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Six Texas A&M Faculty Members Named NAI Senior Members

The National Academy of Inventors elects Mark Benden, Richard Gomer, Jaime Grunlan, Duncan Maitland, Richard Miles and Stephen Safe to its inaugural class.
By Texas A&M University Research Communications and Public Relations February 11, 2019

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) today named six faculty members from Texas A&M University to its inaugural class of NAI Senior Members. They are among 66 academic inventors selected for the honor.

NAI Senior Members are active faculty, scientists and administrators from NAI member institutions with success in patents, licensing and commercialization. They have produced technologies that have brought, or aspire to bring, real impact on the welfare of society.

“Congratulations to our faculty members who have been elected to this first class of NAI Senior Members,” Mark A. Barteau, vice president for research and NAI Fellow, said.  “This recognition pays tribute to their knowledge, skill and talent as well as to the role that Texas A&M plays in encouraging and nurturing research and innovations from start to finish. Together, these faculty members and Texas A&M are making the world a better place for all of us.”

The six NAI Senior Members from Texas A&M are:

  • Mark Benden, associate professor and head, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Public Health.
  • Richard H. Gomer, professor, Department of Biology, College of Science.
  • Jaime C. Grunlan, Linda and Ralph Schmidt ’68 Professor, J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering.
  • Duncan J. Maitland, Stewart and Stevenson Professor and associate head, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering.
  • Richard Miles, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) Eminent Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, College of Engineering.
  • Stephen H. Safe, University Distinguished Professor, Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology, College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences.

This inaugural class of NAI Senior Members represents 37 research universities and research institutes. Their names appear on more than 1,100 issued U.S. patents. A full list of NAI Senior Members is available on the NAI website.

The National Academy of Inventors is a member organization comprising U.S. and international universities, and governmental and non-profit research institutes, with more than 4,000 individual inventor members and fellows spanning more than 250 institutions worldwide. It was founded in 2010 at the University of South Florida to recognize and encourage inventors with patents issued from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, enhance the visibility of academic technology and innovation, encourage the disclosure of intellectual property, educate and mentor innovative students and translate the inventions of its members to benefit society.

About Research at Texas A&M University: As one of the world’s leading research institutions, Texas A&M is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery, including that of science and technology. Research conducted at Texas A&M represented annual expenditures of more than $922 million in fiscal year 2018. Texas A&M ranked in the top 20 of the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development survey (2017), based on expenditures of more than $905.4 million in fiscal year 2017. Texas A&M’s research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental and applied contributions resulting, in many cases, in economic benefits to the state, nation and world. To learn more, visit http://research.tamu.edu.

Media Contact: Rusty Cawley, (979) 458-1475, [email protected].

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