External Advisory Board

Erik Antonsson (BS '76 ME Cornell University; PhD '82 ME MIT)
Dr. Antonsson is Director of Research at Northrup Grumman Aerospace Systems. From 1984 through 2009, he was a member of the faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Caltech where he organized the Engineering Design Research Laboratory and served as Executive Officer. He also started the ME 72 Design Competition which has grown into the anchor course of the undergraduate program and an important event on campus. He served as the Chief Technologist of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory during 2002-06.

Lon Bell (BS '62 MA; MS '63, PhD '68 ME)
Dr. Bell president of BSST and founder of its parent, Amerigon, Inc, developer of solid state, energy efficient products based on thermoelectric technologies. He is also a co-founder of the Mahindra REVA electric car company that manufactures battery powered vehicles for zero emission and energy efficient transport in congested urban environments. Marketed as REVA L-ion in Europe and Asia, REVA is a pioneering the introduction of electric vehicles. Previously, Dr. Bell founded Technar, subsequently purchased by TRW, which developed and manufactured crash sensors for automotive air bag systems.

Ross Brown (BS '56 ME; MS '57 ME)
Mr. Brown is Chairman of the Cryogenic Industries group of companies, a worldwide network of companies that offers manufacturing, marketing and service support to industrial gas, petrochemical and new energy companies.

Bill Gross (BS '80 EAS ME)
Mr. Gross is a Trustee at the California Institute of Technology. He is also chairman and founder of Idealab, an entrepreneurial “incubator” based in Pasadena. Bill's stated mission with the organization is to create and operate pioneering technology companies. In recent years, Idealab has focused on solar thermal and other energy technologies.

Jim Hall (BS '57 ME)
Mr. Hall is a legendary race-car designer who pioneered the use of aerodynamics in race cars. He founded Chaparral Cars which led the field in innovations in the 1960s and 1970s, and enjoyed wide success including winning the 1978 and 1980 Indianapolis 500. Mr. Hall also drove competitively in the Formula 1 and Sports Racing Car circuits in the 1960s, winning the U. S. Road Race Championship in 1964. He now resides in Midland Texas, and is active in the oil and gas business.

Douglas Hart (PhD '93 ME)
Dr. Hart has been a professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT since 1993, and is also the founder of Lantos Technologies, a start-up that has developed a 3-D scanner that it hopes will streamline the current generation of earphones and hearing aids by precisely fitting them to the dimensions of the ear canal. In 2003, Dr. Hart co-founded Brontes Technologies. Dr. Hart received his B.S in Aero/Astro Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, S.M. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, and his PhD from Caltech in Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Douglas Hart received the 2001 Robert T. Knapp Award, as well as the Keenan Award for Innovation in Undergraduate Education, and the Junior Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching.

S.L. Huang (MS '69, PhD '76 ME)
Dr. Huang is an entrepreneur in real estate based in Orange County, CA. He is an active community volunteer including serving on the boards of Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana and Caltech Associates.

Chris Jones (MS '69 AE University of Southern California)
Mr. Jones is Associate Director for Flight Projects and Mission Success at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Prior to his current assignment Chris was Director for Solar System Exploration. He has contributed to the systems engineering of many JPL missions beginning with Mariner ‘71 and has managed the Spacecraft Engineering and Guidance and Control sections. His technical interests lie in fault tolerant autonomous systems.

Ann Karagozian (PhD '82 ME)
Dr. Karagozian is Caltech's first female PhD in Mechanical Engineering. She is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UCLA. Her research interests lie in fluid mechanics and combustion, with applications in propulsion and energy systems. Professor Karagozian is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She is also the current Chair of the UCLA Academic Senate, the Chair-Elect of the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics, and is completing Chairmanship of an Air Force Scientific Advisory Board study on the Future of Launch Vehicles.

Imran Kizilbash (BS '89 EAS, MS '89 ME)
Mr. Kizilbash is currently the Corporate Financial Controller and Head of Mergers & Acquisitions for Schlumberger Limited and is based in Paris. Prior to that, he has held senior management positions as President Reservoir Characterization Group, President of Middle East & Asia and President of Drilling and Measurements. He joined Schlumberger as a Wireline and Testing Field Engineer in 1989 and held numerous operations, management, marketing and personnel positions for the company in the United States, Europe, Middle East and Far East before assuming his current position in 2009.

Ken Pickar (BS '61 City University of N.Y.; PhD '66 University of Pennsylvania)
Dr. Pickar is a Visiting Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Caltech. After a career spanning Bell Labs, GE Corporate Research and Allied Signal as Senior Vice-President, he has been teaching courses at the junction of science, engineering and business at Caltech since 1998. He also serves on a number of corporate and non-profit boards.

Garrett Reisman (MS '92 ME, PhD '97 ME)
Dr. Reisman has been a member of NASA's astronaut corps since 1998. He spent three months aboard the International Space Station launching with the STS-123 crew aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on March 11, 2008 and returned to Earth with the crew of STS-124 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on June 14, 2008. On May 14, 2010, Dr. Reisman boarded Atlantis for his second trip to the International Space Station on Space Shuttle Mission 132. During both flights, he conducted three spacewalks totaling more than 21 hours.

Craig SanPietro (BS '68 EAS, MS '69 ME)
Craig is the co-owner and retired President of Craden Peripherals Corp. that he founded in 1978. Craden has designed and built more than 100,000 computer printers for document printing by banks and governments in 65 countries. He is currently implementing the mechanical and hydraulic restoration of an 1830's gristmill.

Thomas J. Tyson (BS '54 ME, PhD '67 AE)
Dr. Tyson is retired CEO of GE Energy & Environmental Research Corporation which he co-founded in 1977 and which was acquired by General Electric in 1999. The company developed technologies for the control of combustion generated air pollution from conventional and advanced power systems. He is a member of the Visiting Committee for the E&AS Division and also serves on the Advisory Board for GALCIT. Prior to forming EER Tyson's work was in aerospace with a focus on nuclear engineering, high speed aerodynamics, and propulsion systems. He received a MS degree in nuclear engineering from UC Berkeley in 1958.