DESIGN AUTOMATION

Dan Zhang

Dr. Dan Zhang is a Chair Professor of Intelligent Robotics and Automation at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Laval University, Canada in 2000. He joined Ontario Tech University (OTU), Canada, as Assistant Professor in 2004 and was promoted to Associate Professor and Professor in 2006 and 2011 respectively. During the appointment period in OTU, he also served as Founding Chair in the Department of Automotive, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering and was awarded the Canada Research Chair in Advanced Robotics and Automation in 2009 and Early Researcher Award by Province of Ontario in 2010. Since 2016, he transferred to York University, Canada as a Kaneff Professor and also took up the role of Department Chair in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He was awarded the Tier 1 York Research Chair in Advanced Robotics and Mechatronics in 2017. His research interests include synthesis and optimization of parallel and hybrid mechanisms; generalized parallel mechanisms research; smart biomedical instruments (e.g., exoskeleton robots and rehabilitation robotics); AI/robotics/autonomous systems. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC), Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and Fellow of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME).

Jie Zhang

Dr. Jie Zhang is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Affiliated) at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). Dr. Zhang received his Ph.D. (2012) in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, NY, USA. His research expertise and interests are sustainable energy systems, machine learning, complex engineered systems, and multidisciplinary design optimization. His research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, and energy industry. His major awards include: ONR’s Young Investigator Award (2020), ASME Design Automation Young Investigator Award (2020), Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award (2022-2023), Invited Participant of US-Africa Frontiers of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (2024), 13 best paper awards from multiple journals and IEEE, ASME, AIAA, JSM conferences.

Bryony DuPont

Bryony DuPont is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State University. She received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Her research is in design automation, which is the application of computational algorithms and simulation to help engineering designers make more informed decisions earlier in the design of products and systems. Her work has applications in green design, specifically the design of renewable energy systems and environmentally sustainable products. Dr. DuPont has successfully received research funding from the US Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, multiple national laboratories and industrial partners. She holds a joint appointment at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. She teaches in engineering design, wind energy systems design, sustainable product design, and design for manufacturing.

Zhenghui Sha

Dr. Zhenghui Sha is an Assistant Professor in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin. Before joining UT, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Arkansas and a Postdoctoral Fellow in the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. Dr. Sha received a Ph.D. from Purdue University in Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Sha’s research focuses on system science and design science as well as the intersection between these two areas. Dr. Sha is the recipient of the 2022 Young Engineering Award (YEA) from the Computers & Information in Engineering (CIE) Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and received the Best Dissertation of The Year Award in 2017 from the ASME CIE Division. He received the ASME Robert E. Fulton Best Paper Award twice, in 2013 and 2017. He is the recipient of the 2021 Outstanding Faculty Members of the Year Award, the 2020 Outstanding Teaching Award, and the Open Education Resources (OER) Initiative Award from the University of Arkansas. He was the Reviewer with the Distinction Award for the Journal of Mechanical Design and received the Technical Committee Leadership Award from the ASME CIE Division in 2020. Dr. Sha is the inaugural Chair of the ASME-CIE Hackathon.

Xueguan Song

Dr. Xueguan Song is currently a professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Dalian University of Technology (DUT), China. He received the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from DUT in 2004, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from Dong-A University, Busan, South Korea, in 2007 and 2010, respectively. He was a Researcher Associate in the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering at Newcastle University, UK, from 2012 to 2014. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed journal/conference papers and two books in the field of computational modelling and simulation, surrogate-based design optimization, design of high-performance valves. He is the recipient of best paper award at a number of international conferences. He led the development of a cloud-based DAta-Driven Optimization Software ‘DADOS’ (www.dados.com.cn). His current research expertise and interest lie in the field of surrogate modeling, multiphysics simulation, multidisciplinary design optimization, and digital twins.

Michael Kokkolaras

Dr. Kokkolaras is Professor, and the founding director of the Systems Optimization Laboratory, at McGill University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. He received his diploma in Aerospace Engineering from Technische Universität München and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University. He is currently serving as the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs at the Faculty of Engineering. Dr. Kokkolaras joined McGill from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (UM), where he held research faculty appointments at the Department of Mechanical Engineering (primary) and the UM Transportation Research Institute (joint/courtesy); he is a recipient of the UM College of Engineering Outstanding Research Scientist Award. Dr. Kokkolaras is an ASME Fellow and is currently serving as Publications Chair of the ASME Design Engineering Division and has previously served as Chair of the Design Automation Executive Committee of the ASME Design Engineering Division, Program and Conference Chair of the ASME Design Automation Conference, and Program Co-Chair of the International Conference on Engineering Design.

Kate S. Whitefoot

Professor Kate S. Whitefoot is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering & Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. She is a member of the NextManufacturing Center for additive manufacturing research and a Faculty Affiliate at the Carnegie Mellon Scott Institute for Energy Innovation. Prior to her current position, she served as a Senior Program Officer and the Robert A. Pritzker fellow at the National Academy of Engineering where she directed the Academy’s Manufacturing, Design, and Innovation program. Professor Whitefoot’s research bridges engineering design theory and analysis with that of economics to inform the design and manufacture of products and processes for improved adoption in the marketplace. Her research interests include sustainable transportation and manufacturing systems, the influence of innovation and technology policies on engineering design and production, product lifecycle systems optimization, and automation with human-machine teaming.

Zhimin Xi

Zhimin Xi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Rutgers University – New Brunswick. He received his B.S. and M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Science and Technology Beijing in 2001 and 2004, respectively. He obtained his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (Program of Reliability Engineering) at the University of Maryland – College Park in 2010. His research interests are design for reliability and the applications for reliable autonomous vehicles/robots, lithium-ion batteries, and additive manufacturing. He is the recipient of 2021 ASME – Design Automation Young Investigator Award, 2019 Rutgers A. Walter Tyson Assistant Professorship Award, and 2016 DARPA – Young Faculty Award.

Douglas Allaire

Dr. Douglas Allaire is an Associate Professor and Sallie and Don Davis ’61 Faculty Fellow in the J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University where he directs the Computational Design Lab (CDL). He holds B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His current research focuses on the development of computational methods for the analysis, design, and operation of complex systems. He is specifically interested in uncertainty quantification, multidisciplinary design optimization, and machine learning and has recently applied his research to unmanned aerial vehicle systems and the design and discovery of advanced materials. He is the recipient of several awards, including the 2018 ASME Computers and Information in Engineering Division Young Engineer Award and the ASME DAC Best Paper award in 2018.

Ping Zhu

Dr. Ping Zhu is a tenured full professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), China. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical System Engineering from Miyazaki University (Japan) in 2000 and was a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Mechanical Engineering at SJTU. He is currently the Deputy Director of Automotive Safety Division of SAE-China, a senior member of CMES (Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society), a member of ASME and SAE, and an associate editor for the Journal Advances in Information Mining. Prof. Zhu has received a number of awards including the National Science and Technology Advancement Award, and Shanghai Science and Technology Advancement Award.

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