Dr. Yoseph Bar-Cohen, JPL, is a Senior Research Scientist,
the supervisor of the Electroactive Technologies Group (x355N), as well as
in-charge of the Nondestructive Evaluation and Advance
Actuators (NDEAA) Lab that he established in 1991. He received his Ph. D. in Physics (1979) and
M.Sc. in Materials Science (1973) from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem,
Israel. He is a physicist specializing
in electroactive materials/mechanisms (including sample handling technologies),
biomimetics and ultrasonic Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE). He is listed as Subject Matter Expert (SME)
in NDE as well as Piezoelectric Actuators and Sensors on the JPL’s Procurement
Quality Assurance List. Under his leadership, many innovative concepts and
mechanisms were initiated, analytically modeled, simulated, developed, and
experimentally tested for planetary exploration, commercial, medical, and other
applications. He made two notable
discoveries of ultrasonic wave phenomena in composite materials: the polar
backscattering (1979) and the leaky Lamb waves (LLW) (1983). From Nov. 2009 to Sept. 2011, he served as
the Chair of the JPL’s Senior Research Scientists Council. Dr. Bar-Cohen is a Fellow of two technical
societies: The International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) and the
American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT).
His scientific, engineering and technology
accomplishments and leadership have earned him two NASA Honor Award Medals -
NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal (2001), and NASA Exceptional
Technology Achievement (2006); two JPL’s Magellan Award: (2016) for
extraordinary work in advancing the field of electroactive materials and
mechanisms, and (2020) for his vision and development of Break the Chain (BTC)
for MSR; two SPIE’s Lifetime Achievement Awards – NDE (2001) and Smart
Materials and Structures (2005), the ASNT’s 2002 Lester Honor Lecture Award,
the 2006 ASNT Sustained Excellence award, the 2007 SPIE President’s Award as
well as many other honors and awards. Dr. Bar-Cohen is listed on 34 Who’s Who
Biographic Directories and his brief bio is listed on Wikipedia with links to his websites at JPL. Also, the Nov. 2001 issue of Tech Briefs
featured him as a Who’s Who in NASA. His
research and accomplishments with his teams received extensive media coverage including interviews with radio and TV
stations, NASA Press Releases, JPL's Universe, as well as articles in daily
newspapers, magazines, and technically related websites.
He joined JPL on May 21, 1991. His prior affiliations include Principal
Specialist, McDonnell Douglas Corp., Long Beach, CA (1983-1991); Sr. Physicist,
Systems Research Lab (SRL), Dayton, Ohio, at the Air Force Materials Lab.
(AFML) (1980-1983); Post-doctorate, National Research Council (NRC) at AFML
(1979-1980); and Sr. NDE Specialist, Israel Aircraft Industry (IAI)
(1971-1979).
Currently, he is responsible for
developing electroactive mechanisms, ultrasonic drills and planetary samplers,
ultrasonic NDE and health monitoring methods. His conceived sample
containerization method using inductively
heated brazing (for simultaneously performing separation, seaming, sealing, and
sterilization of double-wall containers) has been one of the primary factors in
NASA decision to proceed with the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission under JPL’s
lead. This
containerization method addressed the critical requirement for extremely strict
planetary protection of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission to prevent
contamination of Earth. His
professional expansion into the field of electroactive technologies started
from his initiated collaboration with MIT to apply his elastic plate wave
related expertise to jointly develop piezoelectric motors under a NASA
Telerobotic task. He followed his
success with numerous initiatives and tasks leadership funded by JPL, NASA, and
reimbursable sources including AFOSR, AGA, Army, Boston Scientific,
Consolidated Edison, DARPA, the Federal Highway Administration, PaR Systems,
General Dynamics, NIH, Placidus and Teleflex.
He made significant contributions to NDE of composites and bonded
solids as well as aging aircraft structures.
He initiated and led the development of real time monitoring of
composites curing, broadband transducers, and a device for nondestructive
determination of elastic properties of composites. Using the expertise that he
established in electroactive technologies, he pursued innovation and R&D in
biomimetics and robotics, including the Multifunctional
Automated Crawling System (MACS), and an on-command exoskeleton. The crawler MACS was designed to serve as a
robotic platform for PC-board base instruments.
As a follow-on effort, he edited and co-authored an ASNT book about
robotics for NDE (published by ASNT in 2000).
Since 1995, he has actively pioneered technology for applications in the
field of medicine. He initiated and led developments of novel devices for
noninvasive diagnostics and treatment using piezo-sensors and actuators
resulting in many NTRs and registered patents. His co-innovation led to the
development of the Ultrasonic Sonic Driller and Corer (USDC) that was later
developed into a lithotripsy device that was licensed by his partner,
Cybersonics, to Olympus. Moreover, under
a subcontract from Placidus a piezoelectric drilling mechanism was developed
and patented as a tool for rapidly opening blocked arteries.
Dr. Bar-Cohen played a key role in
establishing the field of Electroactive Polymers (EAP), edited the defining
book, and he defined the sub-disciplines of ionic and field or electronic
driven types EAP materials. For many
years, he has been leading instructor of annual SPIE course on EAP. In an effort to promote rapid advances in the
development of EAP, his initiatives and proactive efforts led to the SPIE’s EAPAD annual conference
(which he has been chairing for 22 years (1999 - 2019), as well as publishing
the semi-annual WW-EAP Newsletter (ended
in 2019 after publishing 42 issues), and maintaining the WW-EAP
Web hub. In 1999, Dr.
Bar-Cohen posed a challenge to the worldwide research and engineering community
to develop a robotic arm that is actuated by EAP (also known as artificial
muscles) to win an arm-wrestling match against a human
opponent. He held the
first wrestling match between EAP actuated arms and human on March 7, 2005 as
part of the SPIE Annual International EAPAD Conference.
Three arms wrestled with a high school female student and she won
against all of them. This loss of
the EAP actuated arms highlighted the complexity and significance of the
challenge that he posed and it attracted enormous professional and public
attention to the field. The graphic representation, which
he created to illustrate the arm-wrestling challenge, has become the icon of
the field of EAP in technical presentations worldwide. He held a second match in 2006 but this time
it was made using a measuring fixture that was produced by students from
UCLA. The fixture allows to measure the
speed and force and in comparing the EAP actuated robotic arms’ performance to
the female student, their capability have been two orders of magnitude lower.
For his contributions to the field of EAP,
Business Week named him, under the category Gurus of Technology, as one of “Five People Pushing Tech's Boundaries” and “The Brain behind Plastic Muscle”; Popular Science (mirrored by CNN) named him the “Artificial Muscle Man”; SPIE’s OE magazine described him as “redefining robotics” and Scientific American described him as
the “unofficial coordinator” of the field of EAP.
His teaching and mentoring activity includes
his serving as an Adjunct Full Professor at the Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering Dept., UCLA (1989 – 1993).
At JPL, he served as a mentor of 82 students and 9 postdocs, where four of postdocs he hired as
full-time JPL employees. In addition, he
taught many EAP courses during the annual SPIE Smart Structures symposia and
other forums. Dr. Bar-Cohen had
established and has been maintaining a large international network of peers
(over 2,600 worldwide) from the academia, NASA and industry to whom he has been
disseminating his Edited Newsletters till 2019. These Newsletter
issues consisted of scientists
and engineers’ inputs from NASA, DoD, academia, and industry. His first Newsletter series was about NDE
NASA-wide (13 issues), then about Materials and Processes NASA-wide (2 issues),
and his latest are about EAP and Biomimetics worldwide (between 1999 to 2019,
he published 42 issues).
Publication
record: He
(co)edited/(co)authored 12 books, (co)authored over 460 publications of which 69
in refereed professional journal and 93 book chapters, served as Editor of 30
conference proceedings, and made hundreds of presentations at national and
international conferences (including 48 Plenary, Keynote, and Invited papers). Also, he is the Biomimetics Book Series
Editor for CRC Press; as well as the Book Series Editor of Smart Materials,
Structures and Systems for Artech House.
He is a member of the Editorial Board of 5 journals (of robotics and
biomimetics). He served as a Guest
Editor for 4 special issues of professional journals (on topics related to EAP,
Smart Materials, and Biomimetics). He (co)Chaired 56 national and international
Conferences/Symposia, served as Symposia Track
Coordinator of 6 Conferences, co-Chaired 55 Symposia Sessions and served on 113
International Symposia organization committees.
Moreover, he has made over 63 colloquia presentations at academic
institutes and lectures at local societies’ monthly chapter meetings. He gave two lectures (on Feb. 21 and 22, 2002
and Feb. 18 and 19, 2010) at the JPL’s Theodore von Kármán Lecture Series,
which are held at von Karman, JPL, and Pasadena City College (PCC). In addition, as Newsletters Editor he
published 57 issues of which 42 about electroactive polymers and the issues
included inputs from individuals worldwide.
Member of Professional Journals Editorial Boards
·
Editorial
Board of the Journal of Bionic Engineering (JBE) since December 2009.
·
Editorial
board of the Advances in Materials Research Journal since May 2011.
·
Editorial Board (EB) of the Proceedings of the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part L: Journal of Materials: Design and
Applications (JMDA) for the period 2020-2023.
·
Editorial
Board of the Biomimetics Journal Since October 2019 (@mdpi extended on Feb. 7,
2023) https://www.mdpi.com/journal/biomimetics/editors till 02/2024
According to the Google Scholar (checked on December
19, 2023), his publications have a high number of citations (18,690); a
Hirsch's Index of 57; and i10-index of 228.
Innovation record: His innovation is documented in
43 registered patents, 3 Provisional Patent, 139 New Technology Reports (NTR),
73 Class 1 NASA Tech Brief Awards, 92 Tech Briefs publications, and 14 NASA Board (Space Act) Awards.
Book Series Editor
1.
Biomimetics
Book Series Editor for CRC Press/ Taylor & Francis Group https://www.crcpress.com/Biomimetics-Series/book-series/crcbioser
a.
Y.
Bar-Cohen (Book Editor and author of 5 chapters out of 20), Biomimetics: Nature-Based Innovation,
ISBN: 9781439834763, ISBN 10: 1439834768, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis
Group, Boca Raton, Florida (Sept. 2011), pp. 1-788.
b.
I.
Mazzoleni, “Architecture Follows Nature-Biomimetic Principles for Innovative
Design”, ISBN 9781466506077 (March 21, 2013), 264 Pages.
c.
I. A. Anderson, J. Vincent, J. Montgomery, “Ocean
Innovation: Biomimetics Beneath the Waves”, ISBN 9781439837627 (June 1, 2016),
202 pages
2. Smart Materials, Structures and Systems
Book Series Editor for Artech House:
2.1 N. White and S. Beeby, “Energy Harvesting for
Autonomous Systems”, ISBN-10: 1596937181; ISBN-13: 978-1596937185; Artech House,
(June 30, 2010), 292 pages
Ph. D. (1979),
Physics; (1975-1979), The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
M. Sc. (1973),
Materials Science; (1971-1973), The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
B. Sc. (1971),
Physics; (1967-1971), The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
1991‑Present Senior Research Scientist & Group Supervisor*, Electroactive
Technologies, 355N, NDEAA Lab, JPL, Pasadena, CA.
1983‑1991 Principal Specialist, McDonnell Douglas
Corp., Long Beach, CA.
1980‑1983 Sr. Physicist, Systems Research Lab, at
the Air Force Materials Lab., Dayton, Ohio.
1979-1980 Post-doctorate,
National Research Council (NRC) award, at the Air Force Materials Lab.
1971‑1979 Sr. NDE
Specialist, Israel Aircraft Industry (IAI), Lod, Israel.
·
Group
Supervisor, Electroactive Technologies, 355N – July 14, 2014 - Present
·
Group
Supervisor, Advanced Technologies, 355N – April 4, 2005 - July 13, 2014
·
Acting
Group Supervisor, Advanced Technologies, 355N – January 12, 2005– April 4, 2005
·
Section
Staff – April 2003 to Dec. 2004
· JPL Senior Research Scientist – Since June
18, 2001
* On July 14, 2014 – the Section 355 was reorganized and 355N was
name Electroactive Technologies instead of Advanced Technologies.
·
Design
Session for the A Team - MSR Dust Capture Oct. 2018 - A Team Payload
& Small Spacecraft Mechanical Engineering.
·
Blue Sky A-Team study “Meta-drones for planetary
exploration” - attended half days on June 23 and 25.
Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering Dept., UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.
1989-1990 Adjunct lecturer
1990-1993 Adjunct full
professor
· SPIE’s Smart Structures and Materials Founding
Chair Award, 23 March 2021
· JPL’s Magellan Award - For vision and
development of new brazing technology that has a central capability to enabling
a proper break the chain process for Mars Sample Return, 22 July 2020
· JPL’s Magellan Award - for extraordinary work
in advancing the field of electroactive materials and mechanisms. May 16, 2016
· Fellow of The International Society for
Optical Engineering (SPIE), 2 July 2002
· Fellow of the American Society for
Nondestructive Testing (ASNT), 16 October 1996
·
NASA
Honor Award Medal for Exceptional Technology Achievement, June 7, 2006
· NASA Honor Award Medal for Exceptional
Engineering Achievement, Aug. 2001
· SPIE's Smart Materials and Structures
Lifetime Achievement Award - March 7, 2005
· SPIE’s NDE Lifetime Achievement Award, March
6, 2001
· SPIE President’s Award, Aug. 29, 2007
· ASNT’s Award for Sustained Excellence, March
15, 2006
· ASNT’s Lester Honor Lecture Award for Major
contributions to the field of NDT, Nov. 2002
· JPL Senior Research Scientist, June 18, 2001
· 73 NASA Class 1 Technical Brief Awards,
between 1992-present
· 14 NASA Board (Space Act) Awards (5 awards in
2002, 2 in 2003, 2 in 2006, 1 in 2008, 1 in 2010, 2 in 2012, 1 in 2013)
· JPL’s Level-A Bonus Award for achievements in
the field of EAP, Nov. 1999
· JPL’s Nova Award for Technical Innovation and
Leadership, March 1998
· JPL’s Nova Award for Outstanding Achievement
in Technology and R&D, May 1996
· National Research Council (NRC) Fellowship
Award, June 1979
Team Awards
· JPL Team Award for the successful development
of monitoring instrument for water condensation height in steam pipes thru the hot
steel pipe wall at manholes of conEdison in NY, Sept. 2, 2022
· JPL Team Award for the development of a
wireline drill with compact drive electronics that met difficult challenges
& drilled 7.52 m exceeding the objectives of the task, July 11, 2019
· 2018 NASA Honor Group Achievement Award:
Sample Return Break the Chain of Contact, August 28, 2018.
· 2017 NASA Honor Group Achievement Award:
Pioneering a Streamlined Approach to Delivering Mechanical Systems, Sept. 2017.
· JPL’s Voyager Team Award for the development
of the brazing method for breaking the chain of contact with Mars, Sept. 8,
2017.
· JPL Team Award for the novel piezoelectric
actuated drill that rapidly penetrates calcified plaques (occlusion) in human
arteries, Sept. 23, 2016
· JPL’s Team Bonus Award for leading the highly
successful AGA’s Quiet Concrete Drill task, July 2005
· Co-received the Industrial Robot Highly
Commended Award for the paper entitled "Lemur IIb: A Robotic System for
Steep Terrain Access," that was presented at the 8th International
Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots (CLAWAR 2005), held in London, UK on
Sept. 12 - 15, 2005.
· Self-initiated and co-developed USDC
(Ultrasonic Drill) received the 2000 R&D Magazine Award as one of the 100
most innovative instruments.
American Society for
Nondestructive Testing (ASNT), since June 7, 1979
The International
Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) since March 9, 1998.
· Ultrasonics Committee (Served as the Chair
from 1995 to 2001)
· Research Council
Have been asked to
consider becoming Program Director of ARPA-E (October 22, 2019 e-mail from
Sharon Tang,
Recruiting
Contractor to ARPA-E via Booz Allen Hamilton).
1.
American
Men and Woman of Science, 1991
2.
Who’s
Who in America, 1991, 2018 and 2019 (73rd Edition)
3.
Who’s
Who in the West, 1992
4.
Who’s
Who Worldwide Business Registry, 1994
5.
International
Who’s Who of Professionals, 1996
6.
Dictionary
of International Biography, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2015
7.
Lexington
Who's Who, 1999
8.
International
Man of the Year for 1999/2000
9.
Outstanding
Scientists of the 20th Century, 2000 and 2004
10. Who's Who in Polymers and Plastics,
Technomics Publishing Company, 2000
11. Leaders of Science, Technology and
Engineering, 2000
12. Outstanding People of the 21st Century, 2001,
2002, 2004
13. International Biography Center’s 21st Century
Award for Achievement, April 2001
14. International Directory of Distinguished
Leadership, 10th & 11th edition, Amer. Biographical
Inst. (ABI), April 2001, May 2002, and June 2003.
15. Who’s Who in the 21st Century,
First Edition, April 2001
16. Biography Today, New Delhi, India, page 509,
Vol. II, 2001
17. National Aviation
and Space Exploration Wall of Honor in the new National Air and Space Museum
Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center – Sept. 7, 2001
18. International
Directory of Distinguished Leadership, 2002
19. NASA Tech Briefs - Who’s Who in NASA, Nov.
2001, page 22
20. Outstanding Scientists of the 21st Century, IBC,
2000, 2003, 2006, 2008
21. Asia – Men and Woman of Achievement –
Reguerdon Sdn. Bhd., August 2002, October 2003,
22. Asia/Pacific Who’s Who – 04-2004, 10-2004, 07-2005
(Vol. VI), 04-2007 (Vol. VII), 12-2008 (Vol. IX)
23. Asian/American Who’s Who, Oct. 2004, April
2008 (Vol. V)
24. Asian Admirable Achievers, Vol. I, page 43,
2007.
25. Eminent Scientists of Today – 1st
Edition, Oct. 2002
26. Great Minds of the 21st Century,
Nov. 2002, Nov. 2003, Dec. 2006
27. Empowering Executives & Professional –
United Who’s Who, Jan. 2005
28. Distinguished and Admirable Achievers, July
2005
29. Biography Today (Vol. III), Rifacimento
International, 2005
30. Who’s Who in American Education, 2006-2007
31. Dictionary of International Biography, IBC, The
Cambridge Blue Book, 32nd, 33rd and 34th (Sept
2007). 35th (2009), 36th (2011)
32. Expert Elite Frontispiece of the
International Directory of Experts and Expertise, July 2007
33. 500 Greats Geniuses of the 21st Century,
American Biographical Institute, 2008, 2009
34. Strathmore's Who's Who, 2009/2010 edition.
To return to:
Yosi's Biography Website
JPL's Electroactive Technologies Group, NDEAA Webhub