BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — For Dr. Daniela Faas, currently an Assistant Professor of the Practice Director of Fabrication and Laboratory Operations at Olin College in Needham, Mass. and a former researcher and instructor in mechanical engineering at both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the path to Massachusetts vectored through the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA).
A 2005 graduate of Bucknell University where she competed in both swimming and water polo,she was a swimming Academic All-America selection and set school records in the 500, 1000, and 1650-yard freestyle events during her four years at Bucknell. She was a four-time First Team All-Patriot League selection, claiming gold medals in the mile in 2002, the 400 individual medley in 2004, and 800 free relay in both 2003 and 2004. She was a part of two Patriot League championship swimming and diving teams and two others that were runner-up in the league.
After claiming Bucknell’s Margaret L. Bryan Award as the top two-sport athlete in the Class of 2004, she completed her undergraduate time in Lewisburg with bachelor degrees in Mechanical Engineering and International Relations prior to continuing on to achieve a masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from Bucknell (2006) along with dual doctorates in Mechanical Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction, at Iowa State University in 2010.
Previously a Shapiro postdoctoral fellow in MIT’s Mechanical Engineering Department and the senior preceptor in design instruction at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science at Harvard University, her current position at Olin provides the opportunity to teach courses in “Introduction to Mechanical Prototyping”, “Design for Manufacturing” and “Principles of Engineering”, among others, while conducting research in developing low cost immersive Virtual Reality applications for products and systems, early stage design process and methodology and engineering education.
A native of Germany, she moved to the United States as a teen. A high school student in the city of Ludwigshafen, Germany, Faas and her parents decided that a year of schooling in the US would be beneficial to her education in order to prepare her for the Abitur, Germany’s final exams that enable students to attend German universities. Faas’ acceptance to Worcester Academy in Massachusetts launched the beginning of her educational pursuit in America.
Learning the language on the fly, she performed well and earned a scholarship from Worcester to stay and finish her high school education.
Due to German colleges not accepting American high school diplomas, she graduate from Worcester in 2000 and advanced on to Bucknell. There she received a double degree in mechanical engineering and international relations in 2005 while competing as a member of the swimming and water polo teams.
Following her undergraduate studies, she completed her master’s in mechanical engineering in August 2006 also at Bucknell before picking up her doctorates at Iowa State in May 2010.
Her selection of Iowa State for grad school was beneficial to her interests in design, as ISU is a leader in virtual reality research and home to the Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC), where Faas completed research in computer-aided design (CAD) models.
Her dissertation, “A Hybrid Method of Haptic Feedback to Support Virtual Product Assembly,” involved many hours of research in the virtual reality labs. The project combined her knowledge of CAD with haptics, which are the application of devices, such as joysticks, that allow a user to feel feedback through his or her hands.
“The key research challenge was to allow users to assemble complex, low clearance CAD parts as they exist digitally without the need to create expensive physical prototypes,” explained Faas in an Iowa State alumni piece. “To do this, we had to develop the data structure and logic needed to switch between collision detection and constraint recognition while maintaining a haptic refresh rate of 1,000 hertz.”
The results of her research were used in an engineering framework for assembly simulation, training, and maintenance.
From Iowa State, Faas began a position as a postdoctoral associate in mechanical engineering at MIT, where her main focus was on teaching.
In 2010, she was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship from MIT and received the Spot Award for outstanding service to the Mechanical Engineering Department in the Spring of 2012.
While at MIT, she was a lab instructor for Measurement and Instrumentation, among her proudest appointments was teaching Design and Manufacturing I, the course Faas used as a resource for the Iowa State class she proudly developed. The class is known for its robotic design project and attracts large numbers of people for a final competition that occasionally airs on national TV.
Further, she investigated presence and immersive tendencies during early stage design at MIT’s International Design Center (IDC), which is the research portion of The Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).
Her successful teaching career then took her to Harvard University, where she was a Senior Preceptor in Design Instruction at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. In this role, she developed the design engineering component of the curriculum and developed relationships with external partners to attract real-world design projects. She also served as an instructor in the summer programs in Hong Kong and Harvard and was a mentor to undergraduates, including serving as a freshmen adviser. While at Harvard, Daniela was the principal instructor for computer-aided machine design and managed a teaching staff, course website maintenance, scheduling, facilities and software availability.
She was published in Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology in 2013 for her article on “Stress and Strain in Load Dependent Remodeling of the Embryonic Left Ventricle Assessed by Finite Element,” and in Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design for her research on the “Influence of Immersion and Presence in Early Stage Engineering Designing and Building.”
Possessing multiple peer-reviewed research projects, she was an invited seminar speaker for the Mechanical Engineering Department at Tufts University, as well as for the Society of Women Engineers and Mechanical Engineering Department at Iowa State.
She continues to give back to the engineering community by serving as an advisor and mentor for countless students at her respective universities and is a member of multiple engineering design and adviser committees.
In her “spare” time, she serves as a peer-reviewer for multiple conferences, is a member of the SWE Women in Academia Committee, on the Board of Visitors for Worcester Academia, and has served as a session chair for several conferences. She is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Member of the Society of Women Engineers and the America Society of Engineering Education.
Her success has not gone unnoticed by her undergraduate alma mater as she was presented with the 2017 Bucknell Alumni Achievement Award. The honor is presented annually to one male student-athlete alumnus and one female student-athlete alumna who have earned distinction in their professional careers. The award recognizes alumni for their leadership aptitude and contributions to their professions, while upholding the highest values of Bucknell Athletics.
From Germany to Lewisburg and on to faculty appointments at MIT, Harvard and Olin, Dr. Daniela Faas has engineered a course of success.
