Emeritus Professor Jerald M. Henderson Memorial Scholarship

The Emeritus Professor Jerald M. Henderson Memorial Scholarship fund will provide financial support to Mechanical Engineering undergraduate students, who are passionate about engineering design and are involved in creative engineering design outside of class.

Your gift to the memorial fund is one of many ways to honor and remember Professor Henderson’s legacy as an educator and researcher at UC Davis.

Dr. Jerry Henderson commenced his career at UC Davis in 1961 as an Associate Instructor, after earning a BS and MS in Agricultural Engineering from Iowa State University and a D.Engr. in Engineering from UC Davis. He was appointed Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering in January 1965, advanced to Associate Professor in 1969, and was appointed full Professor in 1975. His research focused on mechanical design, materials handling, biomedical engineering, and food engineering.

One of his lasting contributions in teaching was the so-called totem project involving the design and manufacture of parts to given specifications and tolerances by each student, so all the parts can be assembled together and form a totem pole at the end of the quarter. This project incorporates concepts of design for manufacture and assembly and depends heavily on clear design communication. This project is still a key component of the mechanical engineering course Manufacturing Processes (EME-50) at UC Davis. During the latter part of his career, he also developed an NSF-funded “How Things Work” class, which targeted student success and retention of women in engineering.

Jerry had a strong interest in engineering education and was very active in the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). His research efforts resulted in numerous papers and four U.S. patents. He became Professor Emeritus in 1993, and fully retired in 1997.