James Tappel

Jim Tappel joined the Professional Practice program in January, 2009 after 25 years in engineering design and product development. A product of UC’s Mechanical Engineering program in 1982, he completed his schooling at Stanford University with a MS in Mechanical Engineering with emphasis on product design.

Professor Tappel’s career in product design and development started outside Zurich, Switzerland where he explored the use of high precision, micro-miniature silicon force sensors. Returning to the states, Jim found himself back in California where he consulted with IDEO on numerous devices in the computer, consumer, medical and toy industries. A desire to move closer to Cincinnati brought Jim and his family to Michigan, where over a 15 year period worked for several medical device firms prior to starting his own medical device company. Returning to Cincinnati in 2005, Jim returned to medical device development where he worked on cardiac surgical instruments.

Jim and his wife, Mary have 3 children. They have been involved with starting a private school in Michigan and taught science and design programs to elementary, high school and college students.