Michael Pecht Elected to SAE Fellow

Professor Michael G. Pecht has been elected Fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Pecht joins an illustrious list of engineers and researchers who have attained the distinction of Fellow since its inception in 1975. SAE bestows Fellow status on members "who have made a significant impact on society’s mobility technology through leadership, research, and innovation." He will receive this honor at the Fellow Awards Ceremony at the SAE 2010 World Congress in Detroit, Michigan, in April. Pecht was elected SAE Fellow for his significant contributions to the reliability of automotives and avionics. As the founder and director of the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE), Pecht has for 25 years guided the world’s leading research team in the field of electronics reliability, including applications in automotive electronics and avionics. He is highly regarded by engineers and industry members around the world for his development of physics-of-failure methods for electronics reliability and his new diagnostic and prognostic methods that are making virtually every type of electronic system safer and more reliable.

A key contribution that Pecht has made to mobility technology is his development of the physics-of-failure (PoF) approach to electronics reliability in transportation systems. The PoF approach was developed by Pecht as a result of a study he conducted for the U.S. military, in which he analyzed the adequacy of traditional handbook-based methods of reliability assessment. Instead of assuming a constant rate of degradation of parts, the PoF approach to reliability involves a comprehensive, physics-based knowledge of how electronic components fail in the field. His PoF approach has had a wide impact on mobility technology. Industry leaders such as Boeing, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Lockheed Martin, NASA, Northrop Grumman, Rolls Royce, Nissan, and General Electric have all come to Pecht and his team at CALCE to benefit from their expertise.

Currently, Pecht is playing a critical role in developing an important new field called prognostics and health management of electronics (PHM). He founded the world’s first research consortium on PHM at CALCE and has authored the standard textbook in the field titled "Prognostics and Health Management of Electronics." He has been instrumental in creating the PHM Centre at the City University of Hong Kong and has been a sought-after lecturer and keynote speaker on PHM-related issues. Industry insiders around the world consider PHM to have the potential to revolutionize electronics through in-situ monitoring of the "health" of critical electronic systems in myriad applications including transportation, energy, and telecommunications.

Professor Pecht serves as the George Dieter Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering with a joint appointment in the Department of Applied Mathematics. He has an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is a Professional Engineer, an IEEE Fellow, an ASME Fellow, and an IMAPS Fellow. In 2008, Pecht was awarded the highest reliability honor, the IEEE Reliability Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He served as chief editor of the IEEE Transactions on Reliability for eight years and on the advisory board of IEEE Spectrum. He is chief editor of Microelectronics Reliability and an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Components and Packaging Technology. Pecht has written more than twenty books and over 400 technical articles. He has also consulted for over 100 major international electronics companies, providing expertise in strategic planning, design, test, prognostics, IP, and risk assessment of electronic products and systems. He has previously received the European Micro and Nano-Reliability Award for outstanding contributions to reliability research, the 3M Research Award for electronics packaging, and the IMAPS William D. Ashman Memorial Achievement Award for his contributions to electronics reliability analysis.

Published January 22, 2010