A Romanian will run car maker Ford’s new Silicon Valley research center, leading a team of 125 researchers, scientists and engineers. Dragos Maciuca, a Romanian engineer who previously worked for Apple, will lead Ford’s newly opened researcher center, which is poised to become the biggest auto research center in Silicon Valley.

Maciuca, now Senior Technical Leader at the Research and Innovation center in Palo Alto, has experience in electronic consumer products, semiconductor, aerospatial and auto products. The Romanian, who holds a mechanical engineering PhD from the University of California at Berkeley, a BS in mechanical engineering from the Rutgers University and an MBA from Haas School of Business, has been working in Palo Alto since the late 90s.

He previously worked with Apple for two years as senior controls system engineer, with Lockheed Martin for almost eight years and research and development manager, and with BMW for two years, as senior systems engineer.

Ford plans to further expand its new research center, which added to an existing facility, opened in 2012. The center aims to help Ford develop on connectivity, mobility, and autonomous vehicles. Ford inked an alliance with the Stanford University and offered the university’s engineers the autonomous research vehicle Hybrid- Fusion for the next testing period.

editor@romania-insider.com