Dr. Mary Lee Gambone is currently Rolls-Royce’s Head of Materials Engineering for the Defence sector and Global Head of the Materials Engineering capability, a team of 500 working across Asia, North America, Europe and the UK. She has worked in materials engineering for more than 40 years, most of those working in the aerospace industry. Since joining Rolls-Royce in 1998, she has had several roles, including Chief of Research and Technology Strategy, Chief of Materials Applications, Specifications, Design Data and Repair Technology, and Manager of Critical Part Lifing as well as contributing engineering solutions in areas as diverse as high temperature behavior of silicon carbide reinforced titanium, superalloy casting and forgings, and fatigue of titanium structures.
Her early career as a materials engineer was with Allison Gas Turbine Division of General Motors, and she enjoyed seven years with the US Air Force Research Laboratory as Team Lead for metal matrix composites research in the Materials Directorate. Mary Lee has earned a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from Purdue University, a M.S in Materials Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in Materials Science.