Michael P. Brundage, PhD
Industrial Engineer
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, Maryland

Brundage is an industrial engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology where he leads the Knowledge Extraction and Application for Manufacturing Operations project and is the associate program leader for the Model-Based Enterprise Program at NIST. Brundage has authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications in the field of smart manufacturing and has founded a Technical Language Processing Community of Interest for adapting Natural Language Processing tools to technical text data. He was a 2019-20 ASME Early Career Leadership Intern Program to Serve Engineering intern and is the recipient of the 2018 ASME Old Guard Early Career Award. Brundage was selected as one of SME’s 2018 Class of 30 Under 30. Prior to joining NIST, he attended the University of Notre Dame for his bachelor’s degree and Stony Brook University for his master’s degree and doctorate. SME Member Since 2018

Andrew Honeycutt, PhD
R&D Staff Member
Oak Ridge National Lab Manufacturing Demonstration Facility
Knoxville, Tennessee

Honeycutt is an R&D staff member at the Oak Ridge National Lab Manufacturing Demonstration Facility. He received his doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2018 in mechanical engineering where his focus was on machining dynamics and precision metrology. After graduation, Honeycutt worked for Makino as an R&D process engineer. He started at the MDF in July of 2019 in the Intelligent Machine Tools Group. Honeycutt’s research interests include design for additive manufacturing, precision metrology, machining dynamics and future machine tool technologies. SME Member Since 2019

Nick Horvath, PhD
R&D Staff Machining and Machine Tool Research
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Powell, Tennessee

Horvath is currently appointed as research staff at the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His research includes the development of both processes and machine tools to enable next-generation reflective optics and optical systems. Horvath’s graduate studies were performed at UNC Charlotte in the Center for Freeform Optics where he designed and fabricated freeform optical systems. His most recent research development was on integrating state-of-the-art manufacturing capabilities in the design of lightweight mirrors to enable a lighter, more-efficient mirror in ceramics. Horvath’s continued work is furthering the design methodology and developing equipment to realize and scale the components in both size and quantity. SME Member Since 2020

Saurabh Kajaria
Senior Operations Manager
Vault Pressure Control
Houston

Kajaria is a design, innovation and manufacturing professional in the role of operations leader at Vault Pressure Control, previously part of Baker Hughes/GE Oil & Gas. His work is focused on technology development for advancing efficiency in energy, oil and gas, production operations and operational productivity by reducing downtime. Kajaria has commercialized several such strategic initiatives and pioneered new product development for mechanical systems in extreme operational conditions including corrosion, wear and friction as well as exposure to extreme temperature through advancing durability of mechanical systems. He led various projects that required building relationships with pioneers and technology developers across industries to address these challenges using new science and engineering approaches and techniques to advance the operational life and efficiency of these vital components. Kajaria has 25 granted patents, a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from MSRIT in Bangalore, India, and his master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University. He also has an MBA in management from McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas, Austin. SME Member Since 2020

Arkadeep Kumar, PhD
Technologist R&D Engineer
Applied Materials Inc.
Santa Clara, California

Kumar is currently a technologist R&D engineer at Applied Materials. He makes possible next-generation semiconductor nanomanufacturing, pushing the limits of materials engineering, enabling technologies for AI and the big-data economy. Kumar enables sustainability by making manufacturing energy-efficient, cost-effective and reducing the impact on the environment. Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, he initiated and led collaboration to manufacture face shields to protect frontline healthcare workers. Previously, Kumar was an ITRI-Rosenfeld postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and the University of California Berkeley, supported by the Industrial Technology Research Institute where he developed additive manufacturing of electrodes for electrochemical water treatment, addressing clean water security. Kumar’s doctorate research in diamond-wire sawing of silicon wafers for solar cells increased the reliability of renewable energy. He holds a doctorate (2018) and master’s degree (2014) from Georgia Tech, and a bachelor’s degree (2012) from Jadavpur University (India), all in mechanical engineering. Kumar was awarded a DAAD-WISE Fellowship by the German Academic Exchange Service and a JNCASR Fellowship at the Indian Institute of Science. SME Member Since 2020

Tsz-Ho Kwok, PhD
Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical
Industrial and Aerospace Engineering
Concordia University
Montreal

Kwok is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Aerospace Engineering at Concordia University in Montreal. He received his doctorate from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Before joining Concordia, Kwok was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California. His research interests include 3D printing, design for additive manufacturing, functional design and fabrication, cyber-manufacturing system and mass customization. Kwok has received several awards including the University Research Award (2020), the Petro-Canada Young Innovator Award (2019) and a Silver Medal Award at the international exhibition of inventions of Geneva (2019). He serves as an associate editor in the “Transactions of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering,” a guest editor in the “Journal of Computer-Aided Design” and chair of the Computer-Aided Product and Process Development Technical Committee in the ASME Computers and Information in Engineering Division. SME Member Since 2016

Chao Ma, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution Department of Mechanical Engineering (Courtesy)
Department of Materials Science and Engineering (Courtesy) Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering (Courtesy)
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas

Ma received his bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University in 2010, master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012 and doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2015, all in mechanical engineering. He was a senior mechanical engineer at Cymer (an ASML company) from 2015-16. Ma is currently an assistant professor at Texas A&M University. His teaching interests are manufacturing processes and product design. Ma’s research interests include additive manufacturing, laser manufacturing and metal-matrix nanocomposites. He has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers in these areas. Ma’s teaching, research and service have been recognized by multiple awards, such as the Best Paper Award of Manufacturing Division at the ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, the Outstanding Paper Award at the International Conference on MicroManufacturing and the Best Organizer of Symposium and Session Award at the ASME International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference, and NSF CAREER Award. SME Member Since 2020

Austin Mann
Materials & Process Engineer
Boeing Research & Technology
St. Louis

Mann is a materials and process engineer for Boeing Research & Technology’s Next Generation Metals Technology team. His research at Boeing is comprised of the development of novel metallic materials, with emphasis on powder metallurgy methods of manufacturing, extreme environment test and evaluation and thermomechanical processing. Mann is the lead engineer for the BR&T St. Louis metals development lab and has numerous patents, journal publications and conference presentations to his credit. Mann received a bachelor’s degree in materials science and engineering from the University of Washington, and a master’s degree in materials science and engineering from the University of Michigan. In addition, he is currently pursuing his doctorate in metallurgical engineering at the Missouri University of Science & Technology, focusing on environmental resistance and high-temperature damage mechanisms of complex concentrated alloys in extreme environments. This development of complex alloys and manufacturing methods intends to enable advanced heat exchangers for next-generation aerospace vehicles. SME Member Since 2020

Miguel Saez, PhD
Senior Researcher
Manufacturing Systems Research Lab
General Motors Research & Development
Warren, Michigan

Miguel Saez is a senior researcher for General Motors Research and Development in the Manufacturing Systems Research Lab. Previously, as a senior manufacturing engineer for General Motors Venezuela, Saez led multiple projects developing manufacturing and assembly systems for alternative fuel vehicle programs and body assembly. During his graduate studies at the University of Michigan, he developed new methods for modeling and control of manufacturing systems for multiobjective optimization of plant floor operations. In his current role, Saez is responsible for developing new technology in the field of robotics. His work aims to enable robot-to-robot collaboration to perform vehicle assembly operations using advanced perception and control methods. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from La Universidad del Zulia, Venezuela, and a master’s degree in automotive and manufacturing and a doctorate in mechanical engineering, both from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. SME Member Since 2018

Dinakar Sagapuram, PhD
Assistant Professor
Wm Michael Barnes '64 Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas

Sagapuram is an assistant professor in the Wm Michael Barnes '64 Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Texas A&M University. His research focuses on material removal and deformation-based processes, with special emphasis on materials and mechanics-related aspects that include large-strain plasticity, contact mechanics, friction and fracture. Sagapuram received his bachelor’s and doctorate degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (2009) and Purdue University (2013), respectively. Prior to joining Texas A&M, he was also a postdoctoral research fellow in the Center for Materials Processing and Tribology at Purdue from 2013-15. He is an author/co-author of 25+ journal publications and three U.S. patents in areas of materials processing and manufacturing. SME Member Since 2017

Sourabh K. Saha, PhD, PE
Assistant Professor
George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta

Saha is an assistant professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. He received his doctorate in mechanical engineering from MIT in 2014 and his master’s and bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 2008. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, Saha was a research engineer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His current research interest lies in overcoming the scientific and technological barriers that prevent scaling up advanced manufacturing processes, especially for the generation of complex micro and nanoscale 3D structures. He has worked on eco-friendly machining, tip-based nanofabrication, mechanical self-organization and laser-based nanoscale additive manufacturing. Saha’s work has been published in prestigious journals including “Science” and has generated eight issued patents. His awards include the Best Poster Award at the ASME IMECE Micro and Nano Technology Forum, a Federal Laboratory Consortium Far West Regional Outstanding Technology Development Award and NSF CAREER award. SME Member Since 2017 

Xi “Vincent” Wang, PhD
Associate Professor
IIP Department of Production Engineering
KTH Sweden
Stockholm

Wang is an associate professor in the IIP Department of Production Engineering, KTH Sweden. He is working with the division of Sustainable Manufacturing Systems. Wang received his doctorate and bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Auckland (New Zealand) and Tianjin University (China), respectively in 2013 and 2008. Wang’s main research focus includes cloud-based manufacturing, sustainable manufacturing, robotics, computer-aided design and manufacturing systems. He also serves as the managing editor of the “International Journal of Manufacturing Research,” associate editor of SME “Journal of Manufacturing Systems” and “Array – Open Access Journal” by Elsevier and editorial board member of three other international journals. SME Member Since 2016