ME Assistant Professor Suman Das and Assistant Research Scientist Muammer Koç have received the 2004 M. Eugene Merchant Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME).
Professor Das was presented his award by Richard C. Peters, SME President on June 12 at the SME Annual Meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Award Citation reads:
Suman Das, PhD is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan. Over the years, Das has centered his research interests at the broad intersection of design, materials processing, process modeling and control. Throughout his academic journey, Das has conducted research in solid freeform fabrication (SFF) and rapid prototyping, where as a doctoral candidate he invented and was awarded two patents for novel solid freeform fabrication processes involving direct laser fabrication of metal components. As a graduate research assistant at the University of Texas, Das was the principal researcher on two U.S. Department of Defense contracts. Today, he is pursuing two very personal visions for the manufacturing field - research and education. His research vision is "to create next-generation design and fabrication techniques that will enable the construction of a broad variety of heterogeneous multifunctional devices spanning the macro- to the nanoscales." His educational vision is "to prepare the next generation of mechanical engineers armed with a fundamental understanding and practical knowledge of solid freeform fabrication, computational design synthesis, and electronic collaboration methods."
Dr. Koç was presented the award by Richard Kegg, SME Board of Trustees on June 2 at the 32nd North American Manufacturing Research Confererence in Charlotte, North Carolina. His Award Citation reads:
Muammer Koç, PhD is an assistant research scientiust of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan. While earning his doctoral degree at the Ohio State University, Koç was the lead PhD candidate conducting research for the Tube Hydroforming Consortia of more than 30 companies, including DaimlerChrysler, Honda, Magna, Dana, and Alcoa. During this time he also produced a set of design guidelines and material characterization methods that contributed to increased use of tube hydroforming technology in the automotive industry. He has two years of industrial experience working as a Senior Research Engineer. Following that he acted as the Associate Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) for Intelligent Maintenance Systems (IMS) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM). As a research scientist at the University of Michigan, he has been conducting research on advanced manufacturing processes, lightweight materials forming, hydroforming, warm forming, micro-meso scale manufacturing, design of agile manufacturing equipment and system, etc. at the NSF Engineering Research Center for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (ERC/RMS), IMS, GM-U of M Collaborative Research Lab (CRL) on Advanced Vehicle Manufacturing, and the S.M. Wu Manufacturing Center (WuMRC). He has organized and chaired several international conferences and workshops on manufacturing processes and systems.