Jonathan Bender

I have a passion for preparing our engineering students to become productive contributors and leaders throughout their STEM careers. I have spent over two decades as an individual contributor through R&D Director in research and product development in the petroleum, chemical, and energy sectors. My expertise is in lubrication, friction and wear, colloidal suspensions, and in the study of friction and wear at the level of a single asperity, called nanotribology. Understanding friction and surface deformation under mechanical stress is important to reducing power losses in the transportation industry, as well as understanding how crickets chirp, violins sing, and sneakers squeak. I also have a strong interest in our ongoing energy transformation as we transition our economy from relying on below-ground carbon sources of energy to above-ground renewable sources in a responsible way. Solutions are non-trivial and will change the way we live in exciting ways.