Biography
Additional Titles
Corporate Vice President, Principal Engineer, and Director of Mechanical Engineering, Exponent, Inc.
Dr. Joseph Rakow serves as the Director of Mechanical Engineering at Exponent, a large engineering and scientific consulting firm headquartered in Silicon Valley. In this role, Dr. Rakow leads teams of doctoral-degree scientists and engineers to address complex multidisciplinary technical problems for clients in an extensive range of industrial sectors: transportation, energy, health care, infrastructure, and consumer products. Dr. Rakow’s practice focuses on structures and mechanical systems in aerospace applications as well as other industries.
In addition to his technical work, Dr. Rakow manages corporate responsibilities for Exponent, including corporate risk, financial planning, staff development, strategic growth, and the firm’s 401(k) investment committee.
Dr. Rakow is active in multiple academic capacities. He serves on the University of Michigan Department of Aerospace Engineering’s Industrial Advisory Board, the Advisory Board for the Department of Physics at the University of California, Davis, and on the Board of a K-8 Catholic school in the Bay Area, where he established the school’s first supplemental STEM education program. Dr. Rakow lectures regularly in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, and he teaches engineering courses to the U.S. Department of Defense.
A Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Dr. Rakow received a B.S. in Physics from the University of California, Davis, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan.