Our People

Master of Science in Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University
Visiting Scholar, Biomechanics group, Mechanical Engineering Department, Stanford University
Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Cornell University

Mr. Rapperport is President of Rapperport Associates, Inc. and has been with the firm since 1987.  Mr. Rapperport’s background in both mechanical engineering and materials science is ideal for failure analysis, accident reconstruction and fire investigation.  The firm has been engaged on well over 1,000 assignments since inception in 1974.  He has been retained on many catastrophic, large loss projects including the Malden Mills fire, Big Dig tunnel ceiling panel collapse, and the Bernat Mills fire (see selected case summaries).

Mr. Rapperport is certified by examination by the National Fire Protection Association and the National Association of Fire Investigators.  He has conducted many fire investigations over the last 20 years and was selected to be on the primary investigative team in the Malden Mills fire investigation by the State Fire Marshal. 

Mr. Rapperport was a research assistant then visiting scholar at Stanford University in the biomechanics group of the Mechanical Engineering Department for three years.  He conducted stress analyses of the human hip joint with and without total hip replacement, published three peer reviewed papers and presented the results at an international biomechanics conference in Davos, Switzerland.

Areas of competency:  Finite element stress analysis, fracture mechanics, fatigue, failure analysis, fire and explosion analysis, biomechanics, mechanical behavior and testing of materials, structural design and analysis. 

Doctorate in Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Master of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT
Bachelor of Engineering (Honors) in Systems Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical and Aeronautics, University of Pretoria
Bachelor of Science (Honors) in Applied Mathematics, University of the Orange Free State, South Africa
Principle engineer and program manager on many DOD, NASA and commercial development programs.  Experience with the selection, use and testing of advanced aerospace materials
Taught advanced courses in the M.I.T.’s Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering Department
Senior Member of AIAA, author of many journal articles and recipient of professional awards

Professional Experience

2005 - Midé Technology Corporation, Medford, MA – CTO/CEO
1989 – 2005 Midé Technology Corporation, Medford, MA - President
2006 - 2008 M.I.T. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics – Lecturer
1992 – 2003 M.I.T. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics - Lecturer and Visiting Professor
1991 Full Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering of the University of Pretoria, South Africa – Automotive Engineering chair
1978 – 1987 Kentron Aerospace, Pretoria, South Africa – System Engineer and Head of the Structures and Materials Division

Areas of competency include: Computational fluid dynamics, structural analysis, vibration analysis, finite element stress analysis.

Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, U.C.L.A.

Dr. Eischen is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at North Carolina State University.  Current areas of research: Linear and nonlinear finite element analysis, multi-body kinematics, dynamics and control, stress analysis of microelectronic devices.  He has published over 50 refereed journal articles. 

Teaching:   Mechanics of Solids, Strength of Mechanical Components, Machine Component Design, Fracture Mechanics, Advanced Computational Methods in Nonlinear Structural Dynamics, Advanced Machine Design I and II.

Areas of competency:  Fracture mechanics, fatigue, finite element stress analysis, failure analysis, structural design and analysis, mechanical behavior and testing of materials.

Experience:

NC State University - Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, 1991-Present.
NC State University - Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, 1986-1991.
Failure Analysis Associates - Mechanical Engineer. Responsible for projects concerning analysis and prevention of industrial equipment failures, 1978-1986.

Doctorate in Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University
Master of Science in Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University
Bachelor of Science in Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dr. Bigoney is an expert on a wide variety of materials, metals and processes and has written fifty scientific publications and authored four book chapters. She has published seven articles on corrosion of metals and alloys including:

Fatigue Crack Growth of Titanium Alloys, ASM Handbook Vol. 19: Fatigue and Fracture, A.C. Ruffin, ed., ASM International, Metals Park, OH, 1966
Fatigue Crack Propagation in Titanium Alloys, Chapter 8 in Handbook of Fatigue Crack Propagation in Metallic Structures, A. Carpinteri, ed., Elsevier Science B.V., The Netherlands, 1994
Surface Performance of Titanium, J.K. Gregory, H.J. Rack, D. Eylon, eds, TMS, Warrendale, PA, 1997.

Following her doctorate, she actively performed research on corrosion fatigue crack growth in titanium and steels for offshore applications at the GKSS Research Center in Germany. In 1995 she became an Associate Professor for Metallic Materials at the University of Halle, and in 1996 she became a Chaired Professor for Materials in Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Munich. Her research areas included fatigue and fracture of engineering materials. While there she was awarded the Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz Research Award of the German Research Society (DFG) in 1999. She served on the Advisory Board for the Max-Planck-Institute for Metal Science in Stuttgart from 1997-2002. Prof. Bigoney spent a month in Malaysia as an expert assisting the failure analysis group at SIRIM in 1999.

Since starting her own consultancy firm in the US, she has assisted industrial companies in solving problems with corrosion of residential valves, quality issues with brass sprinkler systems, and performed work on insurance claims for fire and water damage. Dr. Bigoney served as a member of the jury for the BMW Scientific Award from 2000-2007 and on the ASM Technical Books Committee from 2004-2007. She is currently a Technical Reviewer for the SBIR/STTR program of the National Science Foundation.

Science Doctorate in Chemical Metallurgy, MIT
Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering, Tufts University
Research Associate/Principal Investigator, MIT since 1989

Department of Material Science and Engineering - process development research, plasma smelting of ferro‑chromium, ferro-silicon, silicon metal, iron, and titanium technical program management, joining technologies, and failure analysis.

Areas of competency:  Failure Analysis, Fractography, Scanning Electron Microscopy

Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering, Northeastern University, Master of Science in Mechanical and Aerospace Sciences, University of Rochester and Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering, Cooper Union.
Professor Emeritus, Fire Protection Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts.
Principal investigator on research projects involving special fire and explosion hazards and protection methods.

Selected book publications include:

Industrial Fire Protection Engineering, John Wiley & Sons, March 2003
Explosion Protection chapter in Society of Fire Protection Engineers Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering; 1st Ed, 1988, 2nd  Ed, 1996, 3rd Ed, 2002
Explosions chapter in Fire Protection Handbook, National Fire Protection Association, January 2003.

EXPERIENCE

1998 - Principal, Firexplo.
Dr. Zalosh has been providing consultation on fire and explosion hazards and appropriate protection measures in industrial facilities, tunnels, vehicles, and aircraft.  He has also participated in numerous industrial fire and explosion investigations, and has provided expert witness services in the litigation stemming from those investigations. The hazards and incidents include flammable gas and combustible dust explosions, combustible powder self-heating fires, combustible liquid hazards, warehouse storage fires, and vehicle and aircraft fuel tank fires and explosions.
2006 - Professor Emeritus, Fire Protection Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
1990-2006 Professor, Fire Protection Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts. Tenured 1996.

Teaching graduate courses in Industrial Fire Protection, Explosion Protection, and Process Safety Management. M.S. and Ph.D. Thesis Advisor for 2-3 graduate students.

Research on special fire and explosion hazards encountered in industrial facilities and in transportation environments such as roadway tunnels. Research on special fire and explosion suppression systems for flammable liquids and vapors, and combustible dusts.

2001: Sabbatical Appointment at the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Evaluation Board assisting the Board and staff on incident investigations and generic issues such as chemical reactivity hazards.

1980-90: Adjunct Associate Professor, Taught evening courses in Risk Evaluation, Fire Dynamics and Industrial Fire Protection.
1975-90 Factory Mutual Research Corporation, Norwood, Massachusetts.
1975-82: Senior Research Scientist.
1978-82: Manager, Explosion Research Section.
1982-87: Assistant Manager, Applied Research Department
1987-90: Manager Applied Research Department. Assistant Vice President, FMRC. Responsible for managing a department with approximately 30 scientists, engineers and technicians engaged in research on fire and explosion protection.
1970-75 Mt. Auburn Research Associates, Cambridge, MA
Senior Scientist: Conducted computational fluid dynamics calculations of sonic boom propagation, nuclear detonation fireball and shockwave propagation; oil slick containment instabilities; low-speed wind tunnel testing.
1967-70 Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts. Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering.  Taught courses in fluid mechanics, rigid body dynamics and laboratory techniques.
1966-67 Avco Corporation, Space Systems Division, Wilmington, Massachusetts. Associate Scientist. Numerical investigations of chemically reacting flow fields, including hypersonic boundary layers and wakes associated with a missile re-entering the atmosphere.

APPOINTMENTS

National Research Council, Energy Engineering Board, Committee on Hydrogen Combustion, 1985-87.
National Research Council, Building Research Board, Committee on Risk Appraisal in Facilities Design, 1988-90.
Department of Energy, Hydrogen Technical Advisory Panel established by Congressional Act to advise DOE on the production, distribution, and utilization of large quantities of hydrogen as a clean burning fuel. 1992-99.
Federal Aviation Administration, Task Group on Aircraft Fuel Tank Explosions established to advise the FAA on methods for evaluating and mitigating the risk of explosions in aircraft fuel tanks, 1998.
Editorial Review Board, Fire Technology, 1991-1999.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advisory Committee for Reactor Safeguards, Fire Protection Subcommittee, 1995 - 97.
Underwriters Laboratories Inc. Fire Council, 1998-.
U.S. Chemical Safety Board, Faculty Sabbatical Appointment, 2001.
Fellow, Society of Fire Protection Engineers, 2001.
National Fire Protection Research Foundation Board of Trustees, 2003-
WPI Teaching Technology Fellow, 2003-2005.
U.S. Department of Energy Hydrogen Safety Panel, 2004-.
European Commission Hydrogen Safety Summer School Keynote Lecturer, 2006-.

Underwriters Laboratories Standards Technical Panel 60079, Electrical Equipment For Use In Class I, Zone 0, 1, and 2 Hazardous (Classified) Locations, 2007-

Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering with concentration in combustion, University of California, Berkeley
Master of Science in Fire Protection Engineering, Worchester Polytechnic Institute
Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Worchester Polytechnic Institute

Chris Lautenberger received an MS in Fire Protection Engineering from WPI in 2002 with a thesis related to computational fluid dynamics modeling of flames, and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California Berkeley in 2007 with a dissertation related to modeling how combustible solids burn. Before joining Reax Engineering in 2008, his work experience included building code consulting and performance-based design at Arup Fire (San Francisco, California) and Code Consultants, Inc. (St. Louis, Missouri), and fire litigation support as a freelance consultant. Dr. Lautenberger is a licensed Fire Protection Engineer in the State of California, making him one of the few fire experts that understands both real world fire protection engineering design and highly technical details of fire dynamics.

Dr. Lautenberger's primary area of expertise is computer fire modeling. He is one of the leading fire experts in the rapidly growing field of fire growth modeling (sometimes called flame spread modeling or fire spread modeling) where computers are used to reconstruct fires or predict how a fire grow and spread. He has published several journal and conference papers on different aspects of fire modeling, including material property estimation for combustible solids, pyrolysis modeling, ignition of solid combustibles, and computational fluid dynamics modeling of soot formation/oxidation and flame radiation in laminar and turbulent diffusion flames.

As part of his PhD dissertation, Dr. Lautenberger developed pioneering methods for material property estimation of combustible solids, one of the most challenging aspects of fire growth modeling.  Dr. Lautenberger was recently invited to participate as a panel member, alongside several other international fire experts, at the Fire Spread Modeling Workshop held at the 9th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science, the largest and most prestigious international fire conference.

Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley

David Rich received a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California Berkeley in 2006, with a NASA sponsored dissertation related to ignition of solid fuels in the microgravity conditions found on spacecraft. Dr. Rich worked as a fire protection engineer at Arup Fire in San Francisco and is currently an adjunct professor at Santa Clara University (California) where he taught Fluid Mechanics (Fall 2008), is currently (Spring 2009) teaching a graduate class in combustion, and will (Summer 2009) teach a graduate class in fire dynamics.

Dr. Rich is a fire expert with comprehensive experience in the fire testing laboratory and with the complex analysis and modeling tools in use today. Although he routinely uses modeling and analysis to answer questions related to fire litigation, his primary area of expertise is development of experimental platforms for the study of fire phenomena such as igniton and flame spread. Dr. Rich is an expert in infrared (IR) thermography, particle image velocimetry (PIV), planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF), gas chromatography, Schlieren interferometry, mass loss rate measurement during pyrolysis and combustion, heat release rate measurement by oxygen consumption calorimetry, high speed video, and in-situ gas sampling.

Science Doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (GPA 5.0/5.0)
Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Bachelor of Engineering (First Class Honors), University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Areas of competency include power engineering, power electronics, analog and digital circuit design, system and control design with analog and microprocessor based implementation as well as materials and reliability.  Dr. Casey has a strong background in electro-mechanics and materials/device physics, particularly as related to power and energy.

Dr. Casey is the Chief Technology Officer of SatCon Technology Corporation, an advanced electronics company focused on Grid Support, Hybrid Electronic Vehicles and Alternative Energy serving the commercial and defense markets.

Dr. Casey taught a variety of undergraduate courses at Massachusetts Institute of Technology including basic circuit theory, statistical mechanics, electro-magnetics, semiconductor device physics, transistor amplifier design and graduate classes in Power Electronics and Advanced Circuit Design Techniques.

He has received numerous awards including:

•  Goodfellow Prize for top Engineering Student, University of Auckland (1980)
• Fulbright Scholarship (1984)
• MIT Electrical Engineering Department F.C. Hennie Teaching award (1984).

Appointed MIT Department Instructor in Electrical Engineering (1985).

Bachelor of Industrial Design, Syracuse University
Philadelphia College of Art, Industrial Design Program
Principal of Drake Exhibits since 1980 providing demonstrative evidence design and production services.

• Accident scene documentation and reconstruction
• Evidence documentation
• 3D CAD modeling and 2D CAD drafting
• Design and production of graphics and scale models.

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Doctorate in Physical Chemistry; Boston College
Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering, Northeastern University
Expertise in failure analysis, deformulation (reverse  engineering) and quality control of products, adhesive bonding, durability of composite materials, environmental testing and chemical analysis.

Fifty five articles published in international journals and technical reports. Subjects include the following: environmental durability, failure analysis, quality assurance, product development, chemical analysis, polymers, adhesives, coatings and composites.

Society of Plastic Engineers, Planning Committee, American Institute of Chemical Engineers National Materials Advisory Board Society of Applied Material and Process Engineers. 

Medical Doctorate, Boston University
Bachelor of Arts, University of Berkeley

Currently Associate Radiologist-in-Chief Tufts Medical Center and Associate Professor, Department of Radiology, Tufts University School of Medicine.

Partial List of Past Positions:

• President of the Medical  Staff, Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center, Santa Rosa, CA
• Chair, Department of Medical Imaging, Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center, Santa Rosa, CA
• Radiologist, New England Medical Center Hospitals, Boston, MA
• Radiologist, Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, Boston, MA.  Various positions included:
•  President, Medical Staff – elected twice)
• Chair, Medical Executive Committee
• Chief, Department of Radiology

PhD – Engineering Science, University of California, San Diego, 1975
MS – Engineering Science, University of California, San Diego, 1973
Dr. Eng – Aeronautical Engineering, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain, 1979
Eng – Aeronautical Engineering, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain, 1968
Dr. Carlos Fernandez-Pello is an internationally-recognized fire expert with 30 years of fire litigation experience. He has published hundreds of journal and conference papers related to combustion and fire. Dr. Fernandez-Pello received a PhD from the University of California San Diego in 1975 with a dissertation on fire spread. His post-doctoral work took him to Harvard and Princeton Universities where he conducted fire and combustion research. In 1980, Dr. Fernandez-Pello became Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley where he has remained since.

Professor Fernandez-Pello has testified as a fire expert witness in several State and Federal courts. His fire litigation activities have involved many aspects of fires such as ignition of solid, liquid, and gaseous fuels; flame spread and fire spread; flammable liquid pool fire burning; self heating and spontaneous combustion; smoldering and transition from smolder to flaming; ignition of spot fires by embers and heated particles; wildland fires; vehicle fires; warehouse and industrial fires and explosions; laptop fires; smoke detector product liability; residential fires; fire reconstruction and modeling; and many other areas. It is this broad range of experience that makes Dr. Fernandez-Pello an effective fire expert witness across many areas of fire and combustion science.

A 2100 person international planning, design and construction firm providing services in site development, transportation, water/wastewater, facilities, environmental resources, geotechnical, dams and construction management. Gannet Fleming has more than 60 offices throughout the US, Canada, Mexico and the UAE, and has completed thousands of assignments in all 50 states and more than 50 countries. For a listing of selected projects by category see featured projects or for a representative project list see project list. Gannett Fleming is ranked in the top twenty firms in the US according to Engineering News-Record’s National Rankings (based on 2009 revenues) in mass transit and rail, bridges, transportation, highways, water, water supply and wastewater treatment plants.

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Reax is Rapperport Associates West Coast Affiliate

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