Associate Professor

General Dynamics Endowed Faculty Fellowship

University of Texas at Austin

Email: ccseepersad@mail.utexas.edu

Carolyn Conner Seepersad is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and General Dynamics Faculty Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. She received a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2004, an MA/BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University in 1998 (as a Rhodes Scholar), and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from West Virginia University in 1996. Dr. Seepersad’s research involves the development of methods and computational tools for engineering design and additive manufacturing. Her research interests include simulation-based design of complex systems and materials, design for additive manufacturing, innovation, and environmentally conscious design of products and energy systems. Dr. Seepersad has earned many awards for her research and teaching, including the 2009 inaugural International Outstanding Young Researcher Award in Freeform and Additive Manufacturing from the additive manufacturing community, the 2010 University of Texas Regents’ Award for Outstanding Teaching by an Assistant Professor (the highest teaching award for faculty in The University of Texas System), the 2010 Outstanding Young Investigator award from the ASME Design Automation Committee, and the 2013 ASEE Outstanding New Mechanical Engineering Educator award. Dr. Seepersad is the recipient of a Best Paper Award for the 2009 ASME IDETC Design Theory and Methodology Conference, the 2015 ASME IDETC Design Education Conference, and two best paper awards for the 2010 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition. She is also the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed conference and journal publications and one book. She co-organizes the annual Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium, and she is a member of the executive committee for the ASME IDETC Design Automation Conference (2015 conference chair). She has also been a participant (2010) and session organizer (2011) for the annual NAE Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, a symposium organized by the NAE for a select group of emerging engineering leaders ages 30-45, an invited speaker for the 2013 German-American FOE, and a keynote speaker for the 2015 International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED). Her research has been featured by Popular Science, Science Daily, The Daily Dot, 3DPrint.com, and various additional media outlets. She teaches courses on product design, additive manufacturing, and design of complex engineered systems.

Peter and Angela Dal Pezzo Chair and Department Head

Harold and Inge Marcus Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Professor

Pennsylvania State University

jpt5311@psu.edu

ASME/DED Broadening Participation Committee – Co-Chair

Janis is active participant in the CIE, DAC, DEC, and DTM conferences. 

Janis Terpenny is the Peter and Angela Dal Pezzo Chair and Department Head of the Harold and Inge Marcus Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Penn State University. She is Director of the NSF Center for e-Design, an I/UCRC with 7 universities and 30+ industrial members. Her research focuses on advancing smart integrated systems and processes for design and manufacturing. Prior to joining Penn State, Dr. Terpenny served as department chair and Joseph Walkup Professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at Iowa State University. She served as the first technology thrust lead for Advanced Manufacturing Enterprise (AME) in the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII). She has served as a program director at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and as professor at Virginia Tech and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has 9 years of industry work experience with the General Electric Company (GE). Throughout her career, she has served as PI or co-PI on over $14 million of sponsored research and is the author of over 165 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications. She is a Fellow of ASME, a Fellow of IIE, and a member of ASEE, INFORMS, Alpha Pi Mu, and Tau Beta Pi.

Wilson-Cook Professor in Engineering Design

Director of Graduate Studies

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

Dr. Wei Chen is the Wilson-Cook Chair Professor in Engineering Design at Northwestern University. Directing the Integrated DEsign Automation Laboratory (IDEAL- http://ideal.mech.northwestern.edu/), her current research involves issues such as simulation-based design under uncertainty, model validation, stochastic multiscale analysis and design, robust shape and topology optimization, multidisciplinary optimization, consumer choice modeling and enterprise-driven decision-based design. She is the co-founder and Director of the interdisciplinary doctoral cluster in Predictive Science and Engineering Design (PSED) at Northwestern. She is also serving as the Chair of the research faculty council of the Segal Design Institution at Northwestern.

Dr. Chen received her Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1995. She served on the ASME Design Engineering Division (DED) Executive Committee (2009-2015) and was an elected Advisory Board member of the Design Society (2007-2013). She is a review editor of Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization and served twice as an Associate Editor of the ASME Journal of Mechanical Design. In addition, she serves as the Associate Editor of SIAM/ASA Journal on Uncertainty Quantification (JUQ) and the Department Editor for the IIE Transactions. Dr. Chen was the recipient of the 1996 NSF Faculty Early Career Award, the 1998 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Pi Tau Sigma Gold Medal achievement award, the 2006 SAE Ralph R. Teetor Educational award, and the 2015 ASME Design Automation Award. She is a Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and an Associate Fellow of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).