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Brian received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. During his tenure there, he was a trumpet player and section leader in the UMass Minuteman Marching Band. As a member of UMass Amherst's chapter of the National Honorary Service Fraternity of Kappa Kappa Psi, he served in elected offices at both the local and district level. During college, Brian received a Project Engineer Co-op at a local defense contractor, Kollmorgen Electro-Optical, which led to a full time Mechanical Engineer position after his graduation in May of 2006. After 5 years of designing periscopes and optronic masts for US and foreign navies, he found that industry no longer appealed to him as it once had. This led to some examination of his life and the discovery of how much education still interested him. This realization led him to apply to graduate schools and enter Tufts University as a graduate student in their MS/PhD program in Mechanical Engineering.

 

 

At the CEEO, he serves as a research assistant on the Integrating Engineering and Literacy program. He also has interests in medical technologies, assistive and exploratory robotics, and materials. Brian hopes to someday serve in a professorial position that will allow him to teach in the field he loves as well as freely explore and contribute to those topics that catch his interest along the way.

 

Brian's current research with the IEL program is focused on creating inexpensive means for schools to teach engineering and robotics to elementary students. This has involved simplifying existing kits, enhancing the educational benefit of some others as well as creating robots out of paper. He has also been involved with IEL program developments with local school teachers to help work on how engineering principles are taught to children.