Walter Bradley (engineer)

Walter L. Bradley is a retired professor of materials science and engineering. His work has focused on the mechanical properties of polymeric composites and engineering plastics, emphasizing fracture mechanics and life prediction. His research has been supported by NSF, DOE, NASA, AFOSR and many Fortune 500 companies including Dupont, Dow Chemical, 3M and Chevron-Phillips resulting in more than 130 refereed articles and 12 book chapters. In recognition of his contributions to his field, he was elected Fellow of the American Society for Materials in 1993 and Educator of the Year for the Society of Plastics Engineering in 2011.

Bradley taught from 1968-1976 at the Colorado School of Mines as an Assistant and Associate Professor of Metallurgical Engineering before moving to Texas A&M University, where he began his seminal work in fracture studies in graphite/epoxy composite materials. During his 24 years as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering (ME) at Texas A&M University (1976-2000), he was Division Head for Materials and Manufacturing and subsequently served as Department Head of ME, a department of 67 professors and 1500 students. He also served as the Division Head of Materials for the NSF Offshore Technology Center at TAMU. He started and directed for 10 years the interdisciplinary Polymer Technology Center at Texas A&M University a center that served ~20 major companies. In 1995, he was honored with the Charles W. Crawford Award by the College of Engineering at TAMU for his outstanding contributes to the college. Dr. Bradley finished his academic career at Baylor University where he was invited to come as a Distinguished Professor to start a graduate program in the School of Engineering. During his time at Baylor, he refocused his research to materials engineering topics that could stimulate economic development in 3rd world countries. This work focused on converting agricultural waste from coconuts into functional fillers for polymers, reducing the cost, enhancing the mechanical properties, and making these polymeric composites more environmentally friendly. His work with Ford Motors resulted in a materials innovation award in 2011 from the Society of Plastics Engineers.

Bradley's extracurricular interests have included the dialogue between Faith and Science. He co-authored "The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories" in 1984 and has subsequently written 10+ book chapters dealing with faith-science issues. He has lectured on such topics as "The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories" and "Does Fine Tuning Support Theism?" at almost every major university in the United States to campus-wide audiences totally more than 60,000 as well as in Europe, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan, and China. He was elected a Fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation, the world's largest organization of scientists and engineers who profess a Christian faith. He was subsequently elected to serve one year terms as Vice President and then as President of the ASA.