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Ronald G. Kander, Ph.D. Professor & Director School of Engineering 540.568.8110 kanderrg@engr.jmu.edu Research Page

Education & Experience

• Professor & Director, School of Engineering, JMU (2007-present)
• Professor & Department Head, Integrated Science & Technology, JMU (2001-2007)
• Director, College of Engineering Green Engineering Program, Virginia Tech (1998-2001)
• Professor & Assistant Department Head, Materials Science & Engineering, Virginia Tech (2001)
• Associate Professor, Materials Science & Engineering, Virginia Tech (1995-2001)
• Assistant Professor, Materials Science & Engineering, Virginia Tech (1990-1995)
• Senior Engineer, E. I. DuPont, Polymer Physics Group (1986-1990)
• Research Engineer, E. I. DuPont, Composites Division (1984-1986)
• PhD, Chemical Engineering, University of Delaware (1987)
• BS, Chemical Engineering, Carnegie-Mellon University (1980)

Honors & Awards

• Governor’s Appointee to the Virginia New College Planning Commission (2006)
• Governor’s Appointee to the Virginia Hydrogen Economy Roundtable (2006)
• Governor’s Appointee to the Virginia Geographic Information Network Advisory Board (2002)
• Invited speaker at the 2000 Gordon Conference on Engineering Education, Plymouth, NH (2000)
• Recipient of the Virginia Tech Diggs Teaching Scholar Award (1999)
• Inductee into the Virginia Tech Academy of Teaching Excellence (1998)
• Recipient of the William E. Wine Award for Teaching Excellence (1998)
• Recipient of the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (1997)
• Invited speaker at the 1996 Gordon Conference on Thermoset Polymers, Plymouth, NH (1996)
• Recipient of the College of Engineering "Sporn Award" for undergraduate teaching excellence (1993)
• Invited speaker at the 1990 Gordon Conference on Composite Materials, Ventura, CA (1990)
• Recipient of the DuPont Director's Award for outstanding contribution to the Textile Fibers Department (1986)

Research Interests

• Rapid prototyping and rapid tooling/manufacturing technologies
• Polymer processing & manufacturability
• Polymeric materials mechanical and thermal characterization

Research Description

Professor Kander’s current work focuses on material and process development for rapid prototyping, tooling, and manufacturing technologies.  Under his supervision, the JMU Product Realization Laboratory (http://www.chpm.jmu.edu/index.html) provides state-of-the-art facilities to manufacture individual plastic or metal prototype parts, and small batch quantities of functional plastic injection molded parts.  The laboratory performs application and integration research on plastic part design, including computer aided design, rapid prototyping, injection molding, and post-process machining.

Professor Kander has supervised more than 30 graduate students (PhD and MS), published more than 50 articles, book chapters, and conference papers, and presented more than 75 invited lectures and conference presentations (including two invited Gordon Conference presentations). According to the Scopus Citation Index, his work has been cited more than 250 times.

Professor Kander has secured in excess of 5 million dollars in funded research, more than half of which is from industrial sources. In addition to his academic teaching and research responsibilities, he is active in industrial consulting and in teaching industrial short courses. Since arriving at JMU, Professor Kander was co-principle investigator on a grant awarded by the Commonwealth Technology Research Fund (CTRF) for the formation of a “Center for High Performance Manufacturing” (CHPM). The goal of CHPM is to strengthen and coordinate the ties between Virginia’s manufacturing industries and the technical resources that exist at Virginia Tech and James Madison University.

Selected Recent Publications

• Vick, L.W., Kander, R.G., “Pressureless Sintering of Polycarbonate Powder Compacted at Ambient Temperature” (2005) Polymer Engineering and Science.
• Clark, R.L., Giunta, R.K., Craven, M.D., Chen, B., Kander, R.G., Dillard, D.A., Applications of the Notched Coating Adhesion Test” (2004) J Adhesion.
• Martin, J.P., Kander, R.G., “Mechanical properties of a cryogenically mechanically alloyed polycarbonate-poly(arylether ether ketone) system” (2003) Journal of Applied Polymer Science, 88 (5), pp. 1196-1202.
• Martin, J.P., McCartney, S.R., Kander, R.G., “An investigation of the microstructure of a cryogenically mechanically alloyed polycarbonate-poly(aryl ether ether ketone) system (2003) Journal of Materials Science, 38 (2), pp. 195-200.
• Giunta, R.K., Kander, R.G., “Accelerated aging of polyimide/titanium adhesive bonds using the notched coating adhesion test (2002) Polymer Engineering and Science, 42 (8), pp. 1789-1797.
• Clay, S.B., Kander, R.G., “Measurement of the residual mechanical properties of crazed polycarbonate. I: Qualitative analysis (2002) Polymer Engineering and Science, 42 (1), pp. 182-190.
• Clay, S.B., Kander, R.G., “Measurement of the residual mechanical properties of crazed polycarbonate. II: Design of experiments analysis (2002) Polymer Engineering and Science, 42 (1), pp. 191-202.
• Giunta, R.K., Kander, R.G., “Failure surface analysis of polyimide/titanium notched coating Adhesion specimens” (2001) Journal of Adhesion, 77 (3), pp. 183-214.

Last Modified: 07/24/08