Maria Chierichetti

Maria ChierichettiAssociate Professor & Associate Chair

Phone:
Email: maria.chierichetti@sjsu.edu
Office: Engr 272C

Education

  • Ph.D in Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2012
  • M.S in Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology 2011
  • Laurea Specialistica (M.S) in Aeronautical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, 2007
  • Laurea (B.S) in Aerospace Engineering, Politecnico de Milano, 2004

Bio

Maria Chierichetti joined the department of Aerospace Engineering first as a lecturer in Spring 2019 and as a full-time assistant professor in Fall 2019. Her interests lie in the field of aerospace structural design and vibrations, engineering education and transportation policy development. 

Before joining SJSU, she worked as a faculty member at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and at the University of Cincinnati. She earned her PhD at Georgia Tech in 2012 under the guidance of Dr. Massimo Ruzzene, working on the monitoring and tracking of helicopter blade deformation. She earned a BS and MS from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) in 2004 and 2007 respectively, with majors in Aeronautical Engineering. During her MS, she participated in a study abroad program at TUDelft. She is an Amelia Earhart Fellow – Zonta International Foundation.

She is currently teaching the aerospace structure classes offered by the department, which are AE 112, AE 114, AE 250 and AE 251.

Her research interests lie in the broad field of safety of transportation, with focus on policy definition and evaluation as well as structural integrity. Some of the projects that she has been recently working on are:

  • Developing methodologies for combining finite element analysis and machine/deep learning for structural health monitoring and stress prediction of autonomous systems
  • Exploring the Relationship Between Mandatory Helmet Use Regulations and Adult Cyclists’ Behavior in California Using Hybrid Machine Learning Models
  • Unmanned Structural inspections in the context of urban air mobility

She is also interested in novel teaching approaches to improve students’ understanding and success, with emphasis on:

  • Understanding the effect of COVID-19 on students’ learning and teaching practices
  • Exploring competency-based teaching, specification grading and mastery learning pedagogies in aerospace engineering
  • Teaching mentoring in engineering
  • Incorporating outreach activities as part of curricular activities in aerospace structures introductory classes
  • Supporting women and underrepresented students in STEM
  • Internationalization in higher education

Classes Taught

  • AE 112
  • AE 114
  • AE 250
  • AE 251

Links