March 2, 1998
					Contact: Charlotte Crystal
		 			(804) 924-6858


	U.VA. ENGINEERING PROFESSOR EDGAR A. STARKE JR. 
	ELECTED TO NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING

Edgar A. Starke Jr., a professor of engineering at the University
of Virginia, has been elected to the National Academy of
Engineering, a prestigious designation extended only to engineers
of distinction.  Starke, the Earnest Jackson Oglesby Professor of
Materials Science and University Professor of Engineering, was
elected to the academy for his research and teaching in the field
of light metals.  Starke was one of 84 engineers in the U.S.  and
seven living abroad recently elected to membership.  They bring
the total membership of the academy to 1,941 U.S. engineers and
155 foreign associates, according to National Academy of
Engineering President William A.  Wulf.  Election to the National
Academy of Engineering (NAE) is among the highest professional
distinctions accorded an engineer.  Academy membership honors
those who have made "important contributions to engineering
theory and practice, including significant contributions to the
literature of engineering theory and practice,"along with those
who have demonstrated "unusual accomplishment in the pioneering
of new and developing fields of technology," according to the
NAE.  Starke joined U.Va. in 1983 and served as dean of U.Va.'s
School of Engineering and Applied Science from 1984 to 1994.  A
past director of the Fracture and Fatigue Research Laboratory at
the Georgia Institute of Technology and a visiting scientist at
Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Max Planck Institut fur
Metallforschung, he is the director of the University's Light
Metals Center.

Starke played a crucial role in last year's gift of 17 patents to
U.Va. from Allied Signal, believed to be the first such gift to
the University and AlliedSignal's largest charitable contribution
ever. The company gave the patents protecting high-performance
metal alloy technology to the University's engineering school
because of its "superb reputation and capacity for research and
development" in that area, according to AlliedSignal Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer Lawrence A. Bossidy.  "Ed Starke has
helped to build the engineering school in many ways over the
years and his research in light metals has contributed
significantly to the school's reputation in this field," said
Engineering School Dean Richard Miksad. The author of more than
200 scholarly articles and editor of eight conference
proceedings, Starke researches aluminum lithium and titanium
alloys as potential materials for lighter and more fuel-efficient
aircraft and automobiles. He recently was awarded patents on two
aluminum alloys that may be used in future advanced aircraft
systems.  Starke is the recipient of numerous other honors,
including Germany's Alexander von Humboldt Award and NASA's
Public Service Award.  He also is a member of several engineering
honor societies.  And in 1994, an engineering professorship was
created in his name.  Starke's election brings to six the number
of U.Va. professors who have been named to the National Academy
of Engineering.  The others are Elmer Gaden, chemical
engineering, 1974; Lester Hoel, civil engineering, 1989; William
Wulf, computer science, 1993; Anita Jones, computer science,
1994; Doris Kuhlmann-Wilsdorf, materials science, 1994.  Wulf,
the University's AT&T Company Professor of Engineering and
Applied Science, is on leave for four years to head the NAE.

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