Furman, Burford J.

Authors

San Jose State University

Date Updated

8-8-2024

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Academic Rank

Professor

Year Retired from SJSU

2022

Educational Background

Stanford University, Mechanical Engineering, Ph.D. 1991

University of California, Davis ‐ Mechanical Engineering, M.S. 1982

University of California, Davis ‐ Mechanical Engineering, B.S. 1980

Dissertation Title

A New, Thermally Controlled, Non-Contact Rotor Balancing Method

Teaching Experience

San Jose State University, Mechanical Engineering, Professor 2006-

San Jose State University, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, 2000-2006

San José State University, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Assistant Professor, January 1994 - 2000

Stanford University, Mechanical Engineering Department, Research and Teaching Assistant, 1986-1991

University of California, Davis, Mechanical Engineering Department, Research and Teaching Assistant, 1980-1982

Areas of interest for research and teaching include: mechatronic system design, precision machine design, engineering measurements, automation for production processes, design education, and solar powered automated transit.

Administrative and Professional Experience

From 1982 to 1993, Professor Furman worked in the Development Laboratory at IBM, General Products Division (later called, Storage Systems Division) in San José. He was a member of the actuator development team for the 3390 disk storage product and spindle motor design team for 3.5 inch and 2.5 inch disk drive products. He has been active in the Santa Clara Valley section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers having served as the Newsletter Editor from 1991 to 1993 and as Technical Activities chair from 1994 to 1997. He is a member of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and the American Society for Engineering Education. He is also a Registered Professional Mechanical Engineer in the State of California.

Consultant, Symyx Technologies, Santa Clara, CA. October 2001 – June 2002

Staff Engineer, IBM Corporation, Advanced Storage and Retrieval Division, San José, CA. 1991-1993

Senior Associate Engineer, IBM Corporation, General Products Division, San José, CA. 1982-1986

Selected Publications

• Burford J Furman and Ron Swenson. "Hail a Ride on Overhead Solar Transit" Solar Today Vol. 37 Iss. 1 (2023) p. 28 - 33
  https://ases.org/overheadsolartransit/
• Stephen D. Sidletsky, Feruza A. Amirkulova, Michel Pharand, and Burford J. Furman. "Design and Optimization of Tuned Mass Dampers to Improve Settling Time of A Timed of A Precision Optical System" ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, Proceedings (IMECE) (2023). https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/faculty_rsca/4834/
• Burford J Furman, Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Shannon McDonald, Ron Swenson, et al.. "Solar-Powered Automated Transportation: Feasibility and Visualization" (2021) https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/mti_publications/378/
• Burford J. Furman, Salman Ahsan and Eric Wertz. "Making the move from C to Python with mechanical engineering students" ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings Vol. 2020-June (2020)
  https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/faculty_rsca/1680/
• Furman, B., “Solar-Powered Automated Transit – Its Time is NOW! ATRA Pulse, November 19, 2018. http://www.advancedtransit.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/BJF-ATRA-Newsletter-Article-for-December-2018.pdf
• Burford Furman, Sam Ellis, Lawrence Fabian, and Peter Muller. "Automated Transit Networks (ATN): A Review of the State of the Industry and Prospects for the Future, MTI Report 12-31" Mineta Transportation Institute(2015). https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/mti_publications/22/
• Furman, B., “Spartan Superway Speeds Ahead”, ATRA Pulse, September 9, 2017. (available at: http://www.advancedtransit.org/library/news/spartan-superway-speeds-ahead/ )
• Branco, L., Rosenfeld, E., Marques de Queiroz Neto, D., Furman, B., “Case Study of a Solar Power Installation for an Automated Transit Network in San José”, ASES National Solar Conference 2016 Proceedings, San Francisco, CA July 10-13, 2016 https://proceedings.ises.org/?conference=solar2016&sort=lastname&mode=list&doi=10.18086%2Fsolar.2016.01.01
• Furman, B., “The Spartan Superway: A Solar-Powered Automated Transportation Network”, ASES National Solar Conference 2016 Proceedings, San Francisco, CA July 10-13, 2016 https://proceedings.ises.org/?conference=solar2016&sort=lastname&mode=list&doi=10.18086%2Fsolar.2016.01.07
• Furman, B., “Innovating Automated Transit Technology with Students”. ATRA Pulse January 2016 Newsletter (available at: http://www.advancedtransit.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/ATRA-Pulse-Article-for-January-2016-Innovating-Automated-Transit-Technology-With-Students.pdf), December, 2015
• Burford Furman, Sam Ellis, Lawrence Fabian and Peter Muller. "Automated Transit Networks (ATN): A Review of the State of the Industry and Prospects for the Future, MTI Report 12-31" (2015) https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/mti_publications/22/
• Furman, B., Ellis, S., Fabian, L., Muller, P., Swenson, R., “Automated Transit Networks (ATN): A Review of the State of the Industry and Prospects for the Future’, Mineta Transportation Institute, CA-MTI-14-1227, September, 2014. http://transweb.sjsu.edu/PDFs/research/1227-automated-transit-networks.pdf
• Thalia Anagnos, Burford J Furman, Ping Hsu and Patricia R Backer. "How Important is the WOW Factor in First Year Engineering Courses?" ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition(2013) p. 23.669.1 - 23.669.14
  https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/aviation_pub/13/
• Furman, B.; Wertz, E.; , "A First Course In Computer Programming for Mechanical Engineers," Mechatronics and Embedded Systems and Applications (MESA), 2010 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Mechatronic and Embedded Systems and Applications, pp.70-75, 15-17 July 2010. Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5552091
• Burford J Furman and E. Wertz. "A First Course In Computer Programming for Mechanical Engineers" Mechatronics and Embedded Systems and Applications (MESA), 2010 IEEE/ASME International Conference on (2010)
  https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5552091
• Furman, B. J., Moen, E., "Evaluation of Alternative Microcontrollers for Mechatronics Education," Computers in Engineering Education Journal, vol. 15, no. 3, July-September 2005, pp. 22-33. https://coed.asee.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/3-Evaluation-of-Alternative-Microcontrollers-for-Mechatronics-Education.pdf
• Du, W. Y., Furman, B. J., Mourtos, N. J., "On the Ability to Design Engineering Experiments, Proceedings of the 8th UICEE Annual Conference on Engineering Education, February 2005. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/On-the-Ability-to-Design-Engineering-Experiments-Furman-Du/8444ff754ed9cfc9086b36cd8525ae8f279b9d7c
• Furman, B. J., Robinson, "Improving Engineering Report Writing with Calibrated Peer Review," Proceedings of the 2003 Frontiers in Education Conference, Vol. 2, November 2003.
  https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1264742
• Mourtos, N. J., Furman, B. J., "Assessing the Effectiveness of an Introductory Engineering Course for Freshman," Proceedings of the 2002 Frontiers in Education Conference, Vol. 2 (2002) November 6-9, Boston, MA.
  https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1158181
• Taylor, M. T., Belgrader, P., Furman, B. J., Pourahmadi, F., Kovacs, G. T. A., Northrup, M. A., “Lysing Bacterial Spores by Sonication through a Flexible Interface in a Microfluidic System,” Analytical Chemistry, vol. 73, no. 3, February 1, 2001, pp. 492-496. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac000779v
• Burford J Furman and G. P Hayward. "Asynchronous Hands-On Experiments for Mechatronics Education" Mechatronics Vol. 12 Iss. 2 (2002)
  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0957415801000654?via%3Dihub
• Hayward, G. P., Furman, B. J., "Teaching Mechatronics to the New Generation," 1999 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, Nashville, TN, November, 1999. https://doi.org/10.1115/IMECE1999-0641
• Furman, B. J., "Printer Carriage Motion Control Experiment," Electronic Technology Journal, vol. 3, no. 2, Fall, 1998, pp. 22-23. https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/faculty_rsca/5137/
• Kearny, M., Furman, B. J., "Electrostatically Actuated Stylus Profilometer With Capacitive Displacement Sensing in Vertical and Lateral Directions," Proceedings of SPIE, vol. 3275, January, 1998. https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/conference-proceedings-of-spie/3275/1/Electrostatically-actuated-stylus-profiler-with-capacitive-displacement-sensing-in-vertical/10.1117/12.304408.short
• Burford J. Furman, J. Christman, M. Kearny, F. Wojcik, and M. Tortonese. "Battery-Operated Atomic Force Microscope" Review of Scientific Instruments (1998): 215-220. https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/mech_eng_pub/1/
• Wang, J. C., Furman, B. J., Hsu, T. R., Barez, F., Tesfaye, A., Hsu, P., Reischl, P., "Mechatronics Laboratory Development at San Jose State University," Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, June 16- 18, 1997. https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/mech_eng_pub/22/
• Furman, B. J., Pinkernell, D., Elgee, S., "Case Studies on Design of Mechatronic Products," IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology - Part C, vol. 20, no. 1, January, 1997.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/585139
• Furman, B. J., "The Un-Lecture: A Computer-Assisted Curriculum Delivery Approach For the Effective Teaching of Mechanical Design," Proceeding of the 1996 Frontiers in Education Conference, Salt Lake City, UT, November, 1996. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/568521
• Furman, B. J., Hsu, T. R., Wang, J. C., Barez, F., Tesfaye, A., Hsu, P., Reischl, P., "Laboratory Development for Mechatronics Education," Session 1626, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference, Washington, D. C., June 23-26, 1996. https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/mech_eng_pub/21/
• Hsu, T. R., Wang, J. C., Barez, F., Furman, B. J., Hsu, P., Reischl, P., "An Undergraduate Curriculum in Mechatronic Systems Engineering," 95-WA/DE-3, 1995 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition, San Francisco, California, November, 1995.
• Furman, B. J., "Towards a More Hands-on, Design-oriented Course on Mechanisms," Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference, Designers in Engineering Education Session, Anaheim, California, June 26-29, 1995. https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/faculty_rsca/5138/
• Alvarez, J., Garcia, R., Nicoli, L., Sleight, E., Furman, B. J., "Battery Operated Atomic Force Microscope," panel paper presented at ASME INTERpack '95 conference. March 26-30, Lahaina. Hawaii March 27-30, 1995.
• Furman, B. J., "A New, Thermally Controlled, Non-Contact Rotor Balancing Method." ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, September, 1994.https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/mechanicaldesign/article-abstract/116/3/823/454536/A-New-Thermally-Controlled-Non-Contact-Rotor?redirectedFrom=fulltext
• Furman, B. J., Henderson, J. M., "An Improved Rotary Singulator,' Transactions of the ASAE, May-June, 1983, vol. 26, no. 3, p. 955-960. https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/mech_eng_pub/2/
• Henderson, J. M., Bellman, L. G., Furman, B. J., "A Case for Teaching Engineering With Cases," Engineering Education, January, 1983, p. 288-292.

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