I Want to Be...I Want to Be...
An Industrial Engineer
Dr. Tyler Kress is an industrial engineer at the University of Tennessee. What's that, you ask?
"My area is human factors engineering, biomechanics, and industrial safety," Kress says. "We do research on real-world situations to learn about human injury in the hopes that what we learn can prevent injury and aid in designing safer products."
He studies human safety issues by testing the safety of products like airbags, football helmets, automobiles, and sports mouthpieces. He even helped scientists at a nearby laboratory take care of their lab mice in a safer way. Sometimes he throws objects off high towers to see what happens to them. Believe it or not, this helps scientists design safer products. He also has designed crash test dummies with life-like bones instead of steel bones. This helps scientists understand what would really happen to a human body in a crash. If they know that, they can design safer cars. Sometimes Dr. Kress crashes cars into walls to study things like airbag safety, but not often. Usually, he uses computers to simulate crashes.
"I love my job," Kress says. "I get to work on a variety of exciting projects and feel as though our research really has a positive impact on society."
Dr. Kress is an assistant professor in industrial engineering. He teaches engineering economics, computer programming, and special topics in human factors. He also teaches classes in the health and safety science department.
To become an industrial engineer, Dr. Kress earned a bachelor's degree in engineering science at UT Knoxville. He also studied biomedical engineering and mathematics. He got a master's degree in engineering science while also studying biomedical engineering and industrial engineering. He earned a doctoral degree in industrial engineering with a concentration in human factors and biomechanics.
