LATROBE, PA – Saint Vincent College is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Derek Breid, associate professor of engineering in the Herbert W. Boyer School of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Computing, as the James F. Will Endowed Chair of Engineering and chair of the Department of Engineering. Breid was appointed to these prestigious positions during the 2025 academic year.
The James F. Will Endowed Chair of Engineering was established in 2008 through a financial gift to hire a professional engineer to initially augment Saint Vincent College’s longstanding 3+2 Math/Engineering program. The primary goals of the position were to teach undergraduate courses in engineering, develop cooperative programs and opportunities for faculty and undergraduate research with area industry, and establish a research program that would involve undergraduates.
“Dr. Derek Breid has consistently engaged in research and teaching at the highest levels. I am very pleased to appoint him as the James F. Will Endowed Chair in Engineering,” said Father Paul Taylor, O.S.B., C’87, S’91, PhD, president of Saint Vincent College. “He succeeds Dr. Stacy Birmingham, who advanced the offerings of the Department and secured ABET accreditation. So, he has big shoes to fill, which he is certainly on track to do.”
Birmingham joined the Boyer School faculty in 2018, was named Engineering Department chair in fall 2018 and took over the Endowed Chair in August 2020. Birmingham in 2023 was presented with the 13th annual Projektenmacher Award. She came to Saint Vincent from Grove City College, where she served as dean of science, engineering and mathematics. Prior to that, Birmingham was a tenured faculty member at the University of Michigan. She earned her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Birmingham won the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation and the 38E Award for Teaching and Service from the University of Michigan.
During her years as chair, the curriculum was enhanced, additional faculty were hired and the Bachelor of Science degree in engineering science was changed in name to the Bachelor of Science degree in engineering.
The Endowed Chair position is now passed to Breid, who started at Saint Vincent in 2014, shortly after the College introduced its four-year engineering degree (June 2013 initially as a Bachelor of Science in engineering science). His diverse engineering background was immediately called upon as the department had just two faculty members teaching the whole engineering curriculum at the time.
Breid earned his doctorate in polymer science and engineering at the University of Massachusetts. He currently teaches materials engineering and design-related courses, in addition to running the Engineering Capstone Design program.
“Dr. Breid joined our faculty shortly after our four-year BS in engineering program started, and his arrival coincided with the students who came from our first full year of recruiting for the program,” said Dr. Stephen Jodis, dean of the Herbert W. Boyer School of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Computing. “He has been a critical figure in building and continually improving our curriculum, mentoring graduates who have gone to industry and to graduate schools, and continually developing innovative projects for our students who have roots in our Benedictine Hallmarks. He will continue and build upon the work of the previous recipients.”
As the James F. Will Endowed Chair of Engineering, Breid will continue to advance the mission of Saint Vincent College by promoting the engineering program and its impact.
“My arrival at Saint Vincent coincided with the arrival of the first incoming cohort of four-year engineering majors, so I feel that the evolution of the program has mirrored my professional growth in many ways,” Breid said. “Now, as department chair, I have the opportunity to give back to the program in a role that is rooted in both service and leadership, and the endowment offers the resources and flexibility to add ‘vision’ to that list. Both previous endowed chairs used that role to transform the program into something much greater, and I am excited for the opportunity to do the same.”
Breid is partnering with the University of Pittsburgh to study smart materials that bend and move in response to electric fields. The team, including SVC junior Brianna Sciore, is developing a sensor to measure the force these materials produce by tracking laser movement. By focusing on early-stage, exploratory research, Breid is giving students the opportunity to lead hands-on experiments while contributing to scientific discovery.
The Endowed Chair is named in honor of Saint Vincent College President Emeritus James F. Will, C’60, who served from 2000-06 as the College’s 15th president. The first lay president in the history of Saint Vincent College, Will presided over a period of great growth, overseeing more than $40 million in campus improvements, a 40% increase in student enrollment and a $75 million comprehensive capital campaign. Will studied mathematics at Saint Vincent College and completed a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering through its 3+2 cooperative engineering program with Penn State University before earning his Master of Business Administration from Duquesne University. Prior to his employment at Saint Vincent College, Will held leadership positions at United States Steel; Pressley Ridge; Kaiser Steel; Cyclops Industries and Armco, Inc., where he was chair, president and chief executive officer.
The Endowed Chair was first held by Dr. Paul Follansbee, hired in 2008. Now professor emeritus at Saint Vincent, Follansbee came to the College from Los Alamos National Laboratory where he was division leader of the Materials Science and Technology Division.
Prior to that, Follansbee served as vice president of technology with Howmet Castings and previously worked at General Electric’s Corporate R&D Center and Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Co. Among Follansbee's accomplishments in the Endowed Chair was the creation of Saint Vincent’s Bachelor of Science degree in engineering science which was approved by the Board of Directors in June 2013. Follansbee also authored the textbook “Fundamentals of Strength: Principles, Experiments, and Applications of an Internal State Variable Constitutive Formulation” in the Minerals, Metals & Materials Series published by Springer in 2014. A second edition of the textbook is now available.
Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B., founder of Saint Vincent Archabbey, studied at the Ludwig-Maximillian University of Munich, an institution that was home to a roundtable of European professors whose positions were endowed by Bavarian King Ludwig I. The James F. Will Endowed Chair of Engineering is part of Saint Vincent College’s own Roundtable of Scholars: expert professors serving in faculty positions endowed by the financial commitments of alumni and friends.
These endowed faculty chairs work to promote and enhance collaboration in their scholarship and research across the College’s academic community, while also preparing students for successful careers and lives of purpose and meaning.
About Saint Vincent CollegeFounded in 1846 by Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, Saint Vincent College is a Catholic, liberal arts college sponsored by the Benedictine monks of Saint Vincent Archabbey. Located in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, the College is known for its commitment to academic excellence grounded in Benedictine values.
