Personnel
Lab Director
Christopher A. Brown, Ph.D., P.E.
Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Director, Surface Metrology Laboratory, Director, WPI's Haas Technical Education Center
Washburn Shops 235
brown@wpi.edu
Christopher A. Brown, PhD, PE, lab founder and director, has been a member of the WPI faculty since 1989. In 1983 he completed his doctoral work on machining at the University of Vermont. He spent four years in the Materials Department at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, studying machined surfaces and directing the mechanical surface treatment group. Then for two years he was senior research engineer, working on product and process development, responsible for coatings, microscopy and the machine shop at Atlas Copco's European research center. Chris has over a hundred articles and presentations on surfaces and surface metrology. He has a patent on a fractal method for characterizing surface textures, develops software for surface texture analysis and teaches courses on surface metrology, manufacturing processes and design. Chris participates in national and international research and engineering conferences, is a corresponding member of the CIRP and has been active in surfaces committee since 1990. In addition, he works on national standards on surfaces texture (ASME B46).
Associate Director
Torbjorn Bergstrom
Associate Director
torbjorn@wpi.edu
WPI B.S. Mechanical Engineering 1995, M.S. Manufacturing Engineering 2000, Ph.D. Student, Manufacturing Engineering
Torbjorn S. Bergstrom, WPI '95, associate director and graduate student, is currently working on his PhD. Toby provides technical insights into measurement and surface charecterization methods developed during his tenure as lab manager.
Lab Manager
Brendan Powers
Lab Manager
+1-508-831-5823
brendan.powers@gmail.com
WPI B.S. Mechnical Engineering 2002, M.S. Manufacturing Engineering 2002, Ph.D. Student, Manufacturing Engineering
Brendan Powers is the Surface Metrology Lab Manager and a graduate student currently working on his PhD. Brendan manages the lab and is responsible for maintaining and improving the laboratory measurement and computing equipment and software, and he assists undergraduate with research. Brendan is charecterizing the process capabilities - in terms of conventional and fractal roughness parameters - of superfinishing with abrasive tape. This work is sponsered by Supfina Machine Co.
Student Assistants
Ceren Altin
Surface Metrology Lab Assistant (work study)
caltin@wpi.edu
Bachelors Candidate 2008, Biomedical Engineering
Benjamin E Childs
Surface Metrology Lab Assistant (work study)
bchilds@wpi.edu
Bachelors Candidate 2008, Computer Science
Ryan M St Gelais
Surface Metrology Lab Assitant (work study)
saint70@wpi.edu
Bachelors Candidate 2006, Mechanical Engineer
Zu Yan Liang
Surface Metrology Lab Assistant (work study)
zuyan@wpi.edu
Bachelors Candidate 2006, Electrical Engineering
Baran Ozden
Surface Metrology Lab Assistant (work study)
baran@wpi.edu
Bachelors Candidate 2007, Manufacturing Engineering
Alumni
Gabriel J. Cantor
B.S. Mechanical Engineering, WPI, 2003, Manufacturing Engineering Graduate Student
Amy Rose Gray
Surface Metrology Lab Assistant
agray@wpi.edu
B.S. Mechanical Engineering, WPI, 2004, M.S. Manufacturing Engineering, WPI, 2006
Amy currently works for Raytheon Company as a System Safety Engineer. Her job is to ensure the personel, equipment and environment safety of their products.
Douglas Geiger
B.S. Electrical Engineering, WPI, 2002, M.S. Manufacturing Engineering, WPI, 2005
Douglas Geiger graduated from WPI with a BS in Electrical Engineering in 2002, and began working in the Surface Metrology lab in the fall of 2002. He was the lab manager, and finished a Masters in Manufacturing Engineering in 2005. He assisted in the development of the control program for one of the lab's scanning laser microscopes, and helped to maintain lab software, computers, and equipment.
Becca Hamel
Surface Metrology Lab Assistant
hamelr@wpi.edu
Bachelors Candidate 2004, Manufacturing Engineering
Bill Johnsen
Sarah Jordan
M.S. Materials Science and Engineering, Ohio State University, March 2004
B.S. Metallurgical Engineering, Ohio State University, December 1999
Sarah Jordan currently works at Timken-Research. She originally worked in the failure analysis lab. Now she works at the Prototype facility in the Heat Treat department improving carburizing, hardening, and induction heating processes. She worked in the Surface Metrology Lab from 2004 to 2005 studying ground polyethylene ski bases and other materials. She received her MS from Ohio State University where her thesis entailed thermo-mechanical modeling of the thin slab casting process. In addition she has been involved with tribology research at Battelle and AFM studies of titania thin films at Arizona State University. She also has manufacturing experience from working in steel mills and foundries.
John Kummailil
Ph.D. Manufacturing Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester. 2004
M.S. Engineering, Plastics Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Lowell. 1996
Honours Diploma in Systems Management, NIIT, New Delhi. 1993
B.Tech. Rubber Technology, Madras Institute of Technology, Chennai. 1992
B.Sc. Chemistry, Loyola College, Chennai. 1989
John currently works for Boston Scientific Corporation, Inc., where he manages the Imaging Systems Group, implementing real time imaging algorithms used in minimally invasive medical devices. Before obtaining his Ph.D., he worked for Molecular Geodesics, Inc. (MGI), a DARPA-funded biomedical startup, to run their Rapid Manufacturing Center. At MGI, he leveraged his expertise in Rapid Prototyping as Principal Investigator on a NASA-funded project "Functionally Adapted Biomaterials for Space Exploration" to fabricate nature-inspired geometries in metal using Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS) and served on the Rapid Prototyping Panel at the National Manufacturing Week Conference. He left Molecular Geodesics when the company closed in 2001, and continues to explore his interests in Rapid Manufacturing as a Ph.D. candidate at WPI.
Michael Malchiodi
M.S. Manufacturing/Mechanical Engineering, WPI, 2000
B.S. Mechanical Engineering, WPI, 1998
Now working for The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
Bruce Meacham
Francesco Pancheri
Surface Metrology Lab Research Assistant Kennemetal Project
fqp@wpi.edu
BS Mechanical Engineering, WPI, 2002
Manufacturing Engineering Graduate Student
Mike Shipulski
Steven Wallace
B.S. Chemical Engineering, Virginia Tech, 2002
Manufacturing Engineering Graduate Student
Last modified: September 10, 2007 15:08:07