About James R. Friend

BS Aerospace Engineering 1992 (magna cum laude)

MS Mechanical Engineering 1994

PhD Mechanical Engineering 1998

Upon completing his three degrees at UMR, James joined the University of Colorado as an assistant professor at Colorado Springs in a new mechanical and aerospace engineering department before taking a leave of absence to join the Tokyo Institute of Technology's Precision and Intelligence Laboratory as an assistant professor in 2000. He left the University of Colorado and remained at the laboratory until late 2004, where he moved with his wife to Melbourne, Australia as a senior lecturer at Monash University in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He conducted research on micro/nanodevice engineering for medical applications, and progressed there to become a professor and associate dean-research in 2010, having helped establish two micro/nanofabrication facilities, one of which became the $45 million Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication. He then left Monash University in 2011 to lead the design and construction of the new $35 million Micro Nano Research Facility at RMIT University in downtown Melbourne as a vice-chancellor's senior research fellow. After its completion under budget and one month early in mid-2014, he returned to the US as a professor at the University of California, San Diego in late 2014. 

He resides with his wife, Sumi, in Pacific Beach, CA, who works part-time as a technical editor, and nearby his mother and her husband in San Clemente, CA. He enjoys cycling, swimming, skin diving, hiking, and the ocean as much as possible betwixt his research, teaching, and commitment to his profession.