Negrut honored for global impact

On April 29, 2026, Grainger Dean Devesh Ranjan hosted a celebration at which he recognized engineering faculty and staff for outstanding daily work that shapes the heart of our college.

Dan Negrut, the Bernard A. and Frances M. Weideman Professor in mechanical engineering, received the Ragnar E. Onstad Service to Society Award.

While Negrut has built one of the most respected research groups in computational dynamics, multibody systems and large-scale simulation for robotics and vehicle mobility, he’s deeply committed to making his innovations globally accessible, usable and impactful.

Through his work co developing the open source simulation platform Project Chrono, for example, he has transformed how agencies plan lunar exploration, how industry designs autonomous and robotic systems, and how people everywhere benefit from accessible, reliable computational tools. The software enables researchers to model the performance of a wide range of wheeled and tracked vehicles on soft terrain, as well as systems ranging from robotic systems to fluid-solid interaction phenomena. And it’s used at organizations that include NASA, the European Space Agency, the U.S. Army, and major industry partners like Tesla, Blue Origin and John Deere.

To encourage collaboration and technology transfer through open dialogue, Negrut created a global consortium of mobility and simulation experts from industry, government and academia. And for nearly two decades, he has offered a free residential summer program that has introduced more than 300 high school students to STEM experiences at UW-Madison, as well as a program that brings faculty and students from Cal State-Los Angeles to Madison for hands-on work in robotics and simulation.