Gary Strumolo: Helping Ford Discover the Latest In-Car Electronic Technologies
Gary Strumolo, manager, Vehicle Design and Infotronics, Ford Research and Innovation
- Who: Gary Strumolo, manager, Vehicle Design and Infotronics, Ford Research and Innovation
- Role: Leader of a team of 40 engineers and scientists responsible for researching and developing future vehicle architectures and in-car connectivity technologies
- Did you know? Strumolo’s areas of specialization are extensive, ranging from applied mathematics and fluid mechanics to aerodynamics and computational fluid dynamics
Gary Strumolo, manager of Vehicle Design and Infotronics for Ford Research and Innovation, is the go-to guy who is leading a 40-person team of engineers and scientists, managing high-tech Ford research labs such as the VIRTTEX driving simulator and working with the Ford Product Development community to appropriately incorporate the latest advancements in structural and electrical vehicle architecture to Ford products on the road today.
According to Strumolo, he is also the guy who gets to play with electronic gadgets and technologies to see if they have a place in the Ford product portfolio. “I get to work with the latest electronic technologies, what’s not to love about that,” he quips.
Strumolo started his storied career at Ford in 1989, holding numerous positions in CAE and Ford safety-related departments, developing sensor technologies that make accident-avoidance systems such as Ford collision warning available to customers today on vehicles such as the Ford Taurus and Edge.
As the overseer of VIRTTEX (VIRtual Test Track EXperiment), considered one of the world’s most advanced driving simulators, Strumolo has also nurtured Ford’s efforts to better understand driver behavior and distraction, helping the company further fine-tune active crash-avoidance systems at the prototype stage in a controlled, safer lab setting.
His latest research endeavors hit in some of the hot-spot growth areas in the automotive space, including infotainment, human-machine interface and health and wellness. Strumolo is one of the spearheads of Ford’s future in-car health and wellness connectivity strategy, which is being built around the successful Ford SYNC® in-car connectivity platform.
“We want to broaden the paradigm of Ford SYNC beyond infotainment, transforming SYNC into a tool that can also help improve people’s lives as well as the driving experience,” said Strumolo.
Prior to joining Ford and the Ford Research and Innovation team, Strumolo was a senior research scientist and head of Fluid Mechanics at Schlumberger, the world’s largest oil field services company. He equates the industry-to-industry career move as “going from getting the gas out of the ground to putting it into the tank.”
Strumolo has a bachelor’s degree in computer applications and information systems from NYU’s School of Commerce, and a master’s and Ph.D. in applied mathematics from NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.
Personal Insights and Fun Facts
- Strumolo has 56 U.S. patents and 77 European patents and has authored more than 100 internal and external papers
- He has a passion for astronomy, eating out and subsequently working out
- Constantly mistaken for other people, Strumolo ironically calls himself the “everyman”
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About Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 166,000 employees and about 70 plants worldwide, the company's automotive brands include Ford and Lincoln. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford's products, please visit www.ford.com.
May 18, 2011