NASA’s Chris DellaCorte appointed new editor of STLE’s peer-reviewed journal
May 15, 2016 | By Rehana Begg
The Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers (STLE) has named NASA scientist Dr. Christopher DellaCorte as the new editor of Tribology Transactions, the society’s peer-reviewed journal.
DellaCorte is NASA’s Senior Technologist for Tribology & Rotating Machinery and he hails from NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.
DellaCorte follows in the footsteps of Purdue professor Farshid Sadeghi, who retired at the end of 2015 after a six-year term as editor. Under the stewardship of Sadeghi and associate editor Dr. Nick Weinzapfel, Transactions’ status in the research community was enhanced, its Impact Factor quadrupled, and time from paper submission to decision was reduced from nearly a year to about three months.
Dr. DellaCorte comes to his new role with Transactions well prepared.
He began his NASA career in 1985 as a graduate student in the Surface Science Branch. Early career highlights include developing an understanding of the friction and wear behavior of emerging engineered ceramics that were then candidates for advanced heat engines and aerospace vehicle airframes and structures.
Today in his role at NASA, DellaCorte applies mechanism and tribology expertise to lead complex root cause failure investigations. His projects include deciphering the International Space Station Solar Alpha Rotary Joint failure mechanism and guiding the rotordynamic analyses of the Mars Science Laboratory Surface Analysis on Mars vacuum pump bearing failures. He is also leading a team in the development of corrosion immune and shock tolerant nickel-titanium ball bearing alloys.
His technical accomplishments and contributions have earned him such prestigious recognitions as the NESC Engineering Excellence Award, NASA Space Flight Awareness Award, NASA Qasar Award for the ISS SARJ Failure Analysis, NASA Silver Snoopy Award, the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, two R&D 100 Awards, and the Federal Laboratory Consortium Award for Commercialization.
In addition to eight awarded patents on tribology technologies, DellaCorte has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers in more than 12 professional journals and numerous proceedings and has hundreds of citations. His work is recognized nationally and internationally.
DellaCorte has attained Fellow rank in STLE and ASME. A former two-term member of STLE’s board of directors, DellaCorte is a past recipient of STLE’s PM Ku Award, which honors the society’s top volunteer. At the 2016 STLE Annual Meeting & Exhibition in Las Vegas, DellaCorte will receive the International Award, the top technical honor the society can bestow.
In 2003 he was the founding editor of TLT, STLE’s technical magazine that is consistently rated as the society’s No. 1 member benefit.
STLE is an international not-for-profit technical society headquartered in Park Ridge, Illinois, dedicated to advancing the science of tribology and best practices in lubrication engineering.
