Design News' 2008 Engineer of the Year

LARRY BURNS
VICE PRESIDENT, R&D AND STRATEGIC PLANNING, GENERAL MOTORS

As VP of R&D and Strategic Planning at General Motors, Larry Burns is by all accounts in charge of reinventing the struggling behemoth. He has been a passionate and powerful advocate for GM's efforts with fuel cell vehicles and game changers such as the Chevy Volt with the goal of "sustainable but affordable mobility." Given GM's financial problems and legendary resistance to change, Burns has made considerable progress. Can you imagine a bigger job? Burns, who has overcome deafness, holds a bachelors' degree in mechanical engineering and a Ph.D. in civil engineering. He's been with GM since 1969.

JOHN VAN DANACKER
MEDTRONIC

An 18-year man at Medtronic, Van Danacker spearheaded the engineering team that's enabling implanted medical devices to remotely and wirelessly communicate with doctors around the globe. A University of Minnesota-Duluth graduate who holds degrees in computer science and mathematics, Van Danacker has been responsible for the company's remote bedside monitors, as well as the design of the IT infrastructure that enables its pacemakers and implantable defibrillators to "talk" to doctors over the Internet. His remote patient management technology has already been employed in 265,000 implantable devices, and it could mark the beginning of a major change in medicine.

DAVID DANITZ
VICE PRESIDENT, R&D, NOVARE SURGICAL SYSTEMS

David Danitz, vice president of Research and Development at Novare Surgical Systems in Cupertino, CA, invented a new type of fully mechanical laparoscopic surgical instrument that allows more precise surgeries at lower risk. Called RealHand, this technology is designed to mirror the surgeon's hand direction with the added benefit of tactile feedback. As such, when the surgeon's hand moves in one direction, the instrument tip exactly follows. Small articulating links connect the jaws to the shaft and the handle to the shaft, which can vary in length from 24 to 45 centimeters. These new instruments are enabling surgeons to perform scar-less surgery entirely through the belly button or other natural orifices. David Danitz joined Novare Surgical in 2000. after serving at Computer Motion as a project manager for the Zeus Surgical Robotic System. He earned a BSME degree with high honors from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and an SMME degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

TODD KUIKEN
PHYSICIAN, CHICAGO REHABILITATION INSTITUTE

A physician with a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, Todd Kuiken has performed the seemingly impossible task of creating an artificial limb that enables wearers to feel. Kuiken, who has worked on the concept for more than 20 years, has enabled test patients to feel the touch of other human beings on their artificial hands, and is working on enabling them to use their hands to simultaneously squeeze and feel.