Dr. Ray James holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Texas.  He presently serves as Director of Student Services in the Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, where he has taught and conducted research in the field of highway bridges and experimental stress analysis since 1980.  In addition to teaching mechanics and structural engineering courses, he regularly teaches a course titled Engineering and Ethics which is required of all engineering majors at Texas A&M.  Dr. James is also a Program Manager for the Texas Transportation Institute, where he directs research projects primarily involving highway bridge engineering and experimental engineering mechanics.  He has worked to develop new regulatory models for truck weight regulation, models for bridge managements systems, and the to study the effects of overloads on bridge life in research studies funded by Texas Department of Transportation, FHwA, US DOT, and NCHRP.  In addition, he has conducted several studies of creep of epoxy grouts, for application in foundations of integral gas compressors in the natural gas industry and in high temperature transducer development for down-hole drilling applications.  He has published more than sixty refereed technical papers and research reports.  Since 1999, Dr. James has participated in a College of Engineering study abroad program, and he will be leading this program in the summer of 2003.  Each summer as a part of this program, he takes 40-60 students to France where they live, study, and travel together, taking various engineering courses including a course in Engineering and Ethics.