Thomas W. Secord
Engineering
University of Saint Thomas Saint Paul
United States of America
Biography
Tom joined the full-time faculty as an assistant professor in the fall of 2016. Prior to joining St. Thomas, he spent six years at Medtronic working on the development and testing of bio-prosthetic trans-catheter heart valves. His work at Medtronic encompassed many aspects of structural design, accelerated testing, and regulatory approval for implantable devices.Before entering industry, Tom completed his graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. His doctoral research focused on the design of smart material actuators for robotics. Tom is the author of several peer reviewed publications, a book chapter, and numerous conference papers. He received the Best Paper Award from the IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems and was a Best Automation Paper Award finalist at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. His current research interests are centered on overcoming actuator performance boundaries at the intersection of robotics and medical devices.
Research Interest
Dynamics and control of mechanical systems, medical robotics, smart materials and actuators
Publications
-
Ueda J, Secord TW, Asada HH. Large effective-strain piezoelectric actuators using nested cellular architecture with exponential strain amplification mechanisms. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics. 2010 Oct;15(5):770-82.
-
Secord TW, Asada HH. A variable stiffness PZT actuator having tunable resonant frequencies. IEEE Transactions on Robotics. 2010 Dec;26(6):993-1005.
-
Secord TW, Mantell SC, Stelson KA. Scaling Analysis and a Critical Thickness Criterion for Thermosetting Composites. Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering. 2011 Feb 1;133(1):011005.
