Contact: Phil Hearn
An award-winning mechanical engineer and materials scientist at Pennsylvania State University is the new director of Mississippi State's Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems.
Randall German, who officially assumes his new duties at CAVS July 1, also will hold one of three CAVS endowed chairs in the Bagley College of Engineering. He begins his new duties full time on the Starkville university campus in October.
"Dr. Rand German is an internationally recognized faculty member who will bring a tremendous amount of passion and vision as the next director of CAVS," said Bagley College Dean Kirk Schulz. "We are very fortunate to be able to recruit a person of his caliber to join the engineering faculty."
German succeeds CAVS director J. Donald Trotter, also MSU associate vice president for strategic initiatives, who retires June 30. Trotter has led CAVS since the center was created by the Legislature in 2001 to provide research and development support for Canton-based Nissan Motor Co. and help lure other automotive industries to the state.
"We are delighted that Rand German will be joining the excellent team at CAVS," said Colin Scanes, MSU's vice president for research. "Rand has an outstanding international reputation. He will be invaluable in moving vehicle manufacturing in Mississippi to the next level, with a consequent increase in high-wage jobs."
The Brush Chair Professor in Materials in Penn State's department of engineering science and mechanics since 1991, German also has served since 1999 as director of the university's Center for Innovative Sintered Products at University Park, Pa. Penn State recently was recognized as the most dominant university in the field of material science internationally by the Institute for Scientific Information.
German is listed in various issues of Who's Who in America, Who's Who in Engineering and Who's Who in American Education. He has received more than 20 national and international awards over the past 20 years of his career.
"This is an outstanding growth opportunity for me--allowing a marriage of my prior emphasis on materials processing with the CAVS strength in computational and systems engineering," German said. "Such a combination is relevant today since more than 35 percent of all National Science Foundation funding is for computational modeling."
In 2003, CAVS formally opened a new 45,000-square-foot automotive research facility at the Thad Cochran Research, Technology and Economic Development Park adjacent to the Starkville campus. A satellite facility is located near the Nissan plant in Madison County.
The center is home to a cross-disciplinary team of MSU engineers conducting leading-edge research in such areas as computational systems, automotive structures and enterprise production systems.
German is an authority in advanced materials, ranging from sintered materials to the fabrication of net-shape engineering structures. Sintered materials are widely applied in engineering-- particularly for high-temperature systems ranging from light bulbs to jet engines--and also are used in the manufacture of automotive connection rods.
The scientist said he started a collaborating on powder metallurgy last year with Mark Horstemeyer--who also holds a CAVS Chair in Mechanical Engineering--and faculty from Northwestern University and the Georgia Institute of Technology. That team recently submitted a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center proposal for multiple-scale virtual manufacturing, he said.
"During that collaboration, I was invited to apply to replace Professor Trotter at CAVS," German added. "This opportunity fits well with my growing interest in research policy to create productive industrial linkages with universities."
German earned a bachelor's degree in materials science and engineering from San Jose State University in 1968, a master's in metallurgical engineering from Ohio State University in 1971, and a doctorate in materials science from the University of California at Davis in 1975. He also completed an intense management program at the Hartford Graduate Center in 1979.
German is a member of the board of directors for the Penn State Materials Research Institute and holds director positions with six companies, including Advanced Materials Technologies (a Singapore Technologies division) and Allomet (formerly Enduraloy).
The new CAVS director's credentials include a publication list exceeding 680 articles covering materials processing and engineering design. He also has authored 12 books, co-edited 19 books, holds 20 patents, and chairs several annual short courses, workshops and symposia.
"My wife Carol and I are excited about the move to Mississippi," said German. The couple has two grown sons--Eric, an attorney in Santa Monica, Calif., and Garth, a change management consultant in San Francisco.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information on Dr. German, contact Julie Lemons at (662) 325-8098 or jlemons@engr.msstate.edu.