formerly University of Missouri-Rolla
Research Faculty

 

* Dr. David A. Summers is a Curators Professor of Mining Engineering and Director of the Rock Mechanics and Explosives Research Center at UMR. Dr. Summers, who has had over 30 years of experience in the field of high-pressure waterjet research, began his professional life as an Indentured Apprentice in the British National Coal Board.He helped found the Water Jet TechnologyAssociation in 1983, and has served as Vice President, President and Chairman of that Society. He is currently a Vice President of the International Water

Jet Society. Dr. Summers joined the UMR faculty in 1968 as an Assistant Professor and was successively promoted until he reached his present rank in 1980. During his time at the University of Missouri Rolla, Dr. Summers research team has developed methods of using high-pressure waterjets to mine coal, drill rock, and remove a variety of military related energetic materials from a variety of surfaces and containers. The group has studied the use of waterjets both alone, and in combination with polymers, abrasives and where the jets have been induced to cavitate. A number of patents have been awarded as a result of this research. His recently completed activities include the construction and installation of a full scale facility to remove explosives from ordnance at the Army Ammunition Activity in Crane, Indiana, and the development of tools to go on the end of remotely operated arms for the removal of high level radioactive waste from underground storage tanks. Two tanks at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have recently been cleaned using this technology.

 

 

* Dr. Greg Galecki - Ph.D. from Wroclaw Technical University, Poland 1978- has been in the field of manufacturing with related research and teaching since 1974. He has over twenty years experience in high pressure waterjet technology, designing special equipment and processes supported by waterjets. Other areas of interest include design for manufacturing and computer integrated manufacturing

 

 

 

* Dr. Paul N. Worsey - Dr. Worsey has been working full time in explosives-related research, teaching and consulting since 1978. His first training in explosives was at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1977. He has obtained an international reputation in the field of perimeter blasting. His major research thrust in the past 10 years has been demilitarization of explosive ordnance. His research interests also include explosive safety, electronic initiating systems and fuse technology, and explosives. He has a broad background in Mining and Geotechnical Engineering

with emphasis in Rock Mechanics, Excavation and Slope Engineering. Dr. Worsey also directs a number of different explosives-related short courses and seminars each year. Education: University of Bristol B.Sc., Applied Geology, Class IIi, 1977; University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne M.Sc., Rock Mechanics Excavation Engineering, 1978 Thesis Title: Reappraisal of design criteria for the Selby project spine roadways.; Ph.D., Mining (Explosives) Engineering, completed 1981 Thesis Title: Geotechnical factors affecting the application of pre-split blasting to rock slopes.

 

 

* Dr. Norbert Maerz - Dr. Norbert H. Maerz received his Ph.D. from the University of Waterloo in 1990. He joined UMR in 1998, after working as a geological, geotechnical, and hydrogeological consultant. He is the president of a software company selling image analysis software to the mining and materials handling industries. His areas of interest include rock mass classification, rock engineering, slope stability, joint genesis, and computer applications and image processing in geological engineering.

 

 

 

* Dr. Jason Baird - Dr. Baird graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy with a B.Sc. in 1974, the Air Force Institute of Technology with a M. Sc. In 1982, and UMR with a Ph. D. in 2001. During his time in the Air Force, he served as a crewman on a B-52 followed by a series of jobs in the chemical propulsion field including design, test, and production of AMRAAM, Peacekeeper, and Small ICBM. Dr. Baird retired from the service as Deputy Director of the Propulsion Directorate of Phillips Laboratory, U.S. Air Force. Dr. Baird researches chemical rocket

propulsion, energetic materials, advanced composite materials, explosive taggants, structural integrity of various materials and designs vis-a-vie blasting, and generation of pulsed power via explosive driven magnetic flux-compression. He is president of Loki, Inc., a small business assisting others in energetic materials topics. (www.lokiconsult.com)

 

 

* Dr. Leslie Gertsch - Dr. Leslie Gertsch received a B.Sc. degree in Geological Engineering from Colorado School of Mines (CSM) in 1982, and a Ph.D. degree in Mining Engineering from the same place in 1989. Then she worked as a mining engineer for the Environmental Section of the U.S. Bureau of Mines Research Center in Spokane, Washington from 1988 to 1990.In 1990 she joined the CSM Excavation Engineering and Earth Mechanics Institute, focusingmainly on full-scale testing of mechanical rock cutting machines, such as

continuous miners, roadheaders, tunnel boring machines, and experimental designs. In 1996 she changed over to the CSM academic faculty, and taught undergraduate and graduate rock mechanics, statics, dynamics, and instrumentation until moving to Michigan Technological University (MTU) in 1998. There she taught introductory mining engineering, mining methods, mine cost engineering, rock mechanics at various levels, underground and surface mine planning and design, and discontinuity analysis for rock engineering. In 2003 she moved again, this time to join the RMERC and the Geological and Petroleum Engineering Dept. of UMR.

While at CSM she was the Director of the Center for Space Mining (CSM2). She is also a founding member of the Space Colonization Technical Committee of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Senior Research Investigator, Rock Mechanics and Explosives Research Center /Assistant Professor, Geological Engineering
phone: 573-341-7278
fax: 573-341-4368

 

 

Anuj Gupta (Associate Professor) - Dr. Gupta received his PhD in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Texas in 1991. Previously he had worked as a drilling engineer. Prior to joining the UMR faculty in January 2001, he had been a faculty member at the University of Oklahoma where he taught graduate and senior level logging/formation evaluation courses. He is a registered professional engineer and his areas of interest include reservoir characterization with specific applications to naturally fractured reservoirs and rock-fluid interactions including dynamic filtration of drilling and fracturing fluids.