Jose Granda
Professor of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering and Computer Science

Hometown: Davis, Calif.                                                        

Area of expertise:
Modeling and simulation of mechatronics systems, vehicle design, guidance and control of space vehicles, finite element modeling, failure analysis and vibrations.                                   

Educational background:                                                  
Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from UC Davis, a master’s in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley and a master’s and bachelors in mechanical engineering from the National Polytechnic School, Quito, Ecuador.

What’s on your mp3:
Salsa music and romantic songs.

Favorite book (or last read):
Failure Is Not an Option by Gene Kranz, who was the Mission Control flight director for the Apollo program that landed man on the moon. His book is about the success and failures of NASA’s space program and how to get back and conquer having learned from our mistakes. The title itself states the message if the U.S was to land a man on the moon. I see this as a message for me and my engineering students on how to be engineers.

Favorite city to visit:
Vienna, Austria.  There is so much history, so much art, so much to see and learn. It is a city that mixes the old origins of European societies and royalties with the new living in modern society.

Who most influenced you to become a teacher:
I believe my math teacher in my senior year in high school and my physics teacher in my freshman year in college were an inspiration for me to become an engineer and later to become a professor.