Thomas Harold Massie grew up in Vanceburg, Kentucky, and received his SB in Electrical Science and Engineering and his SM in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1993 and 1996 respectively. While at MIT, he won the Design 2.70 contest (1993), the Lemelson-MIT student prize for inventions (1995), and the 1995 MIT $10K Entrepreneurship Competition. For his bachelor's degree thesis project, Massie and his MIT AI Lab advisor, Kenneth Salisbury, designed and built the PHANToM, a device which creates the sensation of touch for computer users by exerting a precisely controlled force on the user's fingertip. In 1993, Massie and his wife Rhonda (Howard) Massie, MIT '95, formed SensAble Devices (renamed SensAble Technologies in 1996) to commercialize and manufacture "haptic interface" devices such as the PHANToM. Today the company, which is based in University Park at MIT, has a worldwide installed base of leading edge customers including General Electric, Disney, and Toyota. Massie currently serves as the company's Chairman and Chief Technology Officer.
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