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Dr. Sitaram has held leadership positions in both academia and industry. He is currently Professor, Program Director, and Chair of Engineering at Baker College Flint, Michigan, USA. He manages three ABET accredited programs- Mechanical, Civil, and Electrical engineering. He has 13 years full-time teaching experience and 15 years industry experience. He has taught extensively which includes more than 30 undergraduate, graduate, and lab courses in Civil and Mechanical Engineering in the areas of engineering mechanics, solid mechanics, structural engineering, structural design, vehicle crashworthiness, and plates & shells.

He worked in the automotive industry, primarily at GM, as crashworthiness product and simulation methods development engineer using nonlinear finite element analysis. He was the crashworthiness lead, GoFast lead, and subject matter expert (SME) for the material characterization of nonmetals such as plastics, foam, and rubber. He provided the early design for the front structure of few vehicles that passed the high speed internal test requirements, and also obtained Best Pick ratings (the results were shown on “Dateline” NBC TV program) in the tests conducted by IIHS (Insurance Institute of Highway and Safety) and 5 star ratings based on the federal tests by NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). Based on his recommendation for improving vehicle performance for crashworthiness, for the first time in the history of North America thick Dual Phase steels of high energy absorbing components were welded to each other, and not a single weld failed in the high speed full vehicle frontal impact tests. At GM, along with another engineer, he co-designed several component tests to improve upper interior head impact protection (FMVSS201u). It was the first time in the history of GM such components were designed. He was also one of the crashworthiness leads in the Fuel Efficient Light Vehicles programs that led to significant mass savings through use of advance materials, thorough understanding of crash load paths, and optimization.

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Mr. Athanas Manyama is an Associate Professor at Baker College Flint, Michigan, USA and has been a full-time faculty member at Baker for 27 years. He was the Program Coordinator for the Architectural/Construction Technology (ACT) and Architectural Technology (AT) Programs for the Baker College System up to 2019. During that time, he also was the Chairperson for the Advisory Board for the programs. He worked with Baker College and the national American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) to organize, register and advise the American Institute of Architecture Students - Baker College Flint (AIAS-BCF) from 2005 to 2019. He was an adjunct faculty member at the same institution from 1990 – 1993. He has extensive experience in teaching various courses in areas such as architectural design, building codes and construction, structural analysis, structural design, building cost estimating, land surveying, CADD applications, and statistics.

He is a graduate of the Master of Science (M.Sc.) and Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) in Architectural and Building Engineering from Technical University of Budapest, Hungary.

His institutional and community services include supervising and judging the Science Olympiad competitions for local schools, participating as advisory board member at local schools, member of the JEF Grant Committee, and presenter at the Career Exploration and STEMM programs.

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