Stay in touch with fellow UConn engineering alumni. Visit our Engineering LinkedIn alumni page and fill us in on your latest activities or learn what your college friends are doing nowadays!  Some recent alumni news follows:

Michael Cantor (B.S. Chemical Engineering & Materials Engineering, ’80; JD ‘83) has been appointed Chair of Connecticut Innovations (CI) by Governor Dannel Malloy.  CI is the quasi-public agency charged with growing Connecticut’s economy by making strategic capital and other investments that encourage the development of high-tech industries within the state, such as energy, biotechnology, information technology, and photonics. Mr. Cantor currently serves as co-managing partner of Cantor Colburn LLP in Hartford, where he oversees more than 110 attorneys, patent agents, and technical advisors who help a diverse client base of international innovators.  He previously was appointed by former Governor M. Jodi Rell to the board of the Connecticut Development Authority, and also was selected by Governor Malloy to serve on the board of CI when the two agencies merged in 2012. 

Thomas Gaal (B.S. Electrical Engineering, ’89) has received APICS CSCP (Certified Supply Chain Professional) certification, passing the exam in June.  He is currently a Senior Demand Manager and S&OP Coordinator for Nokia Siemens Networks (telecommunications infrastructure) near Munich, Germany. In his previous role with the company, he was Head of Region Demand Planning Europe/Region Lead Demand & Supply Manager. He has worked with Siemens since 1999.  Earlier in his career, he worked with Medtronic in the Netherlands and TUV Rheinland of North America/TUV Product Service.

Carl Lawton (M.S., Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, ’85, ’90) is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biological Engineering at the University of Massachusetts – Lowell.  His research interests span the development of advanced materials with unique electronic, optical, structural, or interfacial properties; development of efficient manufacturing processes for the biotechnology industry. In his role as Director of the Massachusetts BioManufacturing Center, Dr. Lawton works closely with companies on the verge of biopharmaceutical production to give them the opportunity to utilize the Center’s services to economically address staffing needs and learning curve constraints and to optimize time to market.

Louis Parrillo (B.S.E. Electrical Engineering, ’64), Ph.D., has been appointed Chief Operating Officer of SuVolta of Los Gatos, CA.  SuVolta, Inc., is a developer of scalable semiconductor technologies for low-power, high-performance IC chips.  Prior to joining SuVolta, Dr. Parrillo was Vice President and Chief Technologist of the NVM/Storage Division of Rambus and, prior to that, Chief Technology Officer at Unity Semiconductor (acquired by Rambus), Executive Vice President, Research and Development at Spansion, and senior executive-level roles at Motorola Semiconductor.  He began his career at Bell Laboratories where he developed Twin Tub CMOS technology with Dr. Richard Payne, which produced the world’s first 32-bit CMOS microprocessor. The original and subsequent generations of Twin Tub CMOS became an industry standard for high performance CMOS. Dr. Parrillo is an IEEE Fellow, past president of the IEEE Electron Devices Society, recipient of the society’s J.J. Ebers Award and the IEEE Frederik Philips Award for Management of Research, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University.

Paul Scheihing (B.S. Mechanical Engineering, ’78) received the Leadership in Federal Energy Management Award from the Association of Energy Engineers during the 35^th World Energy Engineering Congress in Atlanta, GA last October. He is the Supervisor of Technology Deployment team within the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO). He is the DOE lead working on the development of the Superior Energy Performance certification program in partnership with U.S. industry and a member of the U.S. Technical Advisory Group developing the ISO 50001 energy management standard. Paul has worked for DOE since 1988. He has developed with US industry a variety of research, development and technology deployment partnerships and initiatives that all aim to encourage the more rapid adoption of energy efficient industrial technologies. Previous to DOE, he worked for five years at the Garrett Turbine Engine Company in Phoenix, and five years with Westinghouse Electric Corporation in Concordville, PA. He earned an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Drexel University.