Patrick Drane

 

 Patrick Drane, Ph.D., has been a researcher and supported a variety of research operations within the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department for more than two decades. Currently, he is the Assistant Director of the Baseball Research Center, the Assistant Director for Operations for WindSTAR (an NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) focused on wind energy), the Assistant Director of the UMass Lowell Center for Energy Innovation, and the technical program manager for SHAP3D (an NSF I/UCRC focused on heterogeneous 3D printing). Additionally, he supports other projects in the mechanical and industrial engineering department in the areas of composites, textiles, and impact of helmets.

Drane has served as the Assistant Director of the Baseball Research Center since 2003 and has helped lead the center to become an internationally recognized center of excellence in the field of baseball and baseball bat research and a leader among facilities focusing on sports engineering research in the United States. His organization of the 9th conference of the International Sports Engineering Association (ISEA) brought the sports engineering researchers from around the world to Lowell in 2012. Dr. Drane is currently organizing the Sports Collaborative for Open Research and Education (SCORE), a campus initiative to coordinate research and instructional efforts focused on sports.

As a technical program manager, he supports the development and operations of two NSF-funded Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (I/UCRCs). WindSTAR was established in 2014 in collaboration with UT Dallas. SHAP3D was established in 2018 in collaboration with Georgia Tech and UCONN and Arizona State University joined SHAP3D in 2024. Drane manages many of the operations and communications with the many faculty and industry members engaged with these centers.

He also supports projects in and faculty of the Advanced Composite Materials and Textiles Research Laboratory (ACMTRL) and their collaborations, projects and programs with the U.S. Army, NASA, NIST, DOE, IACMI, and industry partners. Dr. Drane has been an active researcher collaborating on multiple projects in the Harnessing Emerging Research Opportunities to Empower Soldiers (HEROES) program with the U.S. Army.