April 8, 2004

Faculty honors

Daniel W. Apley

Daniel W. Apley, associate professor of industrial engineering and management sciences, has been named the Morris E. Fine Professor of Manufacturing.

Apley, who came to Northwestern from Texas A& M University in 2003, is an expert in manufacturing process control. His research interests are in developing on-line methods for improving quality, reliability and maintainability in manufacturing. His work focuses on automated measurement, monitoring, diagnosis and control of manufacturing process variability, with emphasis on integrating engineering principles and statistical methods.

His recent projects involve diagnosing root causes of defects and process variability in printed circuit board assembly, automobile manufacturing and aerospace structure manufacturing.

L. Catherine Brinson

L. Catherine Brinson, professor of mechanical engineering, has been named the first Jerome B. Cohen Professor of Engineering.

The professorship is named for the late dean of the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Brinson’s research interests lie in the study of advanced material systems and developing new methods to characterize and model material behavior. She works with the constitutive modeling of shape memory alloys, aging in polymeric-based systems, nanomechanics of nanotube reinforced polymers, design of self-healing composites and the microstructure effects on properties of microporous materials for bioengineering.

Brinson received an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship in 2000-01 and an NSF CAREER Award for 1995-99.