After receiving his BS degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1982, Dr. Anderson went on to earn a MS in the area of dynamic systems and control from the same institution in 1984. He then spent the next two years working in the areas of dynamics, structural dynamics, and controls for TRW Space and Technology in Redondo Beach, California. After this period, he entered the Ph.D. program in Applied and Computational Mechanics at Stanford University, earning his degree in 1990. Dr. Anderson then accepted a position as researcher and principal dynamics engineering at TRW where he was associated with various spacecraft and research programs. In late 1991 Dr. Anderson was invited to Germany for a two-year period as a visiting scholar, lecturer, and research fellow at the Technische Hochscule - Darmstadt. In 1993 he joined the faculty of the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Applied Mechanics, and Aviation at The Ohio State University, in Columbus where he remained until coming to Rensselaer