John Callister is named director of Kinzelberg engineering program

By Mark Siegal

John Callister, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, has been named director of Cornell's Harvey Kinzelberg Enterprise Engineering Program. The program is designed to help undergraduate engineering students adapt their education in the traditional engineering disciplines to a business environment.

Endowed in 1995 by Harvey Kinzelberg, a 1967 graduate of the Cornell College of Engineering, the program is open to students in all engineering fields at Cornell. The program includes an introductory freshman course in engineering entrepreneurship and the fundamentals of high-technology business. During their sophomore and junior years, students take two economics courses and two entrepreneurship courses from outside the engineering college. They conclude the program with a senior course in the development of a comprehensive business plan for a high-technology, high-growth product or service. In announcing Callister's appointment, Sidney Leibovich, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor and director of the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell, said, "We look forward to dynamic leadership from him. "

Callister has been involved in the Kinzelberg program since joining the Cornell faculty in January this year. He participates in Cornell's Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise Program and stays active in aeroacoustics and acoustics research. He also is interested in entrepreneurship research, particularly as it relates to the engineering field, and in the design and innovation process in small, high-technology companies. Recently he attended the Roundtable for Entrepreneurship Education for Engineers at Stanford University, as well as the third annual Young Faculty Research and Teaching Retreat in Entrepreneurship in Lenox, Mass.

After earning his M.S. in mechanical engineering in 1992 and a Ph.D. in 1996, both at Cornell, Callister was assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Tri-State University in Angola, Ind. In addition to his engineering degrees, he has an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. He is a co-founder and vice president of Foxdale Inc., an equipment-leasing firm. He spent eight years as an automotive engineer for General Motors and has been a consultant for various businesses.