Givi received the award “for the development of advanced modeling techniques for designing high-speed and hypersonic propulsion systems for aerospace vehicles.” He was presented with the medal by NASA Langley Director Roy D. Bridges in a private ceremony.

Givi earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at Youngstown State University and the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He has held the title of University at Buffalo Distinguished Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he received the Professor of the Year Award from Tau Beta Pi. He also has worked at Flow Industries Inc. in Seattle, Wash., and has had visiting appointments at several NASA research centers since 1986. Givi joined Pitt's Department of Mechanical Engineering in the fall of 2002.

Givi is a member of the editorial boards of the journals Progress in Energy and Combustion Science and Computers & Fluids as well as associate editor of the AIAA Journal. His current research interests include turbulence, combustion, computational fluid dynamics, propulsion, and stochastic processes.