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.

Dima Nazzal is a Principal Academic Professional in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. She is responsible for project-based learning in the Industrial Engineering undergraduate curriculum, including the capstone senior design course, and the cornerstone junior design course. She is also research director of the Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, she was Director of Research and Development at Fortna, Inc., an Engineering Design and Consulting company. 

Research: Her research focuses on modeling, design, and control of discrete event logistics systems, including healthcare delivery systems, manufacturing systems, and distribution systems. Her recent work has focused on election voting systems, higher education response to COVID-19, understanding and driving higher childhood vaccination rates in developing countries, modeling of collaborative robots in distribution systems; scheduling and dispatching policies in semiconductor manufacturing, and energy systems development. She has worked with companies, non-governmental organizations, and healthcare providers, including ExxonMobil, Emory University, Samsung, Emory University, Gates Foundation, and Walt Disney World. See here for relevant publications. 

Teaching: Dr. Nazzal enjoys teaching courses in manufacturing, warehousing, and facility logistics system design and operations, as well as advising senior design teams. She is the recipient of multiple teaching awards including the Georgia Tech Women in Engineering Outstanding Teacher Award in 2015, and the Most Outstanding Faculty Member Award from the University of Central Florida IIE Student Chapter in 2011. 

She received her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2006, her M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Central Florida, and her B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Jordan.

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.

Colton's research interests are in the areas of design and manufacturing, focusing on polymers and polymer composites. Processing techniques, such as micro-molding, injection molding, filament winding, resin transfer molding and the like, are studied and used to fabricate these devices and products, such as smart composite structures.

The design of processing techniques and equipment for metamaterials also are being studied with applications being dielectric materials for electromagnetic applications. Due to the small-scale physics associated with their engineering, nano-scale metamaterials exhibit superior properties and enhanced performance.

Colton has a strong passion for the application of engineering for the common good – "humanitarian design and engineering" and "design that matters," - such as in developing countries and other resource limited environments. To be successful, multidisciplinary teams must work together to produce products that function as well as delight, that exceed customer's expectations, regardless of where the product is used. Along these lines, product design and role that the interactions between engineering and industrial design forms another research interest.

Zhou's research interests concern material behavior over a wide range of length scales. His research emphasizes finite element and molecular dynamics simulations as well as experimental characterization with digital diagnostics. The objective is to provide guidance for the enhancement of performance through material design and synthesis. Zhou maintains a high-performance computer cluster with 384 parallel processors and an intermediate-to-high strain rate material research facility which includes a split Hopkinson pressure bar apparatus, a tension bar apparatus, and a combined torsion-tension/torsion-compression bar apparatus.

Recent research focuses on the characterization of the dynamic shear failure resistance of structural metals and the role of microscopic damage in influencing failure processes through shear banding and fracture. Micromechanical models are developed to outline microstructural adjustments that can improve the performance of materials such as metal matrix composites, ceramic composites, composite laminates and soft composites. These models explicitly account for random microstructures as well as random crack and microcrack development. At the nanoscale, ongoing research focuses on the novel shape memory and pseudoelasticity that were recently discovered in metal (e.g., Cu, Au and Ni) nanowires. The coupling between the thermal and mechanical responses of semiconducting oxide (e.g., ZnO and GaN) nanowires is another active research direction which uses molecular dynamics simulations and continuum modeling. Dr. Zhou's group is also actively engaged in research on the equivalent continuum (EC) representation of atomistic deformation at different length scales. Related research projects are sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Army Research Office (ARO), industry, and the Center for Computational Materials Design (CCMD).

Donggang Yao is a professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. and Master’s degrees both from University of Massachusetts Amherst, and his B.S. degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. He teaches and directs research in the broad area of polymer engineering. His current research focuses on polymer micromolding, fiber spinning, single-polymer composites, constitutive modeling, and process modeling and simulation. He has published over 60 journal papers and 80 conference papers on polymer processing. He was a recipient of NSF Career Award in 2003 for his research on polymer micromolding. He chaired the ASME Composites and Textile Engineering Technical Committee from 2009 to 2011. He currently serves as an associate editor for ASME Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering and an editorial board member for Polymer Engineering and Science.

When Dr. Rosen arrived at Georgia Tech, he helped form the Systems Realization Laboratory, along with Drs. Janet Allen, Bert Bras, and Farrokh Mistree. In August 1995, Dr. Rosen was appointed the Academic Director of the Georgia Tech Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing Institute (RPMI), where he has responsibility for developing educational and research programs in rapid prototyping. In 1998, he was appointed the Director of the RPMI. He began at Tech in Fall 1992 as an Assistant Professor.