Cao part of new Engineering Research Center to Improve Robot Dexterity
August 2024
NSF grant selected to receive up to $52 Million marks the first time Northwestern has led an Engineering Research Center
A large multi-institutional collaboration, led by Northwestern University, has received $26 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to launch a new Engineering Research Center (ERC) dedicated to revolutionizing the ability of robots to amplify human labor. Called Human AugmentatioN via Dexterity (HAND), the new ERC will develop dexterous robot hands with the ability to assist humans with manufacturing, caregiving, handling precious or dangerous materials, and more.
The NSF grant will fund the new center across five years, with the ability to renew for another $26 million for an additional five years. It marks the first ERC led by Northwestern. Core partners include Carnegie Mellon University, Florida A&M, and Texas A&M with additional faculty support from Syracuse University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Full story here
Cao works with team on National Academies Options for a National Plan for Smart Manufacturing
December 2023
The National Academies Options for a National Plan for Smart Manufacturing, https://lnkd.in/dEHWvdPE, is online now. Professor Jian Cao worked with Tom Kurfess and a dedicated and visionary group of committee members, speakers and the Academy staff members in the past year to put forward bold and inspiring recommendations. A summary of the report was delivered at this webinar on Dec. 12, 2023 (https://lnkd.in/d_JYFJmP).
Cao wins inagural Devor-Kapoor Manufacturing Medal
June 2023
The Devor-Kapoor Manufacturing Medal recognizes an individual or a team of researchers for a body of impactful achievements in the field of manufacturing.
The impact must be clearly documented and supported by evidence of long-term contributions to one or more of the following exemplar areas: pioneering research, innovative technology development/transfer, inspirational mentorship, and ground-breaking scholarship/writings.
The award was established by the Manufacturing Engineering Division in 2022
Dean Huang receives Undergraduate Research & Innovation Award
June 2023
Dean Huang received this award and graduated this year. Chosen by the Mechanical Engineering faculty, this award acknowledges Dean’s extremely strong research skills and outstanding academic ability. Dean will continue his graduate studies at MIT.
Shuheng Liao wins Belytschko Outstanding Research Award
June 2023
Shuheng Liao wins award and graduates this year. Chosen by the Northwestern Mechanical Engineering faculty, this award is presented to only one oustanding graduating PhD student in Mechanical Engineering. Shuheng graduated after sucessfully defending his thesis, “Toward a Digital Twin of Metal Additive Manufacturing: Process Optimization and Control Enabled by Physics-based and Data-driven Models.” He will continue his research as a post-doctral fellow at MIT.
Derick Suarez supervises undergraduate team 1st place win at the MSEC Student Design Competition
June 2023
The undergraduate student team consisting of Ben Forbes, Dash Slamowitz, Elaine Liu, Kayla Blas, Lukas Wolf, Margaret Gao and Sam Griswold won the 1st place at the national Student Design Competition. Margaret Gao (Senior who just finished capstone, and is graduating next Fall) represented her team at the Student Design Competition and presented Tuesday, on her own to the judging panel and audience, and did a spectacular job answering questions. The team was supervised by the doctoral student Derick Suarez and capstone instructor Michael Beltran, and the project is related to the robot forming testbed in the NSF ERC HAMMER project.
The Student Design Competition is held annually at the collocated manufacturing conferences of ASME and SME, a flagship manufacturing research conference of both societies. It is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. Past Northwestern students have been placed among the top 3, however, this time is the first time that a Northwestern team won the 1st placement. The team will receive an award prize of $1000.
Full Competition details here.
Jian Cao Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
April 2023
Prof. Cao was elected to the AAA&S along with seven other Northwestern Faculty members. The AAA&S is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies. The academy’s dual mission remains essentially the same after 240 years with honorees from increasingly diverse fields and with the work focused on the arts and humanities, democracy and justice, education, global affairs and science. She earned this honor for her fundamental contributions to the characterization of the effects of material structure on forming behavior of metals and woven composites as well as acknowledgment of her current research which has direct impacts on energy-efficient manufacturing and additive engineering.
Read the full Northwestern News article here.
AMPL member Rujing Zha earns prestigious fellowship
April 2023
The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program has a long history of selecting recipients who achieve high levels of success in their future academic and professional careers. NSF Fellows are anticipated to become knowledge experts who can contribute significantly to research, teaching, and innovations in science and engineering. These individuals are crucial to maintaining and advancing the nation’s technological infrastructure and national security as well as contributing to the economic well-being of society at large.
Cao Named 2022 Researcher to Know
November 2022
The annual list is compiled by the Illinois Science & Technology Coalition and spotlights state leaders in innovation. The honor recognized Cao’s work as having made fundamental contributions to the characterization of the effects of material structure on forming behavior of metals and woven composites, and having direct impacts on energy-efficient manufacturing, surface engineering, and distributed manufacturing.
Read the full Northwestern News article here.
AMPL and multi-institutional team will assert American leadership in advanced manufacturing
August 2022
Called the Hybrid Autonomous Manufacturing, Moving from Evolution to Revolution (HAMMER), the new Engineering Research Center (ERC) will develop and implement new manufacturing technologies for agile, high-performance and quality-assured components. HAMMER expects to shift the calculus of U.S. competitive advantage, rebuild the U.S. industrial base, create new high-skilled, highly paid jobs and unleash American ingenuity by providing cost-effective, local and customized production. The NSF grant will fund the new center across five years, with the ability to renew for another $26 million for an additional five years.
AMPL's Professor Jian Cao Jian Cao will lead HAMMER’s overall research to develop convergent manufacturing processes and systems.
"Northwestern is an ideal partner for this exciting new center, because of both our innovative research into future manufacturing technologies and our strong culture in collaborative research,” said Milan Mrksich, vice president for research at Northwestern.“ Our researchers are bold and creative, and their work naturally connects fundamental studies and translational work to bring transformative technologies and processes to society and industry.”
Read the full Northwestern News article here.
Simulation-guided variable laser power design for melt pool depth control in directed energy deposition
August 2022
Melt pool control is essential in metal additive manufacturing processes since the melt pool geometry directly affects the geometric accuracy and material properties of the fabricated part. In this study AMPL Researchers developed a simulation-guided process design framework which enables the possibility of defining a time-series laser power profile that achieves a desired melt pool depth across an arbitrary geometry using just one simulation, and the developed method can be implemented in an arbitrary part to enhance geometric accuracy and control material properties within a part.
Read the full paper here.
Sam Webster wins Khoshnevis Award
July 2022
Sam Webster was selected as a “Khoshnevis Student Awardee” for an outstanding registration fee waiver application at the 2022 Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium. She was one of four female students selected from the 94 NSF travel award winners.
AMPL Celebrates 2022 Graduates
July 2022
The AMPL team gathered to celebrate recent graduates and accomplishments. Among the recent graduates celebrated were Zilin Jiang for her successfully defended thesis “Process Understanding of Hybrid Multi-step Incremental Sheet Forming,” Jiaxi Xie successfully defending his thesis, “A Generic Finite Element Solver By Meta-Expressions,” Samantha Webster for her successfully defended thesis, “Establishing Process-Structure Relationships in Laser, Powder-blown DED Through In-Situ Investigation,” and also celebrated was our graduated student from last year Puikei Cheng. Also successfully defending this year was Dohyun Leem for his thesis, “Forming Strategy Design and Mechanics Analysis in Flexible Sheet Metal Forming Systems.”
We are proud to see Puikei currently working at Exponent (formerly Failure Analysis Associates) a consulting firm, and to send our newest graduates off to their new exciting positions. Zilin has taken a job at Apple, Jiaxi is working at MathWorks, Sam will be taking a position at NIST at Gaithersburg, and Dohyun will join General Motors.
AMPL Members win NAMRC 2022 Outstanding Paper Award
June 2022
AMPL's postdoctoral scholar Dominik Kozjek, Ph.D. students Fred Carter and Conor Porter, Professor Jian Cao and Professor Kornel Ehmann, and Dr. Jon-Erik Mogonye from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) (absent from photo) won the North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC) 2022 Outstanding Paper Award for the paper entitled "Data-driven prediction of next-layer melt pool temperatures in laser powder bed fusion based on co-axial high-resolution Planck thermometry measurements."
The paper presents novel ideas of improving control in additive manufacturing and was published in the SME Journal of Manufacturing Processes (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmapro.2022.04.033). This work was supported by ARL to advance the fundamental understanding of additive manufacturing processes and technological development for process control. NAMRC is SME’s preeminent and longest-running international forum for manufacturing research and its industrial applications.
Prof. Jian Cao Elected to National Academy of Engineering
Feb 2022
AMPL's Professor Jian Cao, whose work has led to innovative manufacturing processes and systems that have resulted in increased material manufacturability and more flexible, energy-efficient manufacturing, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Prof. Cao was cited by NAE for “pioneering a flexible sheet forming system and for leadership in manufacturing.” “We are tremendously proud to see Jian recognized at the highest level in her field,” said Julio M. Ottino, dean of Northwestern Engineering. “Since arriving at Northwestern more than 25 years ago, she has been a tremendous example of an outstanding researcher, builder, collaborator, and colleague.”
Read the full article here.
Sanjana recognized as prominent community service member
Jan 2022
Sanjana is the director of academic support and development, as well as a tutor for the Northwestern Prison Education Program (NPEP). The program in partnership with the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC), offers the only liberal arts degree-granting program in the state with courses in the humanities, fine arts, social sciences and STEM. First implemented 3 years ago to support incarcerated men, the NPEP is now offering the first incarcerated women in Illinois the chance to benefit from a full liberal arts curriculum.
Read the full article here.
Sam Webster and AMPL grad Jennifer Bennett named SME's "30 under 30"
Samantha and Jennifer were named manufacturing leaders in SME's "30 under 30". Manufacturing Engineering recognizes 30 individuals under the age of 30 that are leading the manufacturing industry into the future. These individuals exemplify extraordinary promise in manufacturing and the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) skills that underpin the discipline, plus much more.
AMPL Members participate in Chicago Hot Chocolate 5K Run
November 2021
AMPL members joined nearly 20,000 runners participating in this year’s Hot Chocolate run in downtown Chicago. Dubbed “America’s Sweetest Race,” the post-race celebration features the event’s signature hot chocolate along with other goodies for runners who finish the distance and receive their medal for the achievement.
Sam received the Terminal Year Fellowship!
The Cabell Terminal Year Fellowship is the highest honor given to graduating Ph.D. students within McCormick. Sam joins fellow AMPL previous awardees, Xi Wang, Xiongqi Peng, Rui Zhou, Xiaoli Wang, Newell Moser, Ebot E. Ndip-Agbor, Jennifer Bennett, Marco Giovannini, Nicolas Martinez Prieto, Yi Shi and Mojtaba Mozzafar, for receiving this prestigious award. Congratulations!
AMPL Members receive the ME Department Graduate Leadership and Service Award
Marisa Bisram and Sanjana Subramaniam recognized for contributions
July 2021
The Mechanical Engineering Department Graduate Leadership and Service Award is selected by the faculty committee of Graduate Studies based on nominations from faculty advisors. The committee bestows recognition based on contributions made by graduate students both on campus and beyond. Marisa and Sanjana have proven their commitments through involvement with organizations such as the Mechanical Engineering Graduate Student Society (MEGSS), the Northwestern Prison Education Program (NPEP), the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), and the Science In your Community Center (SICC).
Congratulations to Dr. Jennifer Bennett and Dr. Mojtaba Mozaffar
Successful Defense of their Ph.D. Theses and Continuation of their Career
June 2021
We are pleased to congratulate our two newest Doctors in the AMPL alumni. Dr. Jennifer Bennett will take a position as an Assistant Professor at the United States Military Academy West Point, while Dr. Mojtaba Mozaffar, will serve as an Assistant Research Professor here at Northwestern. Congratulations!
AMPL Members publish new findings on Additive Manufacturing
Mechanistic data-driven prediction of as-built mechanical properties in metal additive manufacturing
JUNE 2021
Additive manufacturing, also called 3D printing, is a rapidly growing advanced manufacturing paradigm. Though metal additive manufacturing provides remarkable flexibility in geometry and component design, localized heating/cooling heterogeneity may lead to spatial variations of as-built mechanical properties, and significantly complicate the materials design process. Northwestern researchers developed a mechanistic data-driven framework integrating wavelet transforms and convolutional neural networks, which can predict location-dependent mechanical properties of the parts based on their thermal histories…
Full paper available at this link here.
Congratulations to Dr. Puikei Cheng, Dr. David Pritchet, and Dr. Nicolas Martinez Prieto
Successful Defense of their Ph.D. Theses and Continuation of their Career
June 2020
We are pleased to congratulate our three newest Doctors in the AMPL alumni. Dr. Puikei Cheng will pursue a position at Exponent (formerly Failure Analysis Associates) consulting firm, while Dr. David Pritchet, and Dr. Nicolas Martinez Prieto take a positions at Intel. Congratulations!
Marisa Bisram awarded 2020 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program
Marisa Bisram recognized as an outstanding graduate student in NSF-supported science
APRIL 2020
The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.
Fellows share in the prestige and opportunities that become available when they are selected. Fellows benefit from a three-year annual stipend of $34,000 along with a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees, opportunities for international research and professional development, and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education they choose.
NSF Fellows are anticipated to become knowledge experts who can contribute significantly to research, teaching, and innovations in science and engineering. These individuals are crucial to maintaining and advancing the nation's technological infrastructure and national security as well as contributing to the economic well-being of society at large.
More Details on this prestigious award available on the NSF website here, NSF GRFP site.
Sanjana Subramaniam receives Ryan Fellowship
MARCH 2020
The Ryan Fellowship, made possible by a generous donation from Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan, supports graduate students dedicated to the exploration of fundamental nanoscale science and to advancing this knowledge into practical applications of benefit to society.
The fellowship, created in 2007, supports the finest graduate students in the country and provides them with the education and experience to assume leadership roles in the realm of nanotechnology.
Ryan Fellows participate in a variety of activities including, lectures, symposia, team building events and opportunities to engage in collaborative discussion and research with domestic and international partners.
Congratulations to Dr. Newell Moser, Dr. Yi Shi, and Dr. Marco Giovannini
Successful Defense of their Ph.D. Theses and Continuation of their Career
January 2020
We are pleased to congratulate our three newest Doctors in the AMPL alumni. Dr. Newell Moser will pursue a position at NIST, Dr. Yi Shi takes a position at Intel, and Dr. Marco Giovannini will remain at Northwestern in research. Congratulations!
Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Wolff, Dr. Daniel Garcia, and Dr. Weizhao Zhang
Successful Defense of their Ph.D. Theses and Continuation of their Career
August, 2019
The summer season would not be complete without our graduation news. Three new Doctors have joined the alumni of AMPL. Dr. Sarah Wolff will pursue a position at Argonne National Laboratory before taking a position at Texas A&M, Dr. Daniel Garcia takes a position as an Advanced Researcher at ExxonMobil in Life Cycle Assessment and Optimization, and Dr. Weizhao Zhang will join The Chinese University of Hong Kong as an Assistant Professor. Congratulations!
Congratulations to Yi Shi and Mojtaba Mozaffar
Both Students Awarded the Royal E. Cabell Terminal Year Fellowship
July 18, 2019
The Cabell Terminal Year Fellowship is the highest honor given to graduating Ph.D. students within McCormick. Yi and Mojtaba join fellow AMPL previous awardees, Newell Moser, Jennifer Bennett, Marco Giovannini and Nicolas Martinez Prieto. Congratulations!
AMPL Manufacturing Highlighted in Northwestern Magazine
June, 2019
Professor Cao aims at making manufacturing more efficient and environmentally friendly, while increasing its economic and social impacts
Professor Cao wants to upend the perception that manufacturing is dirty, dark, and dangerous, by transforming the processes and materials involved in creating a vast range of goods. She says that modern manufacturing, while remarkably diverse, increasingly draws on STEM disciplines — like chemistry, computer science, robotics, nanotechnology, and materials science — in ways that traditional factory workers decades ago could hardly imagine.
“I think of the new manufacturing as a kind of integration platform, one that includes a focus on being smart, sustainable, and safe,” says Cao, the Cardiss Collins Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School.
Full article available online here
ASME establishes Ehmann Manufacturing Medal
June, 2019
This award recognizes the best original paper or papers submitted to ASME's Jounral of Micro- and Nano-Manufacturing and clearly concerned with or related to micro- or nano-scale manufacturing processes or products.
The nomination deadline for this award is February 1, 2020.
More details can be found on the ASME Awards website at here
Professor Cao Named Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellow
The VBFF is the Department of Defense’s most prestigious single-investigator award
MAY 6, 2019
The prominent fellowship is funded by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering—and administered by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). “This fellowship supports new, out-of-the box ideas where researcher creativity intersects with the unknown,” said Dr. Ellen Livingston, the program officer who oversees the VBFF on behalf of ONR. “The Fellows represent a cadre of experts that provide invaluable direction to the DoD in its scientific efforts—and also train the next generation of scientists and engineers.”
The DoD’s Basic Research Office received more than 250 white papers, from which panels of experts selected the 10 Fellows for 2019. This single investigator award includes a $3 million, five-year grant to fund cutting-edge research.
As a member of the 2019 class, Professor Cao joins a corps of 55 current Fellows, who conduct basic research in areas of importance to the DoD, ranging from materials science and cognitive neuroscience to quantum information sciences and applied mathematics. Additionally, Fellows engage directly with the DoD enterprise to collaborate with DoD laboratories and share insights with DoD leadership and the broader national security community.
Northwestern University Award Announcement
More VBBF details at the DoD Basic Research Site here
Samantha Webster awarded 2019 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program
Samantha Webster recognized as an outstanding graduate student in NSF-supported science
APRIL 2019
The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.
Fellows share in the prestige and opportunities that become available when they are selected. Fellows benefit from a three-year annual stipend of $34,000 along with a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees, opportunities for international research and professional development, and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education they choose.
NSF Fellows are anticipated to become knowledge experts who can contribute significantly to research, teaching, and innovations in science and engineering. These individuals are crucial to maintaining and advancing the nation's technological infrastructure and national security as well as contributing to the economic well-being of society at large.
More Details on this prestigious award available on the NSF website here, NSF GRFP site.
Jian Cao named AAAS Fellow
Honor from the world’s largest general scientific society, recognizes extraordinary achievements in advancing science.
Excerpt from AAAS article
NOV 28, 2018
The American Association for the Advancement of Science has bestowed upon Professor Jian Cao the lifetime honor of being an elected Fellow in recognition of her extraordinary achievements in advancing science. She is recognized for her fundamental contributions to the understanding of failure mechanisms in forming processes and for innovations to advance flexible manufacturing processes.
AAAS’ annual tradition of recognizing leading scientists as Fellows dates to 1874. Since then, AAAS has honored distinguished scientists such as astronomer Maria Mitchell, elected a Fellow in 1875; inventor Thomas Edison (1878); chemist Linus Pauling (1939); and computer scientist Grace Hopper (1963). Four of the 2018 Nobel Prize laureates – James Allison, Arthur Ashkin, Frances Arnold and George Smith – are AAAS elected Fellows.
This year’s AAAS Fellows, who represent a broad swath of scientific disciplines, were selected for diverse accomplishments that include pioneering research, leadership within their field, teaching and mentoring, fostering collaborations and advancing public understanding of science.
Her honor will be recognized at the 2019 AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Northwestern University Award Announcement
More information on AAAS 2018 Fellows at AAAS
Inaugural Women in Manufacturing Day Celebrates and Inspires Women in Manufacturing
October 8, 2018
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Professor Jian Cao, Director of the Northwestern Initiative for Manufacturing Science and Innovation (NIMSI), welcomed the attendees and spoke of the importance of manufacturing. |
mHUB hosted the first Women in Manufacturing Day to celebrate and convene women in manufacturing, and inspire young women interested in STEM fields to discover new career paths and grow the talent pipeline of women in the industry. The event included a keynote presentation from Dr. Megan Brewster, Vice President of Advanced Manufacturing at Launch Forth, and former White House Senior Policy Advisor for Advanced Manufacturing.
Additionally, participants were offered an in-depth Panel discussion analyzing how to inspire the next generation of women manufacturing leaders, with women manufacturing experts, Diana Peters of Symbol Training Institute and the Women in Manufacturing Chicago Chapter, Cecilie Tassone of Praxicut, Tiarra Barton of Aaceses Ihmire Industries, Jennifer Bennett of DMG Mori and Northwestern, and Lily Yeung of Molex Ventures.
Attendees included women at all stages in their manufacturing career, from high school students, to undergraduates and graduates, and to industry veterans. Demonstrating the diverse careers of those in attendance, SparkShop co-directors and former industry engineers, Tiernan & Shonali, graduates from Northwestern, began their manufacturing careers as engineers and have since founded the SparkShop non-profit, a project of the Science & Entrepreneurship Exchange (SEE), which has taught STEM curriculum to over 1000 kids in the Chicago-area since 2013.
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SparkShop co-directors Shonali and Tiernan shown (far right) with event presenters. |
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R&D Engineer Jennifer Bennett of DMG-MORI |
This event was proudly presented by mHUB, Chicago’s first innovation center focused on physical product development and manufacturing, in collaboration with Northwestern’s NIMSI and with support from the National Science Foundation. More than 100 women attended the event with nearly 50% from under-represented groups.
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Congratulations to Dr. Ebot Etchu Ndip-Agbor, Dr. Zixuan (Zoe) Zhang and Dr. Huaqing Ren
Successful defense of their Ph.D. theses and advancement to their next chapter in industry
July 30, 2018
The summer season would not be complete without our graduation news. In the past 4 months, three new Doctors joined the alumni of AMPL. Their theses titles are: "Rapid Analysis and Planning Tools for Flexible Manufacturing Processes in a Cyber-Physical Setting" by Ebot, "Hybrid Incremental Sheet Forming Methods for Enhanced Process Performance and Material Properties" by Zoe, and "Modeling and Control of the Double-Sided Incremental Forming Process" by Huaqing. Their next positions are playing to their strengths with Ebot at Autodesk, Zoe at McKinsey & Company, and Huaqing at Apple! Congratulations!
Congratulations to Jennifer Bennett, Marco Giovannini and Nicolas Martinez Prieto
All 3 Students Awarded the Royal E. Cabell Terminal Year Fellowship
July 26, 2018
These 3 AMPL students are among a total of four Mechanical Engineering Ph.D. students who won the prestigious Terminal Year Fellowship from McCormick School of Engineering. Congratulations!
Prof. Cao, former student Dr. Numpon Mahayotsanun and collaborators received ASME Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award
Award for the best journal paper published by ASME in manufacturing processes and systems in the last two years
June 25, 2018
The paper titled "“Pressure and Draw-in Maps for Stamping Process Monitoring” was published in 2016. This is the second time that Prof. Cao received this award and the first time for Dr. Numpon Mahayotsanun. In the 63-year history of this award, only one researcher received this award three times and two other researchers received it twice. Dr. Mahayotsanun, a past AMPL member, is currently a faculty member at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Khon Kaen University, Thailand. He is the co-founder of Creative Lab Center (CLC) which develops high quality local products and transfer creative design and development knowledge to the local communities. He was elected to be a member of the Global Young Academy (GYA) in 2014.
Newell Moser accepted for 2-year NIST Fellowship
Newell Moser has been selected to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) NRC Postdoctoral Research Associateship Program
APRIL 2018
This NIST award provides a significant opportunity for advanced training to a highly select group of scientists and engineers who give special promise of becoming creative leaders in research. The NIST NRC Postdoctoral Program supports a nationwide competitive postdoctoral program administered in cooperation with the National Academies/National Research Council (NRC). The postdoctoral program brings research scientists and engineers of unusual promise and ability to perform advanced research related to the NIST mission, introduces the latest university research results and techniques to NIST scientific programs, strengthens mutual communication with university researchers, shares NIST unique research facilities with the U.S. scientific and engineering communities, and provides a valuable mechanism for the transfer of research results from NIST to the scientific and engineering communities.
More Details on this prestigious award available on the NIST website here, NIST site.
Professor Kornel F. Ehmann awarded SME Education Award
APRIL 2018
Kornel F. Ehmann is the recipient of the SME Education Award for his pioneering research and leadership in innovative manufacturing processes with seminal contributions to machine tool error modeling, real-time compensation and micromachining.
The SME Education Award honors the educator most respected for the development of manufacturing-related curricula, fostering sound training methods or inspiring students to enter the profession of manufacturing
More Details on this prestigious award available on the SME website here, SME site.
Prof. Cao featured on the latest Women And Manufacturing podcast
Manufacturing is an Integration Platform – and a Candy Store!
APRIL 11, 2018
Listen online here
Please join Women And Manufacturing for a dynamic, high-energy, and often-humorous interview with Northwestern’s own Jian Cao, PhD and host Barbara Trautlein, Chief Catalyst at Change Catalysts. Dr. Cao busts myths about manufacturing, describing the field as an “integration platform” and likening it to a “candy store, because there is so much variety, you can surely find something you will enjoy.” This free-ranging conversation spans her journey from becoming an engineer to her role in mentoring young women and men from across the globe as a professor, replete with actionable advice for obtaining the feedback and support one needs to build self-confidence and an empowering network. Moreover, she shares specific governmental grant resources women can obtain for funding manufacturing related-start- ups and lessons learned from her position as Board member of mHUB, Chicago’s first innovation center focused on physical product development and manufacturing.
Sarah Wolff awarded 2018 Enrico Fermi Fellowship
2018 Enrico Fermi Fellow with Argonne National Laboratory's Energy Systems and X-ray Science Divisions
MARCH 2018
Sarah Wolff has been named a 2018 Enrico Fermi Fellow with Argonne National Laboratory's Energy Systems and X-ray Science Divisions.
The Enrico Fermi Fellowship is highly competitive and is awarded to postdoctoral scientists and engineers "who are at early points in promising careers, display superb ability in scientific or engineering research, and show definite promise of becoming outstanding leaders in their fields". This fellowship awards two to four international candidates a year with a highly competitive salary and additional funds for research support. Fellows lead independent, collaborative and multidisciplinary projects that align with Argonne's goals, including breakthroughs in energy science.
Sarah is completing her PhD from the Advanced Manufacturing Processes Laboratory under Professors Jian Cao and Kornel Ehmann and will continue her work on additive manufacturing process monitoring and materials characterization at Argonne.
Prof. Cao Appointed Editor-in-Chief for Elsevier Journal of Materials Processing Technology
New Editor-in-Chief Announcement
ELSEVIER
OCT 2017
Online Article link
Prof. Cao is the Cardiss Collins Professor and Director of Northwestern Initiative for Manufacturing Science and Innovation at Northwestern University. Jian has brought her broad research expertise and administrative experience to JMPT. She has previously served as the Technical Editor of ASME Journal of Micro- and Nano-Manufacturing from 2012 until 2017. She is working with the current Editors, Prof. Allwood and Prof. Tekkaya, to ensure a smooth transition.
Jian’s major research areas include innovative manufacturing processes and systems. Her research has integrated analytical and numerical simulation methods, control and sensors, design methodologies to advance manufacturing processes, particularly in the areas of microforming, flexible rapid forming, additive manufacturing, laser ablation and composites forming, which has direct impacts on energy-efficient manufacturing, surface engineering and rapid prototyping. She has published over 300 technical articles, including more than 150 journal articles, 10 book chapters, and more than 10 patents. Prof. Cao is a Fellow of CIRP, ASME and SME and her major awards include Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award from ASME and Pi Tau Sigma, SME Frederick W. Taylor Research Medal, and ASME Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award.
Jian will formally join the editorial team on January 1, 2018. Please join us in wishing her all the best in her new role!
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ELSEVIER TEAM, OCT 2017
More information at Elsevier JMPT site
Jian Cao Receives Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award
Award honors Cao’s outstanding achievement in mechanical engineering
by AMANDA MORRIS
AUG 7, 2017
Northwestern Engineering’s Jian Cao has received the 2017 Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award, a joint award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and Pi Tau Sigma National Mechanical Engineering Honor Society.
The award recognizes one individual each year for demonstrating outstanding achievement in mechanical engineering. She will officially accept the award in November at the ASME annual meeting and will become the first woman to receive the award since it was established in 1947.
Cao is the Cardiss Collins Professor of Mechanical Engineering in Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and an associate vice president for research at Northwestern.
The founding director of the Northwestern Initiative on Manufacturing Science and Innovation, Cao is internationally recognized for her broad impact on the fundamental understanding of process mechanics, which has led to innovative manufacturing processes.
Last year, Cao was the first woman to receive the prestigious Frederick W. Taylor Research Medal from SME, previously known as the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. The highest honor given by SME to a researcher in the broad manufacturing field, the medal recognized Cao’s pioneering research on innovative manufacturing processes.
An elected fellow of SME, the International Academy of Production Engineering (CIRP), and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Cao has received multiple awards, including the ASME Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award, NSF CAREER Award, ASME Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigator Award, and SME’s Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award. She is also the founding technical editor of the Journal of Micro- and Nano-Manufacturing.
Before joining Northwestern in 1995, Cao was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she also earned her master’s degree and PhD. She received her bachelor’s degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
More information at Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award
Northwestern University hosts 3rd CIRP Conference on BioManufacturing, July 2017
Sponosored by Northwestern Initiative for Manufacturing Science and Innovation (NIMSI)
Biomanufacturing, defined as the design, fabrication, assembly and measurement of bio-elements into structures, devices, and systems, and their interfacing and integration into/with larger scale structures in vivo or in vitro, is an emergent domain integrating life science and engineering principles.
CIRP, the World Academy for Production Engineering, plays a key role in this area promoting multidisciplinary research towards the development of medical and welfare devices and systems for improving quality of life and reducing global healthcare costs.
The CIRP-Biomanufacturing conference was designed to be an international forum to discuss progress and future directions, and revise milestones as necessary, to facilitate exchange of information on biodesign, biofabrication and biomechatronics.
More information at northwestern.edu/cirpbiom2017
AMPL Members Newell Moser and Ebot Ndip-Agbor Receive Fellowship Honor, July 2017
Newell Moser has been awarded a Royal E. Cabell Terminal Year Fellowship. This Fellowship is available on a competitive basis for students completing their PhD studies to enable them to focus entirely on their dissertation during their final year.
Ebot Ndip-Agbor also received an Honorary Royal E. Cabell Terminal Year Fellowship.
AMPL Member Daniel Garcia Awarded Presidential Fellowship, May 2017
The Presidential Fellowship is funded by the President of the University and awarded by The Graduate School. This highly competitive award is the most prestigious fellowship awarded by Northwestern.
All recipients become members of the Northwestern Society of Fellows (which includes former members and distinguished faculty members).
More information at NU Presidential Fellows
AMPL Hosts Local School Children, April 2017
On April 27, 2017 Northwestern hosted its annual "Take Our Kids to Work Day." At AMPL we hosted lab tours for 30 kids who got a chance to learn about manufacturing and visit our facilities. They also got to see how high-speed cameras, thermal cameras, and microscopes are used in our lab.
AMPL Members Awarded Valeo Innovation Challenge Prize
Paris, October 14, 2016
Valeo today revealed the winners of the Valeo Innovation Challenge, the Group's international open innovation contest for students from all disciplines.
For this third annual competition, Valeo added a "New ways of using cars" category alongside the original "Technological innovation" category. Two €100,000 first prizes and three €10,000 second prizes were awarded this morning at a ceremony at the Maison de La Recherche in Paris. This year, the Challenge saw 1,344 teams from 795 business schools and universities in 65 different countries sign up for a chance to invent and develop innovative solutions for the automobile of 2030.
The five winning teams were selected today by a jury chaired by Valeo Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jacques Aschenbroich and made up of eminent figures from the world of science as well as members of the Valeo Group.
The Northwestern team was awarded the second prize of €10,000 in the category of "New ways of using cars". Their project proposed a new way to use time in cars during semi and full autonomous driving in order to perform wellness activities. Physical exercise and health monitor functions are added with minimal modification to the vehicle structure to allow the drivers to actively improve their health and wellbeing. The team’s mission was to make the driver healthy and fit, and provide drivers a safer and more beneficial driving experience with their time in semi or full autonomous cars.
More information at https://valeoinnovationchallenge.valeo.com/press-release
AMPL Members Receive Awards at NAMRC and MSEC Conferences 2016
June 2016
Sarah Wolff, Ph.D. student of Profs. Cao and Ehmann, received a Best Presentation Award for her presentation of “Anisotropic Properties of Directed Energy Deposition (DED)-Processed Ti-6Al-4V” at the 44th SME North America Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC).
“2016 NAMRC Best Presentation Award”
(from left to right: SME Executive Director Jeff Krause, Sarah Wolff, and NAMRC Board of Directors Prof. Lihui Wang of KTH).
Ph.D. student Weizhao Zhang received a Best Paper Award on behalf of his co-authors Dr. Demeng Che and Prof. Kornel Ehmann at the 2016 ASME Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC), the annual conference of the ASME Manufacturing Engineering Division. The paper is titled “Rock Cutter Interactions in Linear Rock Cutting.”
“2016 MSEC Best Paper Award”
(Weizhao Zhang and Prof. Brian Paul of Oregon State, MED Chair)
Jian Cao Receives SME’s Taylor Medal
Cao was honored for her pioneering and innovative research on manufacturing
by AMANDA MORRIS
June 1, 2016
Northwestern Engineering's Jian Cao has received the 2016 Frederick W. Taylor Research Medal from the SME, previously known as the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. The Taylor Medal is the highest honor given by SME to a researcher in the broad manufacturing field.
Cao is the first woman to receive the prestigious research award since it was established in 1957. She received the medal on May 15 at the SME’s International Awards Gala.
Jian Cao "I am so honored and grateful to SME for recognizing my research work," said Cao, professor of mechanical engineering and associate vice president for research. "None of this would be possible without the contributions from the talented, hardworking students and postdocs in my group and the support from my Northwestern colleagues."
The Taylor Medal honors published research that leads to a better understanding of materials, facilities, principles, operations, and their application to improve manufacturing processes. Cao received the award for her pioneering research on innovative manufacturing processes with seminal contributions in integrating material characterization with sensing and control for forming and laser-assisted processing of sheet metals and woven composites.
The founding director of the Northwestern Initiative on Manufacturing Science and Innovation, Cao is internationally recognized her broad impact on the fundamental understanding of process mechanics, which has led to innovative manufacturing processes.
An elected fellow of SME, the International Academy of Production Engineering (CIRP), and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Cao has received multiple awards, including the ASME Blackall Machine and Gage Award, NSF CAREER Award, and SME’s Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award. She is also the founding technical editor of the Journal of Micro- and Nano-Manufacturing.
Before joining Northwestern in 1995, Cao was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she also earned her master’s degree and PhD.
"The collaborations I have developed within the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern Engineering, Northwestern, and beyond over the past 20 years have brought many fruitful results," Cao said. "I look forward to many more scientific advancements and technology innovations to originate from our recent initiatives on manufacturing."
SWE Sponsored 45th Annual Career Day for Girls
February 27, 2016
Right: Newell Moser explains the science behind the Double Sided Incremental Forming machine
Left: Sarah Wolff shows the group the AMPL RAPID Lumera Laser, capable of micro-machining virtually any material
Participants in the Society of Women Engineers' 45th annual Career Day, toured the Northwestern AMPL facilities. Female students in 6th-12th grade take Career Day as an opportunity to learn more about the different fields of engineering.
AMPL members Newell Moser and Sarah Wolff hosted a lab tour for the group, showcasing the innovative work done within our labs. Participants offered interesting questions and gave AMPL members the valuable chance to further hone their research communication skills.
