Paul Davidson is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His career spans both private and public sector institutions. Before becoming a faculty member University of Texas at Arlington, Dr. Davidson was an Assistant Research Scientist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a Post Doctoral Fellow at the University of Washington. In addition, he worked as an engineer in the Product Development and Research divisions of Visteon Global, Modine Thermal Systems, and General Electric Global Research Center. Dr. Davidson's research interests lie in the intersection of advanced computational methods, data analytics, and inspection methods with applications in advanced manufacturing, in-service maintenance, and aviation safety. Experimental, computational, and theoretical mechanics form the basis for many research activities.
Margherita Capriotti received her Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from the University of California San Diego after graduating with her B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Parma (Italy). She has been a postdoctoral Research Fellow at Mayo Clinic and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at San Diego State University. Dr. Capriotti's research focuses on nondestructive evaluation techniques, mainly ultrasonic and infrared, for aerospace composite structures. She investigates thermal and elastic wave propagation for structural assessment, combining computational and experimental research.
Ranatunga is a Technical Advisor at the Air Force Research Laboratory at the Wright Patterson AFB and works in fields of computational and experimental solid mechanics. He works with the development of computational methods for modeling progressive failure and damage in composites, testing and analysis work related to certification of composite aircraft structures, and developing damage tolerant aircraft structures.