Conoco Phillips.

In 2002, Tsuru founded Aka Energy, a company focused on acquiring midstream assets from the Southern Ute Indian Tribe Reservation.

Two years later, he co-founded his current venture, Momentum Midstream. The company has expanded growth into new industry and projects that are the first of their kind in the United States while providing a more cost-effective option for oil and gas producers to build out infrastructure.

Midstream Momentum also developed a first-of-its-kind setup at an ongoing project in Louisiana. The company takes untreated natural gas and removes the CO2 in its amine treating facility, which is the largest such facility in the United States. From there, Momentum delivers the CO2 to Exxon Mobil to re-inject into the subsurface. This sequestration is intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions consistent with the goals of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Tsuru also remains heavily involved with his alma mater, offering support that School of Engineering leaders say has proven transformational for KU engineering students.

He and his wife, Stephanie, provided significant financial backing for two labs in the Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering: one that benefits first-year students and another for seniors, which school leaders say makes KU’s laboratory sequence one of the best in the country. The couple also funded the outstanding senior laboratory group award.

Tsuru’s contributions helped the Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering complete a pilot-scale distillation column and control room in the Unit Operations Lab. This facility is one of the most specialized labs of its kind in higher education and provides KU students with a learning experience few institutions can offer.

Tsuru was also instrumental in a complete overhaul of the freshman laboratory experience in the department, providing funding for renovations and the development of experiments.

Tsuru also routinely returns to speak with KU seniors in chemical and petroleum engineering.

Tsuru is heavily involved with community, national and international philanthropic organizations.

He has been especially active in the Boy Scouts of America. He is a member of the National Executive Committee and current chair of the Safeguarding Youth Committee. He is also past-president of the National Eagle Scout Association.

He served as the board chair for Yellowstone Academy, a faith-based school serving elementary age students living in extreme poverty; is vice chair of the Star of Hope Mission, an organization started in 1907 to serve the homeless in Houston; and the Tsurus serve as co-chairs for the Houston Ballet Ball and Asia Society Tiger Ball.

Tsuru was elected to the KU Endowment Board of Trustees in 2021 and the Governance Finance Committee in 2023. That same year, he was inducted into the KU Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department’s Hall of Fame. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award for Alpha Tau Omega.

He is a recipient of National Eagle Scout Association Outstanding Eagle Scout, Distinguished Eagle Scout, Silver Beaver and Silver Buffalo awards.