Alan R. Pelton, PhD, Chief Technical Officer, G. RAU Inc., received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at UC Berkeley and his MS and BS in Metallurgical Engineering at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. As a research associate at Stanford University, he studied Nitinol thin-film processing and the effects of thermal cycling on Nitinol properties. After faculty positions in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering at Iowa State University and University of Notre Dame, he joined the Shape Memory group at Raychem Corporation as Research and Technical Manager. There he concentrated on optimizing processing and properties for medical and non-medical applications of Nitinol. In 1993, he joined Nitinol Devices and Components and became the Chief Technical Officer. He investigated processing and properties of self-expanding stents, vena cava filters, and other medical implants and was responsible for technical submissions to the FDA. In 2014 he started G. RAU Inc. to provide technical services of consulting and testing of Nitinol devices for medical device companies. He has over 100 technical publications primarily in the areas of processing, properties, microstructural analysis, corrosion, and fatigue of Nitinol. He is a co-founder of Shape Memory and Superelastic Technologies, an affiliate of ASM International.