Natacha E. Thomas has joined the civil engineering faculty as assistant professor. She came to URI from LiRo Kassner, Inc., in Syosset, N.Y., where she served as a senior transportation engineer. Prior to that, Thomas worked as an assistant professor of civil and materials engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Thomas’ expertise is in transportation engineering. She is currently working on several research projects at the University involving vehicle tracking systems and real-time travel time measurements.
Thomas received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois
Valerie Maier-Speredelozzi has joined the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering as an assistant professor. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 2003. Previously, Dr. Maier-Speredelozzi was a research assistant at the Engineering Research Center for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems at the University of Michigan. She received master’s degrees in both mechanical engineering and industrial & operations engineering from the University of Michigan and her Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree is from Georgia Institute of Technology. She has also served multiple internships in industry, including GM, Volvo Penta of the Americas, and Georgia Power Company. Her research interests include manufacturing system design, selection, operation, reusability, and performance analysis. Dr. Maier-Speredelozzi is interested in teaching classes in industrial engineering design, lean manufacturing, and manufacturing processes.
Arijit Bose of chemical engineering has been named to the editorial board of the Journal of Surface Science and Technology and a National Science Foundation panel member of sensors. He served as the invited speaker at the U.S.-Japan Symposium on Nanotechnology at Cornell University.
On July 24, Michael Greenfield of chemical engineering visited the Advanced Materials Technology Center of the 3M Company in St. Paul, Minnesota, to receive a 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award. The award’s unrestricted $15,000 grant facilitates interactions with 3M personnel on research problems of mutual interest.
Richard Brown, professor of chemical engineering, is leading a group of universities, including URI, Brown, and Cambridge University in England, in a joint project to examine debris from the space shuttle Columbia. The project will allow the group to study and compare stresses on aluminum alloy on earth and in space.
Professor Martin Sadd of mechanical engineering has received a contract to develop the graduate-level textbook, “Elasticity: Theory, Applications and Numerics,” The contract comes from Elsevier Science and the expected publication date is to be in spring 2004. 
Professor Yin Sun, electrical engineering, recently received a grant of $50,800 from the R.I. Department of Mental Health, Retardation, and Hospitals for the Biomedical Engineering Internship and Patient Intervention Program. The purpose of the program is to engage URI biomedical engineering students to develop assistive technology devices for people with disabilities.
James Miller, professor of ocean engineering, was elected Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America.