Three New Faculty Join School of Engineering
Three new full-time faculty have joined the School of Engineering this fall. “We could not be more pleased with the results of this national search.” said Don Weinkauf, Dean of Engineering. “These new faculty will help drive the evolution of the School from its early start to something with a truly national reputation.” Please welcome Dr.’s Ellingson, Rajagopalan, and Wentz to our Team!
Dr. Jim Ellingson (PhD Mechanical Engineering – University of Minnesota)
Jim comes to the School of Engineering with a vast array of industrial experience including more than ten years work with 3M, Boston Scientific, and Prototype and Production Systems. His particular areas of expertise are electro-mechanical systems, industrial automation, design for manufacture, Six Sigma and the modeling of manufacturing processes. He has extensive international experience including a year of research in Denmark through the Fulbright Scholars program as well as the NSF – JISTEC summer institute in Japan. Jim earned his BA from Concordia College in Moorhead, MN prior to completing Engineering Masters and PhD degrees at the University of Minnesota. Jim’s research at Saint Thomas is focused on automation, systems design and integration, and manufacturing process modeling, monitoring and control.
Dr. Ramesh Rajagopalan (PhD Electrical Engineering – Syracuse University)
Ramesh joins the Engineering faculty after serving as a visiting faculty at Florida State University for a year where he taught courses in electrical and computer engineering. Ramesh earned his Masters and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University. Ramesh’s research interests are in the areas of wireless communications, optimization, and sensor networks. His research proposed a new paradigm of multi-objective optimization for solving sensor network design problems. His research has led to multiple conference and journal papers. He was awarded the graduate school Masters prize and the all university Doctoral prize at Syracuse University in recognition of his research and scholarship. At university of Saint Thomas, Ramesh plans to establish a research lab for developing innovative technologies using wireless sensors for solving real world problems such as national security, intelligent building systems, and health care.
Dr. John Wentz (PhD Mechanical Engineering – University of Illinois)
John comes to St Thomas after completing a post-doc at the University of Illinois focused on researching the cooling and lubrication of micro-machine tools including an atomization-based method that can extend tool life by more than 10 times. John earned his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois as an Outstanding Scholar Fellowship recipient where he studied sustainable manufacturing and developed a fluid dynamic model of microfiltration of metalworking fluids that described the new fouling technique of partial pore blocking. While at Illinois John taught manufacturing classes and developed a sustainable manufacturing and eco-design course. At the University of St. Thomas John is developing a micro-machining center to research material removal mechanisms on the micro-scale and anticipates collaborating with the vibrant manufacturing community within the Twin Cities.
