faculty.james f. wilson, Ph.D.

James F. Wilson, Professor Emeritus

Dr. Wilson is focused on the areas of engineering mechanics, theoretical and experimental mechanics and structural dynamics, and robotics.

Education

• Ph.D., Engineering Mechanics, Ohio State University, 1967
• M.S.M.E., Mechanical Engineering, Canegie Mellon University, 1962
• B.S.M.E., Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1956
• A.B., College of Wooster, 1956

Professional Experience (Teaching)

• Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University, 1978-Present
• Visiting Professor, Colorado State University , 1976
• Associate Professor, Duke University, 1970
• Assisstant Professor, Duke University, 1967
• Graduate Assistant, Ohio State University, 1965-1967
• Lecturer, Department of Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon University, 1961-1965
• Research Assistant, Carnegie Mellon University, 1959-1960
• Instructor, University of Rochester, 1957-1959

Professional Experience (Government and Industrial Research and Development)

• Engineer, U.S. Steel Corporation, Pennsylvania, 1962-1965
• Design Engineer, Nuclear Reactor Division, Westinghouse, Pennsylvania, 1961
• Aeronautics Engineer, U.S. Naval Ordinance Laboratory, summers of 1957-1960
• Engineer, U.S. Navy Active Reserve, 1957
• Structural Engineer, Budd Company, Pennsylvania, 1956-1957

Sample Publications

Lee, B.K., Wilson, J.F. and Oh, S.J. “Elastica of Cantilevered Beams with Variable Cross Section,” Internation Journal of Non-Linear Mechanics, Vol. 20, 1993

Wilson, J.F., Li, D., Chen, Z. and George, R.T. Jr. “Flexible Robot Manipulators and Grippers: Relatives of Elephant Trunks and Squid Tentacles,” Robot and Biological Systems: Towards a New Bionics?, P. Dario, ed., Springer-Verlag, 1993.

Vilson, J.F., “Offshore Structures, Marine Engineering, Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences, Vol. II, Academic Press, pp. 532-538, 1992.

Snyder, J.M. and Wilson, J.F. “Free Vibrations of Continuous Horizontal Curved Beams,” Journal of Sound and Vibration, Vol. 157(2), pp. 345-355, 1992.

Wilson, J.F., “Reconstruction of Tractor Semitrailer Accidents Using Gaus's Principle of Least Constraints,” International Journal of Impact Engineering, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 139-148, 1991.

Honors and Awards

• North Carolina Registered Professional Engineer
• Keynote Speaker, NASA-RTI Bionics Workshop, 1990
• NATO-ASI Lecturer, Italy, 1989
• ASCE National Award: State-of-the-Art Structures Paper, 1987
• NATO-ASI Lecturer, Italy, 1983
• Visiting Scholar, University of Melbourne, Fall, 1982
• ASME National Award, “Innovation in Measurement,” 1978
• Visiting Scholar, Colorado State University, Fall, 1976
• Chi Epsilon, Civil Engineering Honorary
• NATO-ASI Lecturer, England, 1073
• ASEE-NASA Summer Faculty Fellow, 1969
• Sigma Xi, Research Honorary
• Freeman Scholar, 1966, ASME/ASCE National Award