Dr. Rashidi joined CSU in Fall of 1987 as an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department of Fenn College of Engineering at CSU. In 1981 he received his B.S. from Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Department at Case Western Reserve University. In 1983 he received his M.S. and in 1987 received his Ph.D. from the same department at CWRU. Dr. Rashidi was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure in 1993, and earned the title of Professor in 2008. Dr. Rashidi’s areas of interest are Renewable Energy, Machine System and Machine Components Design, Dynamics of Gear Trains and Rotating Machinery, Design For Manufacturing (DFM), Vibrations of Machinery, and Fluid-Solid Interactions in Machinery. Dr. Rashidi holds several patents, all in machine design area, as well as an innovative wind harnessing system. Currently Dr. Rashidi is conducting research on the performance of his newly designed and fabricated wind harnessing system that has been installed on the rooftop of the Plant Service Building at CSU. The system is designed to harness wind energy in typical urban settings where the wind speed is not fast enough for typical conventional wind towers. Currently the work of Dr. Rashidi is being supported by the US Department of Energy and the State of Ohio.

In October 1st, 2006 the Cleveland Plain Dealer published an article about a newly designed innovative wind harnessing system that Dr. Rashidi had designed at Cleveland State University. Mrs. Betty L. Gordon read the article and soon after that she gave a donation of $26,000 to the Fenn college of Engineering to support Dr. Rashidi’s research in the area of Renewable Energy, more specifically his new wind tower system. Mrs. Gordon believes that innovative ideas must be supported in order to bring design and manufacturing back into the State of Ohio. As Dr. Rashidi continued his research, Mrs. Gordon donated a second check in the same amount of 26,000 for the same cause. Support of Mrs. Gordon intensified the research, design, and development efforts of Dr. Rashidi. In July 2008, Mrs. Betty L. Gordon committed $1. Million gift to create the Betty L. Gordon Alternative Energy Research Endowment and the Betty L. Gordon Endowed Distinguished Professorship in the Fenn College of Engineering at Cleveland State University. The Endowments will support and advance research by CSU faculty and students in the field of alternative energy, green technology and sustainability.

Dr. Majid Rashidi has been named the Betty L. Gordon Distinguished Professor for his work in the wind energy field since June 11, 2009. The Gordon Endowment will help advance Dr. Rashidi’s research and design of wind tower systems.

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