Rebecca Taylor
Courtesy Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Bio
I am a mechanical engineer who specializes in modern manufacturing, and throughout my career I have been driven by the interplay of form and function in good design. As an undergraduate working on a research project on tethered satellites, I discovered the world of honeycomb composite materials and porous sintered polymers. That is where I first learned that mechanical structure could imbue materials with novel and unexpected properties. After college, while working as mechanical design engineer, I practiced mechanical device design for reliability and ease of manufacture, working as the primary engineer on both medical products and consumer products. I developed my expertise in rapid prototyping and the broad range of techniques for molding and fabrication as well as factory control and automation. The interplay between medical tools and biological systems formed the foundation of my interest in research, and that interest drew me back to academia.