Dr. Saied Taheri is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He has been the founding director of the NSF I/UCRC Center for Tire Research since 2012. He has 29 years of academic and industrial experience in automotive engineering,  intelligent tires and vehicles, vehicle dynamics and control, and automotive and transportation safety.

Tom Fleischman has worked for 40 years in the Tire & Rubber Industry ... roughly 10 years with Firestone, then five more years with Bridgestone after the acquisition, then 25 years at Goodyear.  Tom has conducted research in experimental material response and theoretical modeling related to a variety of complex rubber compound responses to cyclic deformation. Tom created comprehensive material characterization testing procedures and data management strategies. 

Dr. John B. Ferris established his global reputation for investigating improvements to ground vehicle system performance by studying interactions with terrain surfaces.  Specifically, his research focuses on chassis design and development, vehicle dynamics, mobile mapping systems, driver-vehicle interactions, virtual proving ground development, design for reliability, customer usage and correlation, and automated vehicle development.  

Dr. Joseph D. Walter recently retired from The University of Akron where he taught graduate and undergraduate courses related to tire materials, mechanics and manufacturing as well as vehicle dynamics for 20 years. Prior to joining academia, Dr. Walter last served as President of Bridgestone's Technical Center Europe in Rome, Italy. After more than 50 years of tire and vehicle R&D activity, he remains technically active as an author and consultant.

Dr. Ron Kennedy is currently the Managing Director of the Center for Tire Research, an industry / university consortium involving Virginia Tech, the University of Akron, and tire and tire-related companies.  Before joining CenTiRe, he worked for 37 years in the tire industry at Firestone, and Hankook Tire performing tire finite element methods development and software programming, simulation systems development, advanced tire design, and tire factory uniformity studies.  His work has covered the range of tire performance areas, manufacturing, and design.

Jim McIntyre is a Principal Applied Researcher at the Bridgestone Americas Technical Center in Akron, Ohio, where he’s worked since 2018. Prior to Joining Bridgestone, Jim was Vice President and Director of Technology for Camber Ridge, an independent tire test laboratory in Charlotte, North Carolina that he helped to bring into operation. Before that, Jim spent 27 years at Smithers Rapra, as an Engineering Intern, Project Engineer, and Senior Project Engineer. Smithers is an independent tire and automotive test laboratory headquartered in Akron, Ohio. Over the years, Jim has been involved in many phases of tire and automotive testing including force and moment; footprint mechanics; dry, wet, and winter traction; objective and subjective tire and vehicle performance, tire modeling characterization, rolling resistance, regulatory testing, indoor and outdoor treadwear, and tire endurance. Educated as both an Electrical and Mechanical Engineer, Jim’s original interest was instrumentation, data acquisition, and computer control systems.