Finalists for the position of executive director of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI) will be delivering vision presentations during the week of May 9. The candidates have been asked to present their vision for GTMI, including details about their diversity, equity, and inclusion plans and perspectives on how to build a strong GTMI community that supports and develops its staff and researchers from across the Institute, and to take questions from the Georgia Tech community. The schedule for these sessions is shown below along with the in-person location, Microsoft Teams link for the virtual option. Biographical information for the candidates is provided below. A post-presentation survey link was sent internally via email to portions of the GT community.

Wednesday, May 11 at 12:00p
Tom Kurfess - Callaway building, 813 Ferst Drive, NW, Room 114 or link here for virtual participation

Thursday, May 12 at 2:00p
Chuck Zhang – Callaway building, 813 Ferst Drive, NW, Room 114 or link here for virtual participation  

- - - - - - Short Bios - - - - - 

Tom Kurfess
Wednesday, May 11 at 12:00p 
Callaway building, 813 Ferst Drive, NW, Room 114 
Virtual option - link here

Thomas R. Kurfess is the HUSCO/Ramirez Distinguished Chair in Fluid Power and Motion Control and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. He received his S.B., S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from M.I.T. in 1986, 1987 and 1989, respectively. He also received an S.M. degree from M.I.T. in electrical engineering and computer science in 1988. During 2019-2021 he was on leave serving as the Chief Manufacturing Officer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), where he was responsible for strategic planning for ORNL in advanced manufacturing. He was also and was the Founding Director for the Manufacturing Science Division at ORNL. During 2012-2013 he served 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, where he was responsible for coordinating Federal advanced manufacturing R&D. He was President of SME in 2018, and currently serves on the Board of Governors of the ASME. His research focuses on the design and development of advanced manufacturing systems targeting secure digital manufacturing, additive and subtractive processes, and large-scale production enterprises. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is a Fellow of ASME, AAAS, and SME. 

Chuck Zhang
Thursday, May 12 at 2:00p 
Callaway building, 813 Ferst Drive, NW, Room 114
Virtual option link here

Dr. Chuck Zhang is a Harold E. Smalley Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. He is also an affiliated faculty member with Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI). He serves as the Director of the newly established Center for Composite and Hybrid Materials Interfacing (CHMI) which is a three-university NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) headquartered in GTMI. Dr. Zhang’s current research interests include advanced composite/nanocomposite structures manufacturing and maintenance, additive manufacturing, bio-manufacturing, and manufacturing cybersecurity. As PI and Co-PI, he has led or conducted over 50 research projects sponsored by numerous federal agencies including Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Food and Drug Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology and National Science Foundation, as well as industrial companies such as ATK, Cummins, Delta Air Lines, and Lockheed Martin. He currently serves as a Co-lead of the “Soft Robotics Technology Working Group” for NextFlex, one of the Manufacturing USA Network Institutes. Dr. Zhang is a fellow of Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE). He has published over 220 refereed journal articles and 230 conference papers. He also holds 26 U.S. patents.