Lei Chen, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Lowell, Massachusetts

Before joining UMass Lowell in 2021, Chen was a research investigator affiliated with the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on manufacturing process development and analysis, as well as biomedical manufacturing, aiming to improve healthcare services and expand biomedical research capabilities through advanced manufacturing technologies. Chen has been broadly collaborating with the neuroscience community to enable the automatic fabrication and minimal damaging implantation of the next-generation brain-machine interfaces. His work has led to over 30 peer-reviewed publications and has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and industry. Chen received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Zhejiang University and master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Michigan. SME Member Since 2021

Xiangfan Chen, PhD
Assistant Professor
School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona

In 2018, Chen earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and doctorate in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University. His research focuses on novel optical and mechanical metamaterials, as well as the development of new additive manufacturing technologies for functional devices with applications spanning optics, soft robotics, regenerative medicine and as wearable electronics. Chen’s research has been published in journals including Advanced Materials, Research and Nano Letters, which have been recognized by a broad of research communities in photonics and manufacturing. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Mayo Clinic. In 2024, Chen received the SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award. SME Member Since 2024

Corson Cramer, PhD
R&D Staff Scientist
Manufacturing Science Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Cramer has been performing research and development in processing, characterization, testing and scale up of ceramics and ceramic matrix composites for the next generation of ultra-high temperature, harsh-environment ceramic, composites and hybrid materials for use in aerospace, heat exchange, aero engine, defense, nuclear and advanced energy applications. He is a staff scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and leads projects for the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. Cramer received his doctorate in mechanical engineering with emphasis on materials science from Colorado State University in 2017. He has published literature in processing, ceramics, thermoelectrics, additive manufacturing and materials characterization. Cramer’s research interests are in traditional and additive manufacturing of ceramics, coatings and integration, advanced ceramic-matrix composites and novel processing techniques. He has several patents, and several patent disclosures, filed while working at ORNL. Cramer is a member of ACERS and SME. SME Member Since 2018

Juan Du, PhD
Assistant Professor
Smart Manufacturing Thrust, Systems Hub
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Guangzhou, China

In addition to being an associate professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Du is also affiliated with the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong SAR, China. Her current research interests include data analytics and machine learning for modeling, monitoring, control, diagnosis and optimization in smart manufacturing systems. Du’s research has been published in leading flagship journals such as IISE Transactions, IEEE Transactions, ASME Transactions, Technometrics and the Journal of Quality Technology. Among these works, seven papers have won the best paper awards and/or were finalists from prestigious organizations such as the IISE Data Analytics and Information Systems Section, INFORMS Quality, Statistics and Reliability Section and INFORMS Data Mining Section. She is a senior member of Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, a member of INFORMS, ASME, IEEE and SME. SME Member Since 2024

Wenchao “Mark” Du, PhD
Materials Engineer
Argonne National Laboratory
Lemont, Illinois

Du received his doctoral degree in 2021 from Texas A&M University, master's degree in 2015 from Tianjin University and bachelor's degree in 2012 from Hunan University, all in industrial engineering. His expertise is in additive manufacturing of advanced ceramic materials, focusing on material development, process optimization and postprocessing. Du has more than 30 journal and conference publications, as well as various technical and poster presentations. Recently, his research has focused on advanced manufacturing technologies and applications in solar energy. SME Member Since 2024

Azadeh Haghighi
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
University of Illinois
Chicago

Haghighi’s research focuses on innovative AI and data analytics solutions for smart and agile additive, hybrid and robotic manufacturing applications. She has pioneered novel physics-informed AI methodologies for in-situ monitoring and quality assurance in additive and hybrid manufacturing that address the challenges associated with limited generalizability, explainability, scalability and data efficiency, as well as innovative computational tools for the emerging multirobot collaborative additive manufacturing applications in defense and construction fields. Haghighi also serves as the associate editor for the Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing Journal. Her research has been supported, among others, by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center. Haghighi is a recipient of the UIC Chancellor’s Translational Research Initiative Award, IMEC Future of Illinois Manufacturing Faculty Award, SME’s Outstanding Paper Award and the SME Susan Smyth Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award. SME Member Since 2016

Amberlee Haselhuhn, PhD
Senior Director of Technology
LIFT
Detroit

Haselhuhn leads work focused on driving national manufacturing strategy and material innovations in alignment with Department of Defense priorities. This includes developing digital solutions, such as coupling integrated computational materials engineering toolsets, to enable a zero-prototype future. Previously, she was a senior researcher at General Motors Global R&D Center developing solutions to eliminate manufacturing constraints associated with welding and joining of new materials and dissimilar material combinations for body-in-white structures. Haselhuhn holds 10 U.S. patents and has published more than 30 peer-reviewed technical journal articles. She has bachelor’s degrees in both materials science and biomedical engineering and a doctorate in materials science and engineering from Michigan Tech. SME Member Since 2020>

Chen Kan, PhD
Assistant Professor
Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering
University of Texas at Arlington
Arlington, Texas

Kan’s research is dedicated to the integration of advanced sensing and machine learning for knowledge discovery and performance improvement of manufacturing systems and processes. His research areas include sensor-based manufacturing process mining and quality control, data analytics for the Industrial Internet of Things and additive manufacturing of metamaterials. Kan has published more than 30 journal articles, and his research has been funded by federal agencies (including the NSF, DOE and the U.S. Department of Agriculture) and industry. He earned his doctorate degree in industrial and manufacturing engineering from Penn State University in 2018. SME Member Since 2023

Matthew Korey, PhD
Associate R&D Staff
Sustainable Manufacturing Technologies Group
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge, Tennessee

At ORNL, Korey specializes in the development and industrialization of novel, sustainable manufacturing technologies for plastics and their composites. His research focuses on mechanical, chemical, biological and thermochemical methods of composite recycling, as well as the use of advanced reprocessing techniques and repurposing to recycle industrial composites waste. Korey also has an R&D portfolio looking at the development and implementation of sustainably derived plastics made from renewable, waste-derived and greenhouse gas-based plastics. He is also co-chair of the Circular Economy Working Group at the Institute of Advanced Composites Manufacturing and Innovation and founding chair of TMS PRIDE. SME Member Since 2020

Beiwen Li, PhD
Associate Professor
Mechanical Engineering
University of Georgia
Atlanta

Before joining the University of Georgia, Li spent seven years at Iowa State University, where he served as an assistant and associate professor and held the William and Virginia Binger Endowed Professorship. Li’s research specializes in high-speed, 3D-optical sensing, with a particular focus on manufacturing and remanufacturing processes. His work has been prominently featured on the covers of esteemed journals such as Optics Express, Applied Optics and Geotechnique Letters. Li’s lab has received support from a diverse range of funding sources, including the National Science Foundation, The REMADE Institute, the Department of Energy, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, the Iowa Energy Center, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and various industrial sponsors. He has been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the 2020 SPIE Rising Researcher Award, the 2021 Emerging Leaders in Measurement Science and Technology Award, the 2023 Iowa State University College of Engineering Early Achievement in Research Award and the 2024 Susan Smyth SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award. SME Member Since 2023

Shunyu Liu, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Automotive Engineering
Clemson University
Clemson, South Carolina

In addition to her work in the Department of Automotive Engineering, Liu also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Clemson. She received her doctorate in mechanical engineering from Purdue University in December 2020 and her master’s and bachelor’s degrees in materials science and engineering from the North China Electric Power University in 2015 and 2012, respectively. Liu was the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award in 2023. Her research areas include metal-additive manufacturing, hybrid additive manufacturing and advanced materials development. Liu’s experimental research focuses on synthesis of advanced alloys and metal-based materials and multimaterial fabrication using additive manufacturing processes. Her computational research includes physics-based and data-driven modeling of composition-process-structure-property relationships. Lying at the intersection of advanced manufacturing, materials science, solid mechanics and applied mathematics, Liu’s research aims to advance additive manufacturing capabilities to enable material innovations. SME Member Since 2021

Monique McClain, PhD
Assistant Professor
School of Mechanical Engineering
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana

McClain has a background in propulsion, energetic materials and additive manufacturing. Her main research focus is to advance the manufacturing science necessary to develop state-of-the-art additively manufactured energetic materials. This includes understanding the effect of multimaterial interfaces on performance and using in-situ monitoring to understand defect formation. McClain received her doctorate from the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics from Purdue University in 2020 and has previously held positions at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. SME Member Since 2022

Ebot Ndip-Agbor, PhD
Technical Fellow
Digital Products Engineering
General Motors
Austin, Texas

After joining Autodesk Inc. in 2018, Ndip-Agbor made key contributions to its explicit dynamic finite-element solver and level-set optimization algorithm for Autodesk’s Fusion Generative Design. After Ndip-Agbor’s tenure at Autodesk, in 2020 he became part of Apple Inc. working on the Apple Cloud Services team doing capacity management and workload autotuning for cloud infrastructure/services. More recently, Ndip-Agbor joined General Motors in 2024 as a technical fellow in the Digital Products Engineering organization. Ndip-Agbor earned his doctorate at Northwestern University with a thesis on building computational tools for cyberphysical systems. SME Member Since 2024

Masoud Pour, PhD
Senior Researcher
Materials & Manufacturing Systems Research Lab
General Motors
Warren, Michigan

Pour completed his doctorate in mechanical engineering at the Research Center for Advanced Manufacturing at Southern Methodist University in 2016. While there, his research focused on the development of dissimilar laser welding/brazing methods with the purpose of weight reduction in body-in-white. Pour was a recipient of the ASME North Texas Section Graduate Student of the Year 2019-20 Award. After graduation, he joined Precitec as a laser welding researcher, which furthered his interest in e-mobility. Pour’s current research interests include battery cell manufacturing, as well as joining in cell, module and pack levels for electric vehicles. SME Member Since 2022

Ali Rizvi, PhD
Packaging R&D Engineer
Intel Corp.
Phoenix

Rizvi is a packaging research and development engineer at Intel, working on a mix of breakthrough technologies, processes and platforms that enable the next generation of processors. Before Intel, he was a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Alexander Graham Bell Fellow at the University of Toronto where Rizvi invented, patented and licensed advanced manufacturing technologies for the packaging industry. The impact of his work includes three commercial products, three patents, 40 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers, one book chapter, $4.9 million in research funding raised from the public and private sectors, and many awards including the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Student Award, World Petroleum Council Award and the Society of Plastics Engineers PerkinElmer Award. Rizvi has mentored 19 young manufacturing engineers, organized national and international conferences, and has served as an invited panelist on advances in the manufacturing discipline. He holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering.

Alex Roschli
R&D Staff
Robotics and Intelligent Systems Group
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Manufacturing Demonstration Facility
Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Roschli obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee. He has been conducting research with large-format-polymer additive manufacturing since 2013 and has also worked with large-format metal and concrete. Some of Roschli’s projects include the world’s first 3D-printed car, the former Guinness World Record holder for largest 3D-printed object and other 3D-printed vehicles such as a Willy’s Jeep, a utility vehicle, an excavator, a submarine and a mold for a catamaran. Roschli authored a book “Motion and Path Planning for Additive Manufacturing.” He is an AMUG DINO Award winner and an ASME Thomas A. Edison Patent Award winner. Roschli’s current research focus is software development for toolpath generation in large-format additive manufacturing. SME Member Since 2018

Wenmeng Tian, PhD
Associate Professor
Intelligent Data-Enabled Analytics Laboratory
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Mississippi State University
Starkville, Mississippi

Tian’s passion in manufacturing research lies in harnessing the power of big data to promote quality and reliability for advanced manufacturing. She is specifically focused on accelerating the scale up and broader adoption of new manufacturing technologies, such as additive manufacturing. Tian has also been dedicated to the training of future manufacturing engineers ;and has been recognized by several awards her students have received from the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers. Tian’s honors and awards include the NSF CAREER Award in 2021; IISE Manufacturing and Design Division Outstanding Young Investigator Award in 2023; and the SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award in 2024. In 2017, she received her doctorate in industrial and systems engineering from Virginia Tech. SME Member Since 2023

Chao Wang, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa

Wang’s research interests include statistical modeling, analysis, monitoring and control for complex systems. His research is supported by various federal funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation, DoD, DoE and the Department of Transportation. Wang earned his bachelor’s degree from the Hefei University of Technology in 2012 and master’s from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2015, both in mechanical engineering. His master’s degree in statistics and doctorate in industrial and systems engineering were obtained from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2018 and 2019, respectively. He is a recipient of the Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from SME, Best Paper Award from IISE Transactions and several Best Paper Awards/Finalist at INFORMS Annual Conferences. Wang’s an associate editor of the Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, and a member of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers and SME. SME Member Since 2021

Zheng received dual bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering and computer science and engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China in 2010; master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Beihang University, China in 2013; and doctorate degree in mechanical engineering at The University of Auckland in 2017. His research interest includes human-robot collaboration, smart product-service systems and industrial AI. Zheng serves as the associate editor of the Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing and the Journal of Cleaner Production; editorial board member of Journal of Manufacturing Systems, Advanced Engineering Informatics and Journal of Engineering Design; and guest editor/reviewer for several high-impact international journals in the manufacturing and industrial engineering field. SME Member Since 2022

Prior to joining Nanjing University, Zou worked at AMD Inc. as a staff engineer for six years before joining the university. He received his doctoral degree from Cornell University in 2017. Since then, Zou has conducted systematic research on the development and application of AI algorithms in advanced integrated circuit manufacturing. He has proposed a series of machine learning models and big-data analysis methods for optimizing photolithography processes, near-field optical proximity correction, improving device yield and performance, and chip-defect diagnosis and classification. These research efforts have expanded the application of AI technology in the field of chip manufacturing and have led to the establishment of a world-leading enterprise-level intelligent chip manufacturing perception and big data system. SME Member Since 2023