- Ms.Debbie Aliya, President, Aliya Analytical Inc, United States.
- In 1994, Debbie Aliya founded Aliya Analytical, a Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, engineering consulting specializing in failure prevention and materials characterization, and failure analysis. The company incorporated in 2005. Debbie has a BS in Metallurgy and Materials Science from Carnegie-Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA) and an MS in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University (Evanston, IL). She served as Chair of the ASM International Failure Analysis Committee three times. She contributed several articles and participated in the editorial duties for the 2002 and 2021 editions of the ASM International Metals Handbook volume on Failure Analysis. Articles authored include an introduction to the failure analysis process, composition analysis in failure analysis, and hydrogen embrittlement of steels. She was also the lead author for the glossary. She also contributed two articles to the 2004 edition of the Metals Handbook Volume 9, on Metallography, including a detailed approach on to how to choose specimens for routine lab work and failure analysis.
- She served for several years on the Editorial Board of the ASM Journal of Failure Analysis and Prevention, and published several articles in that journal. She continues to be a reviewer for this journal. She is vice-chair of the West Michigan ASM International Chapter, and serves as Program Chair for the Western Michigan Section of the Society of Automotive Engineers. She was Chair of the Grand Rapids Chapter of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) in 1999. In 2001 she became a Certified Interfaith Educator (Lakeshore Interfaith Institute, Ganges, MI).
- Because of her cultivation of critical and creative thinking skills, and ongoing interest in the yoga of failure analysis, and the importance of clear thinking in general, colleagues have called her “The Lone Ranger of Independent Testing” and “The Holistic Failure Analyst.” She calls herself a grounded, mystical intellectual. She grows a big garden, has taught herself to forage for wild mushrooms, and has an ongoing interest in the cultures and religious ideas of the world, current, historical, and potential future. She also has an ongoing interest in science fiction, as a potential mythology to guide the development of wisdom for future generations.
- In 2012 and 2013, she participated in National Novel Writing Month, and has completed the draft of The Convolution of Knomo Choicius, a novel that explores critical and creative thinking, under the pen name Shona Moonbeam. She participates in an on-line non-fiction writing group, which was a big help in the recent completion of the writing aspects of Constructing Competence in Failure Analysis, currently being formatted and edited for publication in 2023. More information about Debbie (Shona) is available at www.itothen.com and www.knomochoicius.com.
