I appreciate Ms. Peggy Jo Gramer's and Dr. Garnette Roberts's ceaseless work to ensure that all needs, academic and personal, were addressed during my time as a doctoral student.My gratitude also goes to mentors from earlier in my career, Mr. Stan Anderson, Mr. Arnie Fero, and Dr. Gianluca Longoni, for instilling strong engineering principles and for encouraging me to follow a path that lead me to this point.