Three UConn engineering faculty were inducted into the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE) on May 22 during a gala event held at Quinnipiac University in Hamden. Drs. Thomas Barber, Wilson K. S. Chiu and Mei Wei are among 33 new members who were elected in the 2013 class, which also includes five other faculty members from the University of Connecticut.  In addition, alumnus Dr. Anthony DeMaria (B.S. ‘56, Ph.D. ‘65) received the 2013 CASE Distinguished Service Award for his enduring contributions to the Academy as a charter member, fourth president and past-president. 

Dr. Barber has served as a professor-in-residence in the Mechanical Engineering Department since joining UConn in 2000.  He enjoyed a distinguished career with Pratt & Whitney and the United Technologies Research Center prior to joining UConn.  Dr. Barber is an Associate Fellow of AIAA and a member of ASME, and he has served as an Associate Editor of the AIAA Journal for Propulsion and Power.  His induction into CASE recognizes his contributions to computational fluid mechanics, his leadership in expanding and managing the professional Master of Engineering (MENG) degree program and oversight and expansion of the Mechanical Engineering senior design program. 

Dr. Chiu is a professor of Mechanical Engineering who is recognized for his pioneering work in heat and mass transfer, including his development of new approaches to understanding micro- and nano-structure induced transport phenomena in energy, photonics and semiconductor materials.  Dr. Chiu’s honors include the Rutgers University School of Engineering Medal of Excellence Award for Distinguished Young Alumni, the ASME Bergles-Rohsenow Young Investigator Award in Heat Transfer, the U.S. Army Research Office Young Investigator Award, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award.  He is an Associate Editor of the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer and the International Journal of Thermal Sciences.

Dr. Wei is a professor of Materials Science & Engineering and the newly appointed Associate Dean for Research & Graduate Education for the School of Engineering. Dr. Wei has established a world renowned research program in the areas of biomaterials and tissue engineering. She has collaborated extensively with researchers at the UConn Health Center (UCHC) on groundbreaking bone regeneration and scaffolding studies. Dr. Wei’s honors include the 2007 Connecticut Women of Innovation’s Academic Innovation and Leadership Award in recognition of her contributions in the field of biomaterials.

Dr. DeMaria has served as a Distinguished Professor-in-Residence in the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department since 2003.  He founded, and served as chairman and CEO, of DEOS (Bloomfield, CT), a leading manufacturer of sealed-off, RF excited waveguide CO₂ lasers for industrial and governmental applications, which was purchased in 2001 by Coherent, Inc. He remained Chief Scientist until his retirement in 2012. 

Dr. DeMaria is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering (1976) and the National Academy of Science (1997) for his pioneering development of picosecond laser pulse physics.  He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and IEEE, and a Fellow and past president of the Optical Society of America and SPIE.  In 2004, he received the Connecticut Medal of Technology, and in 1984 he was awarded the IEEE Centennial Medal.