Joseph Parse

Biography

Joseph Parse co-teaches 3.042 (Materials Project Laboratory), a capstone design laboratory class in which student teams of three to five choose a topic from a “buffet” of potential projects and produce a prototype product or material by the end of the semester. The range of projects is broad, including metal alloy development, biomaterials and orthopedic implants, electrochemistry, archeological materials, filtration, photoelectric materials, drug-sensing coatings, catalyst-substrate interactions for hydrogen production, 3-D printing, protective helmets, microporous SiC from wood precursors, metal casting, acoustics of bells, and computational neural networks.

Parse earned a BS in mechanical engineering and an MS in materials science and engineering from MIT, and a PhD in materials science and engineering from the University of Virginia. Between degrees, he worked as a field engineer for Schlumberger Well Services—lowering sophisticated geophysical instruments miles deep into wildcat oil and gas wells in Southwest Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico—as well as a consultant for Foster-Miller Inc. and SAMIM SpA near Venice, Italy, performing R&D in metal matrix composites.

He has taught part time at DMSE for more than 20 years and enjoys passing on the knowledge others shared with him. Parse has a longstanding interest in developing low-cost water disinfection systems for disaster relief, displaced populations, and remote communities. Outside MIT, he maintains a professional consulting practice serving industry, government, insurers, and attorneys, providing failure analysis and contract R&D across a wide range of projects