Since 1986, the SME College of Fellows has honored those members who have made outstanding contributions to the social, technological and educational aspects of the manufacturing profession. These nine industry professionals have earned this highly prestigious honor through 20 years or more of dedication and service to manufacturing. Gary J. Cheng, PhD, FSMEProfessor, School of Industrial Engineering and School of Materials EngineeringPurdue UniversityWest Lafayette, Indiana Gary Cheng is a professor in School of Industrial Engineering and School of Materials Engineering at Purdue University. He received his doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University. He is an elected fellow of AAAS, ASME, SME, RSC, RSA, and ISNM. His research and teaching interests include laser materials processing, additive manufacturing, nanolithography, metamaterials, mechanical behaviors, electro-optical properties, energy and environmental devices. His research is solving pressing advanced materials and manufacturing challenges, leading to next generation nanofabrication and scalable manufacturing technologies, and driving innovation in laser based scalable manufacturing to make parts with precise 2D/3D nanoscale shape control, generate beneficial microstructures and physical properties, and develop fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of the processes. His research works were published in Science, Science Advances and Nature Communications, and was highlighted in Nature Photonic and Nature Research Materials. He has been recognized with a NSF CAREER Award, ONR Young Investigator Award, SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award, ASME Cho & Trigger Young Investigator Award, National Research Council Senior Research Fellowship and ASME Milton C. Shaw Manufacturing Research Medal. SME Member Since 2021 Jennifer Fielding, PhD, FSMECeramics Branch ChiefAir Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force BaseDayton, Ohio With 20 years of experience at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Dr. Jennifer Fielding performed research and program management in diverse fields such as polymer composites, multifunctional materials, and additive manufacturing. Dr. Fielding is currently the chief of the Ceramics branch, leading a team of over 70 scientists and engineers performing research and development on materials discovery, processing improvement, and performance understanding of ceramics and ceramic matrix composites. She previously served as the chief of the Composites branch and the technical advisor for the Structures, Propulsion and Manufacturing Enterprise branch. She served for five years as the deputy program manager for the Defense-Wide Manufacturing Science and Technology Program. Dr. Fielding launched America Makes, the first manufacturing institute within the Manufacturing USA network, and served as the government lead in the public-private partnership for over four years. She recently served as past chair of SME Member Council, and previously chaired the Additive Manufacturing Community Advisors. Dr. Fielding has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence, the AFMC-level nominee for the Katherine Wright Memorial Award, the Defense Manufacturing Technology Enabler Award, and has been named a Dayton Business Journal 40 Under Forty. SME Member Since 2014 Youping Gao, PhD, FSMEFounder, Chief Scientist & Executive Vice PresidentCastheon Inc.Thousand Oaks, California Youping Gao founded Castheon to advance the state of art in additive manufacturing and industrialization. He served for 20 years at Aerojet Rocketdyne where he held positions of increasing responsibility in technology operations, as tech fellow and discipline chief of manufacturing engineering, and developed many specialty manufacturing processes for rocket engine and space craft manufacturing. He supported various production and development programs including SSME/RS-25, RS-27, MA-5A, RS-68, the Linear Aerospike Engine XRS-2200, AR-1, RL10, Orion and Commercial Crew, THAAD, EKV, Hypersonic and Scramjet. He led the effort of developing and certifying the additive manufacturing process for producing mission critical spaceflight hardware and became the first in the nation to receive NASA production certification of additive manufactured hardware for human spaceflight in 2015. Dr. Gao’s research has been funded by NASA, Air Force, AFRL, MDA and many industrial partners. He has published over 40 papers on advanced materials, joining, laser materials processing, additive manufacturing, and conducted a series of additive manufacturing workshops at AeroDef, RAPID + TCT, AMUG, and ICAM conferences. Dr. Gao is a fellow of the Laser Institute and SME, and a DINO in Additive Manufacturing. He holds a bachelor’s degree in welding engineering from Beijing University of Technology and a doctoral degree in materials science and engineering from Oregon Graduate Institute. SME Member Since 2019 J. Randall (Randy) Gilmore, FSMEVice President and Chief Development OfficerThe National Center for Defense Manufacturing and MachiningJohnstown, Pennsylvania J. Randall (Randy) Gilmore has worked with advanced manufacturing processes for more than 40 years. He began his career at a world leading electrical discharge machining (EDM) company. He worked for more than 25 years at Extrude Hone Corporation (now The ExOne Company) where he developed several nontraditional manufacturing processes including ultrasonic machining, orbital polishing, oscillatory friction welding and ultra-short pulse laser systems. He also assisted in the first commercial implementation of binder jet metal additive manufacturing equipment. While at Extrude Hone/ExOne, he was awarded more than two dozen US and international patents for advanced manufacturing processes. In 2011, he joined the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM) as a senior program manager, advancing to vice president and chief technology officer. He currently serves as vice president and chief development officer where he is responsible for providing leadership in advanced manufacturing technologies and processes and NCDMM business strategy. He also serves in the same capacity for the Manufacturing Technology Development Group (MTDG), is a member of the Board of Directors of NCDMM, and a founder and chairman of the Board for both the Advanced Manufacturing and Applied Research Innovation Institute (AMARII) and the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation and Integration Center (AMIIC). SME Member Since 1992 Burak Ozdoganlar, PhD, FSMEVer Planck Endowed Chair and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering,and the Neuroscience InstituteCarnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh, Pennsylvania Dr. Burak Ozdoganlar is the Ver Planck Endowed Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering, and the Neuroscience Institute at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). He is an elected fellow of ASME and AIMBE and the associate director of the Engineering Research Accelerator at CMU. He was the interim CTO and chief scientist of the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute. Before joining CMU, he held positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a postdoctoral associate and at Sandia National Laboratories as a senior member of technical staff. Ozdoganlar received two master’s degrees from the Ohio State University and a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1999. His research interests include advanced manufacturing processes and equipment; macro/micro/nano-manufacturing; medical-device and biomedical manufacturing, including microneedle arrays, tissue engineering, and brain-machine interfaces; additive manufacturing; precision engineering and metrology; and vibrations. He has authored over 200 scientific articles and is a member of the Phi Kappa Phi and Sigma Xi honor societies, SME/NAMRI, ASME, and ASEE. His awards and recognitions include Ver Planck Endowed Chair Professorship, ASME Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award; SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award; NSF CAREER Award; NAMRI/SME Outstanding Paper award. SME Member Since 2006 Adele Ratcliff, FSMEDirector of the Assistant Secretary of DefenseIndustrial Base Policy, Innovation Capability and Modernization OfficeWashington, DC Adele Ratcliff is the director of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy’s Innovation Capability and Modernization office. In this position, she implements the broad authorities of the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) Program to strengthen the competitive posture of the U.S. Defense Industrial Base by fortifying traditional technical capabilities and forging emerging industrial sectors to respond at-will to national security requirements. In her long acquisition career, she has been an industrial base champion leading transformative initiatives including developing manufacturing readiness levels, inspiring movement to the digital thread, spearheading the DoD Manufacturing USA institutes, establishing America’s Cutting Edge (ACE) in partnership with the Department of Energy to catalyze the U.S. machine tool industry, and leading the DoD to focus efforts to regrow a strong manufacturing trades capability. Ratcliff has served as director of the DoD Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) Program, program manager for the congressionally mandated Defense Acquisition Challenge Program, deputy program manager for the Foreign Comparative Test Program, and for more than 11 years in Air Force Test and Evaluation at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida where she was awarded Civilian Test Engineer of the Year. She is a proud alumnus of the Mississippi State University Bulldogs, earning a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering in 1988. In 2011 she graduated from the U.S. Army War College earning a master’s in strategic art and is also a graduate of the Department of Defense’s Defense Senior Leadership Development Program. SME Member Since 2021 Hui-Ping Wang, PhD, FSMETechnical FellowGeneral MotorsWarren, Michigan Hui-Ping Wang is a Chinese American research scientist and General Motors (GM) Technical Fellow. She attended Tsinghua University in Beijing for bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering mechanics, obtained her doctorate in mechanical engineering from The University of Iowa in 2000 and has been working at the GM R&D Center ever since. Hui-Ping’s research work spans from math modeling of materials processing physics to experimental methods for manufacturing process development. Her pioneering work on physics-based modeling of laser-material interactions helped to unravel root causes of prevailing laser application challenges and develop robust laser welding processes for many GM vehicle programs including the recent electric vehicles. Hui-Ping has 100+ peer-reviewed publications, 30+ patents and more than 20 intellectual properties in production. She is awardee of four GM Boss Kettering Awards (GM’s highest corporate award for innovation), R&D 100 Award (2016), The Manufacturing Institute’s prestigious STEP Ahead Award (2021), the International Institute of Welding Heinz Sossenheimer Software Innovation Award (2021), American Welding Society A. F. Davis Silver Medal Award (2022), Women of Color Technical Innovation Award (2022) and Asian American Engineer of the Year (2022). She is currently an associate editor for Journal of Materials Processing Technology. SME Member Since 2021 Z. Cedric Xia, PhD, FSMEDistinguished Engineer & Director, Hardware EngineeringApple Inc.San Jose, California Z. Cedric Xia is currently a distinguished engineer and director at Apple Inc. He received his dual bachelor’s degrees in naval architecture and computer science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1987, his master’s in 1992 and doctorate in 1994, both in applied mechanics from Harvard University. Xia joined the Scientific Research Lab of the Ford Motor Company afterwards and made contributions to springback prediction and compensation of aluminum and advanced high strength steels, incremental forming, and integrated computational materials engineering for metals, thermoplastics, and fiber-reinforced composites. Since 2014, he has been working at Apple on Design-for-Manufacturing and computational methods. Over his 30+ years career, Xia has received 25 patent awards and two trade secrets, authored/co-authored 100+ refereed technical papers, seven book/journal edits, and 50+ internal technical reports. He has received the SAE Henry Ford II Distinguished Award (2005), SAE/AISI Sydney H. Melbourne Award (2009), SAE Forest R. McFarland Award (2011), STLE Surface Engineering Best Paper Award (2014), and the Henry Ford Technology Awards (2005, 2009, 2011). He chaired the Executive Committee of ASME Manufacturing Engineering Division and was a member from 2008 to 2013. He also served on the Board of Directors of DOE/USCAR Materials Technology Team from 2013 to 2014. SME Member Since 2022 Wen-Jun (Chris) Zhang, PhD, FSMEProfessorUniversity of SaskatchewanSaskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada Wen-Jun (Chris) Zhang received his doctorate in mechanical engineering from the Delft University of Technology in 1994. He has been a full professor with the University of Saskatchewan since 2004. He has authored or coauthored more than 370 papers in refereed journals or magazines and more than 220 papers in refereed conference proceedings with H -index of 64, according to Google Scholar. He also held more than 20 patents and invention reports. His main research area includes design, manufacturing, system science and engineering, robotics, AI, informatics, biomedical engineering, as well as their applications in manufacturing, service, and medicine and healthcare. Dr. Zhang has been very active in editorial board work for six reputed journals, including IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics (senior editor from 2019 to 2023), IEEE Systems Journal (associate editor, present), IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems (associate editor, present), and Journal of Engineering Design (senior editor from 2022 to present). He is a fellow of Canadian Academy of Engineering, ASME and SME. He was one of the most highly cited researchers in industrial automation and engineering by Elsevier (China) from 2015 to 2018, respectively. He is amongst the top two percent of scientists in the world according to Stanford University (2021, 2022). Dr. Zhang currently leads a large grant (2022-2028, ~$3 million) on training of graduate students on creative design and entrepreneurship in Canada, sponsored by NSERC (Natural Science and Engineering Research Council). SME Member Since 1998
