Two faculty members from the Texas A&M University College of Engineering are among 175 scientists elected to the 2020 class of fellows by the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). The new fellows are Dr. Duncan J. Maitland, director of research and Stewart & Stevenson Professor I in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Dr. Richard Miles, TEES Eminent Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering.
Maitland and Miles were named to the inaugural class of NAI Senior Members earlier this year. Dr. Bill McCutchen, associate professor and center director for the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center in Stephenville, was also named a 2020 NAI fellow.
“I applaud the NAI for selecting these three outstanding researchers as 2020 fellows,” said Dr. Mark A. Barteau, vice president for research at Texas A&M University and an NAI Fellow. “This honor recognizes their scholarship, talent and innovation, as well as their ongoing commitment to Texas A&M’s mission to produce innovations and solutions that address our world’s greatest challenges.”
Maitland’s research focuses on novel treatments of cardiovascular disease with an emphasis on stroke. His research projects include endovascular interventional devices, microactuators, optical therapeutic devices and basic device-body interactions and physics, including computational and experimental techniques. He founded Shape Memory Medical, Inc., to commercialize vascular embolic devices. The company has FDA-approved products intended to obstruct blood flow to treat vascular abnormalities, such as aneurysms, that occur in the brain as well as peripheral vessels.
Miles’ research includes the use of microwaves, nanosecond high voltage pulses, surface dielectric barrier discharges, electron beams, magnetohydrodynamic devices and lasers in driving and controlling aerodynamic phenomena; stand-off detection of explosives, hazardous gases and greenhouse gases by laser or microwave techniques; flow velocity measurement by laser ionization and molecular tagging; microwave and laser control of flame propagation, ignition and lean combustion operation; and development of advanced laser diagnostics for surfaces and for equilibrium and non-equilibrium gases and plasmas. Miles is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Fourteen current or past Texas A&M faculty members have been selected as NAI Fellows since the organization named its charter fellows in 2012.
The NAI Fellows program highlights academic inventors who have demonstrated a spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. Election to NAI Fellow is the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors. To date, NAI Fellows hold more than 42,700 issued U.S. patents, which have generated over 13,000 licensed technologies and companies, and created more than 36 million jobs. In addition, over $2.2 trillion in revenue has been generated based on NAI Fellow discoveries.
The class of fellows will be inducted at the 2021 Fellows Induction Ceremony at the Tenth Annual Meeting of the National Academy of Inventors in June in Tampa, Florida.