engineering

Lorna Gibson

Lorna Gibson is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Lorna Gibson rather than just read about it. In short: Lorna Jane Gibson is an American materials scientist and engineer currently the Matoula S. Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Key takeaways

Lorna Gibson belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Lorna Gibson to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Lorna Gibson from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Lorna Jane Gibson is an American materials scientist and engineer currently the Matoula S. Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Education Lorna Gibson received her Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc) in Civil Engineering from the University of Toronto in 1978. Gibson then attended the University of Cambridge, where she received her PhD in Materials Engineering in 1981 for research supervised by Michael F. Ashby, and focused on the elastic and plastic behavior of cellular materials.

Career and research After receiving her PhD, Gibson worked as a Senior Engineer at Arctec Canada Ltd., which she left to work in academia. Gibson worked as an Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering at the University of British Columbia from 1982 to 1984. Gibson then moved to MIT where she became an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering in 1984, and an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1987. Gibson became a full professor in both departments in 1995, and a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in 1996. Since 1997, she has been the Matoula S. Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. Gibson also served as Chair of the Faculty from 2005 to 2006 and was Associate Provost from 2006 to 2008. In 2005, Gibson founded OrthoMimetics Ltd. and served as its Mechanics of Materials Advisor. In 2009, OrthoMimetics was acquired by Belgian company TiGenix in a deal valued at £14.3 million.

Awards and honors In 2015, Gibson was named a MacVicar Faculty Fellow, MIT's top award for undergraduate teaching. In April 2016, Gibson received MIT's Teaching with Digital Technology Award for innovative use of digital tools in education. In March 2017, Gibson received the Ellen Swallow Richards Diversity Award for promoting equality and diversity. In April 2017, she won the Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching for her outstanding contributions to undergraduate education.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lorna Gibson

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lorna Gibson claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Lorna Gibson before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Lorna Gibson ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Lorna Gibson

In research: Lorna Gibson appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Lorna Gibson in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Lorna Gibson is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Alumni of the University of Cambridge, American materials scientists, Canadian materials scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lorna Gibson outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Lorna Gibson in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lorna Gibson means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Lorna Gibson out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lorna Gibson in simple terms?

Lorna Jane Gibson is an American materials scientist and engineer currently the Matoula S. Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Why does Lorna Gibson matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Lorna Gibson?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Lorna Gibson.