Susan Bowley joined our staff in August. Susan grew up in Connecticut and attended the University of Connecticut where she received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 1988. Following an adventurous cross-country road trip with her best friend shortly after college, she settled in the Bay Area and obtained a position at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA. During her time at NASA, Susan held several positions including: facility engineer, project engineer, acting Assistant Division Chief, and research engineer. While working full-time, Susan completed her M.S. in Mechanical Engineering (Thermosciences concentration) at Stanford University in 1992. During her studies at Stanford, a research project relating to measurement of transpired epidermal water loss (TEWL) in premature infants piqued her interest in pursuing further graduate work. She was accepted to a full-time graduate fellowship sponsored by NASA Ames to pursue her doctorate. After one year in residence in Charlottesville, VA, and several years of research work in the Musculoskeletal Biomechanics lab at NASA Ames, Susan received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia (Biomechanics concentration) in 2000. Some of Susan’s doctoral research was funded by a grant from the National Osteoporosis Research Foundation, since her research involved studying the influence of activity level on bone density in humans.

After 13 years at NASA Ames Research Center, Susan left in 2001 to pursue a Postdoctoral Fellowship at a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lab in Rockville, MD. Her postdoctoral research involved evaluation and prediction of blood hemolysis via testing of blood in simulated medical devices. Following her postdoctoral work, Susan was hired as a medical device reviewer for the FDA with a focus on cardiovascular medical devices. Susan worked in that capacity until 2006 when she joined Boster, Kobayashi & Associates.

During her doctoral work, Susan attended an American Society of Biomechanics meeting at which the keynote lecture was given by a forensic engineering expert. "Before that lecture, I had no idea that the field of forensic engineering, as applied to biomechanics, even existed – I was very excited about the field and knew that one day I wanted to work in that area. My impression was that forensic engineering would involve such a variety of problem solving, would draw on all aspects of my diverse background and be fun – I just had to do that one day! I am so happy to finally be working in forensic engineering, where I can apply my expertise in both mechanical and biomedical engineering and be intellectually stimulated. What a wonderful and smart group of people I have the privilege of working with. I really enjoy brainstorming with the other engineers here and trying to figure out what happened for a particular case – the best part is that each case is different!"

Susan enjoys a diverse group of interests including: Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and firefighter activities, teaching, motorcycle riding, hiking, kayaking, sculpting, both human and vet medicine, cooking, learning, languages, and patent law.

Susan will be consulting in the areas of accident reconstruction, mechanical engineering, product liability and biomechanics, as well as biomedical engineering.