Originally published on Advanced Materials and Processes in October 2024.
SMST Announces New Officers and Members
The Shape Memory & Superelastic Technologies (SMST) board, at the recommendation of the SMST Awards and Nominations Committee, named three reappointed officers, Ashley Bucsek as president, Srinidhi Nagaraja as vice president/finance officer and Othmane Benafan, FASM, as immediate past president to serve on the SMST Board for the 2024-2026 term.
New members to serve on the SMST Board for the 2024-2027 term are Burkhard Maaß, CEO/CTO, Ingpuls GmbH, Germany, and Scott Robertson, vice president – Nitinol Technology, Resonetics, Calif., and Mohammad Reza Farahani, University of Minnesota, to serve as Student Board Member for a one-year term 2024-2025.
Continuing as members are Frederick Calkins, Tom Duerig, FASM, Max Launey, Eric Lehuta, William LePage, Paul Motzki, and Martin Wagner. Retiring from the board are Timofei Chekalkin, Andreas Undisz, Eathan Devine, and Parikshith Kumar (conference co-chair).
Alan Pelton and Darel Hodgson will continue to be advisors on the board.
About Scott Robertson
Scott Robertson is the vice president of Nitinol Technology at Resonetics. He has over 20 years of research and engineering experience focused on the manufacturing, design, testing, and FDA regulatory submission of Nitinol medical devices with companies ranging in size from small start-ups to major medical device corporations. He has over 40 peer-reviewed publications, patents, and patent applications in the field of medical devices.
Prior to joining Resonetics in 2023, Robertson was vice president of Mechanical Engineering & Design at Adona Medical, a Shifamed-incubated company, where he developed a novel shape-memory adjustable interatrial shunt and remote pressure sensing system for the monitoring and alleviation of heart failure.
Previously, he led Medtronic’s Structural Heart Valve Frame Design Team, where he was responsible for ongoing sustaining engineering activities on legacy heart valves as well as the design and development of next-generation devices. Prior to co-founding Fathom Engineering, Robertson’s consulting services firm focused on medical device development, he spent seven years at Nitinol Devices & Components (NDC), now Confluent Medical, where he served a variety of roles, including general manager of the Materials Business Unit and Engineering Fellow.
Robertson has both doctoral and master’s degrees in materials science and engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, in addition to a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.