Professor Kurfess began his academic career at Carnegie Mellon University where he rose to the rank of Associate Professor. In 1994, he moved to the Georgia Institute of Technology where he rose to the rank of Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. In 2005, he was named Professor and BMW Chair of Manufacturing in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Clemson University’s International Center for Automotive Research. In 2012, he returned to Georgia Tech as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the HUSCO/Ramirez Distinguished Chair in Fluid Power and Motion Control.

During 2012-2013, Dr. Kurfess was on leave serving as the Assistant Director for Advanced Manufacturing at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President of the United States of America. In this position he had responsibility for engaging the Federal sector and the greater scientific community to identify possible areas for policy actions related to manufacturing. He was responsible for coordinating Federal advanced manufacturing R&D, addressing issues related to technology commercialization, identifying gaps in current Federal R&D in advanced manufacturing, and developing strategies to address these gaps. During  2019-2021 he was on leave serving as the Chief Manufacturing Officer and the Founding Director for the Manufacturing Science Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he was responsible for strategic planning in advanced manufacturing.

Professor Kurfess has served as a special consultant of the United Nations to the Government of Malaysia in the area of applied mechatronics and manufacturing, and as a participating guest at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in their Precision Engineering Program. He has testified in a number of patent cases, including testifying at the International Trade Commission (ITC). He is currently the President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and also serves on the Board of Governors of ASME. He is the CTO of the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) and serves on its Board of Directors. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM), and on the Board of Trustees of the MT Connect Institute. He served on the Board of Directors for the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) and was the President of SME in 2018. He is an appointed member of the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Advisory Committee for Nuclear Security, and an appointed member of the Department of the Navy Science and Technology Board.

His research focuses on the design and development of advanced systems targeting the automotive sector (OEM and supplier) including vehicle and production systems. He has significant experience in high precision manufacturing and metrology systems. He has received numerous awards including a National Science Foundation (NSF) Young Investigator Award, an NSF Presidential Faculty Fellowship Award, the ASME Pi Tau Sigma Award, SME Young Manufacturing Engineer of the Year Award, the ASME Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award, the ASME Gustus L. Larson Award, an ASME Swanson Federal Award, and the SME Education Award. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the AAAS, the SME and the ASME.

My research focuses on engineering-driven machine learning methodologies for real-world problems in manufacturing and healthcare. The objective is to develop new models that combine learning methods with domain knowledge, in order to improve (i) efficiency, performance, and interpretability of the learning models; and (ii) productivity, scalability, and security of the engineering systems. 

Research areas: Additive Manufacturing, Bio-manufacturing, Healthcare, Machine Learning, Statistics.

Location:
Jialei Chen, Ph.D.
Department of Statistics, University of Georgia 

Aarn Stebner works at the intersection of manufacturing, machine learning, materials, and mechanics. He joined the Georgia Tech faculty as an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering in 2020.

Previously, he was the Rowlinson Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at the Colorado School of Mines (2013 – 2020), a postdoctoral scholar at the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology (2012 – 2013), a Lecturer in the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University (2009 – 2012), a Research Scientist at Telezygology Inc. establishing manufacturing and “internet of things” technologies for shape memory alloy-secured latching devices (2008-2009), a Research Fellow at the NASA Glenn Research Center developing smart materials technologies for morphing aircraft structures (2006 – 2008), and a Mechanical Engineer at the Electric Device Corporation in Canfield, OH developing manufacturing and automation technologies for the circuit breaker industry (1995 – 2000).

Professor Citrin earned a B.A. from Williams College (1985) and a M.S. (1987) and a Ph.D. (1991) from the University of Illinois, all in physics, where his dissertation was on the optical properties of semiconductor quantum wires. Subsequently, he was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany (1992-1993) and Center Fellow at the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science at the University of Michigan (1993-1995). Dr. Citrin was an assistant professor of physics and materials science at Washington State University (1995 to 2001).

Professor Citrin joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 2001 where his work focuses on terahertz technology and nanotechnology. He is a recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and of a Friedrich Bessel Award from the Alexander Von Humboldt Stiftung. In addition, he is Project Coordinator on Nonlinear Optics and Dynamics at Georgia Tech-CNRS UMI 2958 located at Georgia Tech-Lorraine. Professor Citrin’s research in terahertz imaging is featured in the Georgia Tech press release, ”Imaging Technique Unlocks the Secrets of 17th Century Artists"; a list of some media placements from the press release may be found at http://photonics.georgiatech-metz.fr/node/33.

Research interests: 

• Terahertz nondestructive testing of materials
• Terahertz characterization of art and cultural heritage
• Chaos and nonlinear dynamics in external-cavity semiconductor lasers
• Nanophotonics
• High-speed electronic, photonic, and optoelectronic devices
• Nonlinear optical properties of semiconductor materials and devices

Dr. Christopher Saldaña began working at Georgia Tech in 2014. Prior, Dr. Saldaña previously held the Harold and Inge Marcus Career Professorship at the Pennsylvania State University and worked as a research engineer at M4 Sciences Corporation. Dr. Saldaña has also previously held visiting affiliations/positions with the US Air Force Research Laboratory, the Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore, India), Technische Universität Dortmund (Dortmund, Germany), Autodesk, and Sandia National Laboratories. He has received several awards, including an NSF CAREER award, the Robert J. Hocken SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer award and an R&D100 Technology Award. He serves as an Associate Editor for IISE Transactions (Design and Manufacturing) and serves on the Editorial Boards of Manufacturing Letters, Computer Aided Design and Applications, and the ASTM Journal of Smart and Sustainable Manufacturing.

Nick Sahinidis is the Butler Family Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. His current research activities are at the interface between computer science and operations research, with applications in various engineering and scientific areas, including: global optimization of mixed-integer nonlinear programs: theory, algorithms, and software; informatics problems in chemistry and biology; process and energy systems engineering. Sahinidis has served on the editorial boards of many leading journals and in various positions within AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers). He has also served on numerous positions within INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences), including Chair of the INFORMS Optimization Society. He received an NSF CAREER award, the INFORMS Computing Society Prize, the MOS Beale-Orchard-Hays Prize, the Computing in Chemical Engineering Award, the Constantin Carathéodory Prize, and the National Award and Gold Medal from the Hellenic Operational Research Society. Sahinidis is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of AIChE and INFORMS.

Richard Fujimoto is a Regents’ Professor, Emeritus in the School of Computational Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received the Ph.D. degree from the University of California-Berkeley in 1983 in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. He also received an M.S. degree from the same institution as well as two B.S. degrees from the University of Illinois-Urbana. 

Fujimoto is a pioneer in the parallel and distributed discrete event simulation field. Discrete event simulation is widely used in areas such as telecommunications, transportation, manufacturing, and defense, among others. His work developed fundamental understandings of synchronization algorithms that are needed to ensure the correct execution of discrete event simulation programs on high performance computing (HPC) platforms. His team developed many new algorithms and computational techniques to accelerate the execution of discrete event simulations and developed software realizations that impacted several application domains. For example, his Georgia Tech Time Warp software was deployed by MITRE Corp. to create online fast-time simulations of commercial air traffic to help reduce delays in the U.S. National Airspace. An active researcher in this field since 1985, he authored or co-authored three books and hundreds of technical papers including seven that were cited for “best paper” awards or other recognitions. His research included several projects with Georgia Tech faculty in telecommunications, transportation, sustainability, and materials leading to numerous publications co-authored with faculty across campus.

Dr. Jianjun Shi is the Carolyn J. Stewart Chair and Professor in H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, with joint appointment in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. Prior to joining Georgia Tech in 2008, he was the G. Lawton and Louise G. Johnson Professor of Engineering at the University of Michigan. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Beijing Institute of Technology in 1984 and 1987, and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1992. Dr. Shi is a pioneer in the development and application of data fusion for quality improvements. His methodologies integrate system informatics, advanced statistics, and control theory for the design and operational improvements of manufacturing and service systems by fusing engineering systems models with data science methods. He has produced 40 Ph.D. graduates, 27 of which have joined IE department as faculty members. Among them, 7 have received NSF CAREER Awards and one has received the NSF PECASE award. He has published one book and more than 180 papers. He has served as PI and co-PI for projects totaling more than 25 million dollars, which were funded by National Science Foundation, NIST Advanced Technology Program, Department of Energy, General Motors, Daimler-Chrysler, Ford, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Honeywell, Pfizer, Samsung, and various other industrial companies and funding agencies. The technologies developed in Dr. Shi’s research group have been widely implemented in various production systems with significant economic impacts. 

Dr. Shi is the founding chair of the Quality, Statistics and Reliability (QSR) Subdivision at the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS). He has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IISE Transactions (2017-2020), the flagship journal of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers. He also served as the Focus Issue Editor of IISE Transactions on Quality and Reliability Engineering (2007-2017), editor of Journal of System Science and Complexity, and advisory editor of Journal of Quality Technology and Quantitative Management (QTQM). He is a Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME), a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering (IISE), a Fellow of Institute of Operations Research and the Management Science (INFORMS), a Fellow of Society of Manufacturing Engineering (SME), an Academician of the International Academy for Quality, and a member of National Academy of Engineering (NAE) of the USA. 

Dr. Shi received various awards for his research and teaching, including the George Box Medal (2022), ASQ Walter Shewhart Medal (2021), The S. M. Wu Research Implementation Award (2021), ASQ Brumbaugh Award (2019), The Horace Pops Medal Award (2018), IISE David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award (2016), the IIE Albert G. Holzman Distinguished Educator Award (2011), Forging Achievement Award from Forging Industry Educational and Research Foundation (2007), Monroe-Brown Foundation Research Excellence Award (2007), the 1938E Award (1998) at The University of Michigan, and NSF CAREER Award (1996).

Dr. Liang began at Tech in 1990 as an assistant professor. Previously, he was an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University. He was named to the Bryan Professorship in 2005. He was President of Walsin-Lihwa Corporation in 2008-2010.

An environmental psychologist and professor of architecture, Craig Zimring directs the SimTigrate Design Lab. He and his colleagues and students focus on how innovative, research-informed design can improve health and healthcare, and how research can be incorporated into classroom teaching, both to improve design and help students develop skills for practice. He has conducted over $7M in research with and for Mayo Clinic, Emory Healthcare, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Military Health System, HKS Architects, HDR Architects, and many others, including safety-net clinics and international providers of healthcare. He has published over 100 scholarly and professional publications and received 11 awards for his research. He has given numerous keynote and plenary addresses to organizations and meetings such as Australian Healthcare Week, Institute for Patient and Family-Centered Care, and Chinese Hospital Association. His Ph.D. and master's graduates serve in teaching and leadership positions in universities and practice.

He currently serves on the board of the Center for Health Design and has served on the boards of the Environmental Design Research Association, the National Academies’ Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment, the Joint Commission’s Roundtable on the Hospital of the Future and other organizations. In addition to his work on healthcare, Zimring served as a senior scientist in developing the 2010 New York City Active Design Guidelines and was a founding member of the Center for Active Design.