PRESIDENT

Kristin B. Zimmerman

Dr. Zimmerman joined General Motors (GM) Research and Development Center in 1993 to create GM’s Global Academic Partnerships Program.  The Program’s structure, process, and tools for effective acquisition of technical expertise from the academic sector became the Protocol for establishing GM’s Global Satellite Laboratory Network. Key to the operation of the Program is the GM Academic Partnerships Master Agreement written by Zimmerman in 1994.  The Master Agreement was used to help enable the creation of the GM/Shanghai Joint Venture.

Dr. Zimmerman and is currently working in GM’s Public Policy Center as manager of Environment and Energy Policy, where she is in charge of GM’s annual corporate responsibility reporting, and greenhouse gas reporting policy and practices for GM’s global operations.  She is also GM’s liaison to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s voluntary programs, the U.S. Department of Energy Climate VISION and Science Bowl programs, and program manager of the GM/The Nature Conservancy Atlantic Rainforest Project in Brazil.  She received the 1999-2000 GM Fellowship to the National Academy of Engineering in Washington D.C., where she worked on policy development to enhance the U.S. engineering, science, and technology workforce.

She has been a technical consultant to numerous entities across academia and industry.  In 1999, she participated in a war-gaming scenario development exercise for the U.S. Department of Defense.  She is the co-owner and president of MedFor Inc., a biomedical/biomechanics consulting firm specializing in Translational Sciences. 

Dr. Zimmerman serves the Society for Experimental Mechanics as chair of the education committee, editor in chief of Experimental Techniques, and has recently been nominated to become President of the society with her term beginning in 2006. In 1993, she was recognized nationally by the Alpha Sigma Mu- Materials Research Honor Society and was inducted into the Sigma Xi-The Scientific Research Society in 1997.

PRESIDENT-ELECT

Wei-Chung Wang

Dr. Wang is a professor in the Department of Power Mechanical Engineering of the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, Republic of China.

He was a member of the SEM Executive Board from 2001-2003. He was the secretary, vice-chairman and chairman of the SEM Optical Methods Division between 2000 and 2003. He is the major founder of the SEM Republic of China Local Section. He is now a committee member in both the SEM Honors Committee and SEM Committee of Fellows.

Professor Wang was advisor (1987-1995) for the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Executive Director (1994-2002) for the Tze-Chiang Foundation of Science and Technology (TCFST) and Director General (2003-2004) of the Department of International Programs of the National Science Council (NSC).

He is the three time recipient of the Excellent Research Award from the NSC. He received the Outstanding Service Award and the Outstanding Engineering Professor Award from Chinese Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2000 and 2001, respectively. In 2002, he received K.T. Lee Management Medal for recognizing his outstanding performance on managing the TCFST. In November 2004, Professor Wang was elected a fellow by SEM.

VICE-PRESIDENT

Ryszard J. (Rich) Pryputniewicz

Prof. Pryputniewicz, educated both in Poland and the United States, is Professor of Mechanical Engineering and founding Director of the Center for Holographic Studies and Laser micro-mechaTronics (CHSLT) at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Massachusetts, since 1978.  Previously he was a faculty member and Director of the Laser Research Laboratory at the School of Engineering and the Health Center of the University of Connecticut (6 years); and a member of the Aerospace technical staff (4 years).  He also founded the NanoEngineering, Science, and Technology (NEST) Program at WPI, addressing undergraduate and graduate education and research in the field of lasers, photonics, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), and nanotechnology.  He is a Fellow of SEM, Fellow of SPIE, vice-chair of the ASME Committee on Photonics Systems, Co-chair of the ASME Symposia on Education in Mechatronics and MEMS, Co-chair of the SEM Symposium Series on MEMS and Nanotechnology, Director of MEMS and Nanotechnology Division of SEM, and chairman of the IEEE Nanotechnology Council Education Committee.  He has over 250 publications and has chaired, co-chaired, and organized over 100 conferences, symposia, and workshops on the state-of-the-art and emerging technologies for various sponsors and professional societies.

PAST PRESIDENT

Archie T. Andonian

Dr. Archie A.T. Andonian has received his Ph.D. in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and S.U. in 1978. He joined the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in 1984 after teaching five years at the University of Illinois. His research interests include experimental stress analysis, optical methods, fracture mechanics, composite materials and tire mechanics. He has publications in Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Applied Optics, Experimental Mechanics, Experimental Techniques, Journal of Biomechanics, ACI Journal and Journal of Materials Science. He is an adjunct professor of engineering at the University of Akron and teaches graduate level courses as needed. He also has more than 200 research papers and numerous trade secrets proprietary to Goodyear. He is currently a Sr. R & D Associate, a prestigious technical position at Goodyear.

PAST PRESIDENT

Masahisa Takashi

Masahisa Takashi received his B.S., M.S. and Dr. Eng. degrees from Keio University . He then joined Aoyama Gakuin University in 1968, where he began as a Lecturer, Associate Professor for 10 years, then in 1979, he became a full professor of mechanical engineering. He served as the chair of Foreign Affairs in JSME-MMD and initiated the effort, with the current SEM President, Albert Kobayashi, to establish the cooperative agreement between SEM and JSME-MMD now in place successfully. He was an SEM Executive Board member from 1996 to 1998 and an SEM International Advisory Board member from 2001 to 2003. He is now serving as the president of the JSEM (2002-2003), and is an editorial board member of the Journal of Mechanics of Time-Dependent Materials . He received several awards from JSME, Japan Photoelastic Society and others. He received Fellow Awards from JSME (2001) and SEM (2003), as well as the Peterson Award from SEM (2002).

His technical interest is focused on experimental mechanics, particularly in the fields of optical methods (photoelasticity, holographic interfelometry, etc.), hybrid techniques in stress analysis and time dependent mechanical behaviors, including contact mechanics and fracture of polymeric materials. He has authored and co-authored approximately 200 research papers in the aforementioned fields.

TREASURER
Jon Rogers

Dr. Rogers received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Engineering Mechanics from Iowa State University in 1980, 1984 and 1986, respectively. Jon joined Sandia in the fall of 1986 in the Vibration Testing Division.  In the test organization, he worked as the test engineer for vibration and shock testing on a number of systems.  Jon was the project leader for the VIBRAFUGE development project which placed a 4000 lb force rated shaker on the 29-foot underground centrifuge, and for the Acoustic Test Facility development project.  This resulted in the construction of the 16,000 cu. ft., high-level chamber with combined acoustic and vibration test capabilities.

Jon moved to Systems Studies in the fall of 1992.  He has worked on a variety of studies including Advanced Manufacturing, the Impact of Technology on the Economy, and many studies involving the weapons program and Underground Facilities.  Jon was made a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff in the fall of 2002 and was promoted to manager in the fall of 2003.  He is currently the manager of the Strategic Weapons Studies Department which focuses primarily on nuclear and conventional weapons related issues. 

Jon has been an active member of the Society for Experimental Mechanics since 1981.  He has served many roles for the Society, including: Member of the Executive Board, Chairman of the Technical Program for the Annual Meeting (4 times), President of the Society, Associate Technical Editor of Experimental Techniques, Chairman of the Editorial Council, and Treasurer of the Society.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SECRETARY
Tom Proulx

Dr. Proulx received a B.S. (Chemistry) from Boston College in 1970 and a Ph.D. (Chemistry/NMR Spectroscopy) from Texas A&M University in 1975. After a year of Post-Doctoral work at Texas Christian University, he joined Perkin-Elmer Corporation in 1976. He spent twenty years with Perkin-Elmer in the Analytical Instrumentation business holding a variety of technical, applications, sales, marketing and managerial positions. Since his years at Perkin-Elmer, he has also been with Atlas Software in the sales and marketing of Laboratory Information Systems for Clinical Laboratories, and at Cober Electronics as Marketing Manager, where he was involved with the design, manufacture and sales of industrial microwave systems for heating and research. He joined the SEM staff in October 2001.

AT-LARGE MEMBER

François M. Hemez

Dr. Hemez received his Ph.D., Aerospace Engineering, University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado, in 1993; M.S., Aerospace Engineering, University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado, in 1990; Graduate degree in numerical analysis, Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Jussieu), France, in 1989; and Graduate degree in engineering, École Centrale de Paris, France in 1989.

Dr. Hemez has been Technical Staff Member at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) since 1997. He was member of the Weapon Response group for seven years; served as Validation Methods team leader for one year; and is currently with X-Division. He is contributing to the development of technology for solution verification, model validation, uncertainty quantification, and decision-making for engineering and weapon physics applications.

Before joining Los Alamos François was a research associate of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), working in the area of test-analysis correlation and finite element model updating. He has developed and taught undergraduate and graduate courses in applied mathematics and structural dynamics.

François has co-developed a short course on the Verification and Validation (V&V) of computational models and taught the first-ever graduate course offered in a U.S. University on uncertainty quantification and V&V (University of California, San Diego, spring 2006). He was elected chair-person of the Society for Experimental Mechanics' Technical Division on Model Validation and Uncertainty Quantification (2005, 2-year term). In 2005 he received the Junior Research Award of the European Association of Structural Dynamics. In 2006 he received two U.S. Department of Energy Defense Programs Awards of Excellence for applying V&V to programmatic work at LANL. Dr. Hemez has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications, conference papers, and reports since 1992.

AT-LARGE MEMBER

Eann A. Patterson

Dr. Patterson joined the Royal Navy before going to the University of Sheffield where he obtained his BEng(Hons) degree in Mechanical Engineering. Subsequently, he left the Royal Navy and returned to Sheffield and completed his Ph.D. in 1985. After a short period as a post-doc at the University of Calgary, he returned to the University of Sheffield as a Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering and was promoted to Professor in 1997. During this period he worked on novel techniques in digital photoelasticity and later in thermoelasticity supported by funds from the EU and UK governments and from the aerospace industry. He also pursued research in computational biomechanics developing a fluid-solid interaction model of the human aortic valve. In 1993 he became Director of Graduate Student Affairs for Engineering and Physical Sciences and in 2001 Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. In 2004, he moved to Michigan State University as Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He has graduated 18 Ph.D. students and together with them published more than 100 journal papers. He is editor of the Journal of Strain Analysis and was editor of the International Journal, Fatigue and Fracture of Engineering Materials and Structures from 2001 to 2006.

AT-LARGE MEMBER

Nancy R. Sottos

Dr. Sottos is a Donald B. Willett Professor in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Aerospace Engineering, a co-chair of the Molecular and Electronic Nanostructures Research initiative at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, and a designated University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She joined the faculty in the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics at Illinois after earning a B.S. and a Ph.D. in 1986 and 1991, respectively, in mechanical engineering at the University of Delaware. She served as assistant dean for the College of Engineering from 1998-1999 and interim department head of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from 2005-2006.

Her research group studies the mechanics of complex, heterogeneous materials such as advanced composites, thin film devices, and microelectronic packaging, specializing in micro and nanoscale characterization of deformation and failure in these material systems. Current research focuses on the development of autonomic materials systems that have the ability to achieve adaptation and response in an independent and autonomic fashion (e.g., recent work on autonomic healing in polymers).

Research and teaching awards include the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award (1992), Outstanding Engineering Advisor Award (1992, 1998, 1999 and 2002), the Robert E. Miller award for Excellence in Teaching (1999), the University of Delaware Presidential Citation for Outstanding Achievement (2002), and the Hetényi Award from the Society for Experimental Mechanics (2004). Her research group was awarded the American Society for Composites Best Paper Award in 2002 and 2003 and the Tech Museum of Innovation Award for Technology Benefiting Humanity in 2001 for work on self-healing polymers. She recently finished a three-year term as the Senior Technical Editor for Experimental Mechanics (EM) and prior to that served as an Associated Editor for EM. She is a member of SEM, a member-at-large of the U.S. National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, on the editorial board for Composites Science and Technology and is the faculty advisor for the student chapter of the Society of Women Engineers.

AT-LARGE MEMBER

Martin W. Tretheway

Dr. Trethewey is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Penn State University. He is also affiliated with the interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Acoustics at Penn State where he holds the title of Professor of Acoustics. He has been at Penn State for 24 years. Preceding his academic career he worked at the General Motors Noise and Vibration Laboratory and Union Carbide Corporation. His research has focused on the development and analysis of machine dynamic systems from experimentally acquired data. The effort involves research in experimental technique development, machine dynamics, experimental modal analysis, signal processing, finite element modeling, machine dynamics and noise control. He currently serves as the SEM appointed Assistant Editor for Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing.

AT-LARGE MEMBER

Daniel J. Inman

AT-LARGE MEMBER

John Lambros

Dr. Lambros was born on April 10, 1967, in Athens, Greece. After spending several years in Melbourne, Australia, he returned to Greece where he attended high school at Athens College. After graduating from high school in 1985, he went to England to study Aeronautical Engineering. In 1988 he received a B.Eng. (Bachelors of Engineering) degree with first class honors in Aeronautics from the Imperial College of Science and Technology of the University of London. He then moved to Pasadena, CA, and in 1989 received an MS degree and in 1994 a Ph.D. both in Aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology. Until August 1995 he remained at Caltech as a postdoctoral research fellow. In 1995 he joined as an Assistant Professor the department of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Delaware where he stayed until 2000. In August 2000 he became an Associate Professor in the (then) Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering department (currently Aerospace Engineering department) at the University of Illinois and Urbana-Champaign. In 2007 he was promoted to the rank of Professor in the same department. Dr. Lambros has been a member of SEM since graduate school, and he has regularly attended the annual meetings in many capacities. He also served for two terms, during 1999-2005, as an Associate Technical Editor of Experimental Mechanics.

AT-LARGE MEMBER

Alfred L. Wicks

Dr. Wicks received his Ph.D. from Michigan Tech University. He was a co-founder of Stress Technology Inc and Vibration Analysis Inc.  Since joining the faculty of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Virginia Tech in 1986, Dr. Wicks has developed numerous techniques for applying scanning laser technology to dynamics measurements. He has taught numerous courses on signal processing, instrumentation, modal analysis and vibrations.  Current funded research in unmanned systems involves sensing technologies, navigation strategies, and wireless communications.

AT-LARGE MEMBER

Ioannis Chasiotis

Ioannis Chasiotis received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology in 2002 and 1998, respectively, and his Diploma in Chemical Engineering in Greece in 1996. In 2001-2004, he was an Assistant Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Virginia. In 2005 he joined the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he is also part-time faculty at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory.

His research focuses on experimental mechanics of thin films, MEMS/NEMS, and nanostructured materials with emphasis on nanoscale deformation and failure. He is a recipient of an NSF-CAREER award in 2008, an ONR Young Investigator Award in 2007, a Xerox Award for Faculty Research in 2007, the Founder's Prize from the American Academy of Mechanics in 2000, and the Charles Babcock Memorial Award from the California Institute of Technology in 1999.

In 2005-2006 served as guest editor for Experimental Mechanics for the special issue on “Nanoscale Measurements in Mechanics,” and since 2006 he is an Associate Technical Editor for Experimental Mechanics. In 2005-2008 he served on the International Advising Board of the SEM and, currently, he is serving as the chair of two Technical Committees of the SEM. He has organized and co-organized many symposia and two Conference Tracks for SEM Annual Meetings since he became active in the Society in 2002.