Diann Brei
Diann Erbschloe Brei is an American mechanical engineer whose research focuses on smart materials and piezoelectric actuators. She is a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan.
Education and career
Brei is the daughter of Richard "Ross" Erbschloe, an aircraft pilot for the US Air Force who later became a founding faculty member of the statistics department at the United States [Air Force Academy] and the Arizona Commissioner for Postsecondary Education. She majored in computer systems engineering at Arizona State University, graduating in 1988, and continued at Arizona State for a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, which she completed in 1993. Her dissertation, The Development of a Polymeric Piezoelectric Bimorph Microactuator Based Macroactuator for an Artificial Hand, was primarily advised by James Blechschmidt, but lists Joseph Davidson as its official doctoral supervisor.She joined the University of Michigan faculty in 1994, and in 2018 was named chair of the university's program in Integrative Systems + Design. She also co-directs the Collaborative Research Laboratories, a joint research program of the university with General Motors.