EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was originally published as the "5-on-5" feature in the August issue of GCU Magazine, available in the purple bins around campus or digitally.
Photos by Ralph Freso
Dr. Michael De Gregorio is 100% dedicated to Bowtie Wednesdays, when he dons a bowtie to class. Grand Canyon University's assistant dean of engineering also has decorated his office with superhero characters and has researched the passive mechanics of the human hand – work he began as a doctoral student.
He spent three years as a research engineer at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in the Orthopedic Surgery Department. He also helmed a project to reduce the nerve damage truckers sustain from steering wheel vibration. And since he arrived at GCU in 2018, he has been 100% dedicated to his students.
1. What inspired the bowties?
When I was in graduate school, the first conference I attended had this guy, Dr. C.J. Heckman. Everyone wanted to attend his presentations because he would show pictures of these crazy vacations and would break up the slides by showing a photo of him in the Himalayas or somewhere. I started thinking, ‘What is a thing that would set me apart in the community? What if I wore bowties? Nobody wears bowties.’ So that’s why I decided to do that.
2. Why do you love superheroes?
I’ve always been into all the superhero stuff, like Marvel, DC, all that. When I started here, I was told not to decorate offices because people seem to move around quite a bit. But I spend a lot of time in this office, and just making it feel more like my space helps me.
3. How meaningful was it to be named a Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network Fellow (with a $10,000 grant)?
That was huge. When I signed up for the workshop, I didn’t know that it would have the possibility of leading to a fellowship. And a reason I signed up for that particular workshop, which was called “The Problem-Solving Studio,” was because when I read the description, it sounded like it was how teaching resonated with me. So it’s trying to solve a real problem with a hands-on project. One of the classes that I was teaching at the time was a senior-level class that was applied differential equations. How do you make that meaningful? In the past, students didn’t really connect with it because it’s hard to see it beyond you’re solving these math problems. How do you make it physical? The byproduct of that workshop was that I created a couple of modules for that class.
4. One of your more fascinating projects was attempting to help people with hand-arm vibration syndrome, which truckers and NASCAR drivers experience, that can lead to nerve damage. How did you and your students navigate that project?
Everybody was able to contextualize the concepts from the class that are sometimes a little bit more tricky, specifically when we start talking about frequency responses of things and how much vibration can I get rid of by adding springs and dampers? It’s the same idea as if you have a washing machine that vibrates a lot, like if you buy the big plastic or rubber pucks you can put underneath that will help isolate the floor from the vibrating washing machine so that you don’t get cracks. Same kind of idea, right? So there, they have to kind of figure out what parameters needed to go into that.
5. You earned your bachelor’s degree from Lafayette College, which has a strong engineering department. What do you love about GCU’s engineering department?
One of the reasons why I loved coming to GCU was that we were just about to graduate our first set of seniors, so there was a lot of ability to have input into this program. Everybody here who helped from the early days until now is on the same page with student engagement, the No. 1 thing. … (Also) every year, our capstones seem to get better. I don’t think that it’s possible. They prove me wrong every year.
