Testimonial

John Siegel

[Ph.D. ME 1994]
CFD Research Corporation (CFDRC)
Huntsville, Alabama

After receiving an M.S. and a Ph.D. from the Woodruff School, I joined CFDRC as a Project Engineer in the bio-mechanical engineering group. My graduate experience at the Woodruff School fed directly into this career. The initial projects I worked on required technical expertise in computational fluid dynamics, bioengineering, and technical writing skills.

I was able to be highly productive in all these areas immediately because I was prepared with the technical knowledge, while the various journal articles and abstracts that I prepared in graduate school gave me a strong technical writing base. My advancement at CFDRC depended upon bringing in projects of my own through corporate and/or government funding mechanisms.

During graduate school, I won a Whitaker Foundation Fellowship. In addition, my advisor, Dr. David Ku, involved his students in the grant application process. These experiences enabled me to write effective proposals, which have resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding for my research. I have progressed from a Project Engineer to a Senior Engineer, to my current position of Group Leader in the space of three years, and I think that the instruction and guidance provided by the Woodruff School were a significant part of this success.

The major strength of the graduate program at Georgia Tech is the faculty. During day-to-day research activities, I had one 'primary' mentor - my advisor. However, I found that all my instructors were willing to go the extra mile. This meant that I effectively had multiple advisors, which greatly accelerated my learning curve.

The faculty and student body are top quality. I understand that the laboratory space in the Coon Building is undergoing major renovations, and a new bioengineering center is being built.