As director of the Institute of Glass and Ceramics in Erlangen, Germany, Webber is undertaking pioneering research and inspiring future generations

While taking Professor Richard Reed’s CAD (computer-aided design) graphics class at Maine Maritime Academy in the fall of 2000, Kyle Webber and several fellow students, including future MMA board trustee Dr. Alaina Adams, decided to reverse-engineer an old Honda children’s scooter. Drawing on “all the components in CAD,” recounts Professor Reed, the project “demonstrated Webber’s and his team’s capabilities to take on a very difficult task and see it through to completion.”

Impressed by Webber’s leadership skills, Reed hired him to be TA for the class. “His peers appreciated his knowledge and ability to mentor them through challenges they faced learning CAD,” he recalls. When Webber asked him about his prospects for graduate school, Reed told him he would be successful at any engineering school in the country—and they would be lucky to have him.

Another MMA professor, Dr. Paul Wlodkowski, recalls meeting Webber during the spring 2003 semester in his Engineering Materials class. In his first year of teaching at MMA, fresh from industry, Dr. Wlodkowski brought in a number of examples of so-called “smart materials,” i.e., substances that could generate an electric signal during a mechanical excitation or, conversely, produce a force or displacement when activated with an electrical input.