Christopher L. Magee

In 2002, Magee left Ford Motor Company and was appointed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology as Professor of the practice in Mechanical Engineering Department and Institute for Data, Systems and Society (IDSS). In 2011, Magee was appointed as the co-director of SUTD/MIT International Design Center.

Magee has received several best paper awards. In 1997, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to advanced vehicle development. He is also a Henry Ford Technical Fellow.

Magee received his Bachelors, Masters and Doctoral degrees in Metallurgy and Materials Science from Carnegie Institute of Technology. In 1979, he completed his MBA in Advanced Management from Michigan State University.

Magee has contributed significantly to the research area of vehicle crashworthiness. He published an article in the 1970s with P H. Thornton about the design considerations in energy absorption by structural collapse. They developed a general treatment, encompassing both the geometry and material properties of the structure, for the absorption of mechanical energy due to axial collapse of structural shapes.

After completing his Ph.D. studies in 1966, Magee joined Ford Motor Company as a Research Scientist and development engineer till 1976. In the following eight years, he managed various research departments before being promoted to Director of Vehicle Concepts Research lab for a six-year term. From 1990 till 1998, Magee directed the Vehicle Systems Engineering at the company. He was promoted to Executive Director of Program and Advanced Engineering from 1998 till 1999 and served as an Executive Director of Ford/MIT Strategic Technical Partnership from 2000 till 2001.

Magee worked on the transformation, structure and strength of ferrous materials in the late 1960s and early 1970s. His work on ferrous materials received international recognition and he was awarded the Howe Medal and the Alfred Nobel Award. He investigated the low temperature deformation of newly transformed martensitic alloys, identifying and quantifying a new deformation mode -transformation plasticity - known as the Magee mechanism. His quantitative study of martensite formation included an analytical model of transformation at various temperatures known as the Magee equation.