Research Interests:
Primary: Invention, design, fabrication, modeling and optimization of micro electromechanical systems (MEMS): harsh environment sensors, micro thermal heat management devices for integrated circuits, micro power generation devices, micro and nano resonators for RF communication, micro fluidic systems for drug delivery, micro inertial instruments, micro information storage systems and nanoimprinted sensors & electronics. Secondary: Optimal mechanical design. Kinematics and dynamics of machines.
Professor Pisano has authored or co-authored over 200 refereed publications and has graduated in excess of 35 Ph. D. students and 65 Masters students from the University of California, Berkeley in his 26-year career. Professor Pisano frequently serves as a consultant to industry managers, academic administrators, engineering society managers and government policymakers on the issues of MEMS research, design, application and commercialization. Professor Pisano is inventor or co-inventor of more than 20 patents.
Served as the Faculty Head of the Program Office for Operational Excellence (http://oe.berkeley.edu) at UC Berkeley. Previous to this position, he served as the Acting Dean of the College of Engineering. He is also a Director of the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (BSAC) and has recently completed six years as Professor and Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, having been appointed Chair in July 2004. He joined the University of California in 1983. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2001. A member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, he was elected to Fellow status in 2004. In 2008, he was named among the “100 Notable People” by the Medical Devices and Diagnostic Industry (MD&DI) Magazine. In Mechanical Engineering, Professor Pisano holds the FANUC Chair of Mechanical Systems in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, with a joint appointment to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He has previously served as Director of the Electronics Research Laboratory, the largest organized research unit on the UC Berkeley campus (with over $73 million in research funds each year). Professor Pisano received his B.S. (1976), M.S. (1977) and Ph.D. (1981) degrees from Columbia University in the City of New York in Mechanical Engineering. Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, he held research positions with Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Singer Sewing Machines Corporate R&D Center and General Motors Research Labs. From 1997-1999, he served as Program Manager for the MEMS program at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, VA, where he expanded the MEMS research portfolio to 83 contracts awarded nationwide with a total MEMS research expenditure in excess of $168 million distributed over 3 fiscal years. His research interests and activities at UC Berkeley include MEMS for a wide variety of applications, including RF components, power generation, drug delivery, strain sensors, biosensors, micro inertial instruments, disk-drive actuators and nanoimprinted sensors & circuits. Professor Pisano is the co-inventor of more than 20 patents in MEMS and has authored or co-authored more than 200 archival publications. Since 1983 he has graduated over 35 Ph.D. and 65 MS students. He is a founder in six start-up companies in the areas of transdermal drug delivery, transvascular drug delivery, sensorized catheters, MEMS manufacturing equipment, MEMS RF devices and MEMS motion sensors.