| April 3, 2006 Vol. 77, no. 11S
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Tony Keaveny is a Chancellor’s professor in ME and BioE and
is also the director of the Berkeley Orthopaedic Biomechanics Laboratory.
Keaveny received his B.E. in ME from University College Dublin, Ireland,
in 1984 and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in ME from Cornell University
in 1988 and 1991, respectively. He joined the Berkeley faculty in
1993. His research interests include biomechanics, specifically the
mechanical behavior of bone, finite element modeling and experimentation,
design of bone-implant systems, and tissue engineering. (Peg
Skorpinski photo)
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Professor Minute with ME/BioE professor Tony Keaveny
What first inspired
you to go into engineering?
What inspired me to stay in engineering may be a better question. After
an initial angst period in Ireland during 1985 in which the best job
prospect out of school was to work in a local forklift factory, I took
some time off and discovered bioengineering applications and got very
excited about that. The epiphany was seeing beam theory applied to
the design of an artificial hip joint!
To date, what has been
the most memorable moment in your career?
It has to be my first day teaching at Cal. I had to stop myself from
laughing when everyone in the lecture room immediately wrote down what
I had just written on the board. Let’s just say, I wasn’t
used to that sort of attention.
If you had a few extra hours, what would you do?
Nothing. I love doing nothing and never get time for it.
What should engineering
students make sure they do at Berkeley before they graduate?
Try to discover something you’re passionate about. Cliché,
but true.
What are you currently reading?
I can only manage short reading spells before falling asleep.
I’m
into the New Yorker these days.
What is one thing you would like to learn how to do?
Play baseball before my three-year-old son finds out I can’t.
If you would like us
to feature your favorite professor, please e-mail his or her name to
engnews@coe.berkeley.edu.
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