Professor Koren is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). He is recognized for his innovative contributions to robotics, flexible automation, and reconfigurable manufacturing systems. He is credited with creating the scientific underpinnings of the reconfigurable manufacturing paradigm, which became a worldwide research topic. He is regarded as a pioneer in establishing flexible automation, and in particular CNC and adaptive control of machine tools, as a research field and educational discipline. And he had remarkable contributions to robotics, and mobile robot research in particular. His innovations in these fields played a key role in establishing the College as the premier institution in the US in advanced manufacturing research.
Professor Koren is the founding Director (in 1996) of the NSF-sponsored Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS), and has been the Director since then. The ERC/RMS is the first NSF-sponsored ERC that the College won, and is regarded by the NSF as one of the very successful ERCs because of its unprecedented impact on the profession and industry as well. This Center brought honor and reputation to the College of Engineering and in particular to the IOE and ME departments, and without doubt, elevated their national ranking.
Professor Koren is considered one of the most innovators in the manufacturing field worldwide. He is holding 14 US patents in the fields of reconfigurable manufacturing, flexible automation and robotics. His scientific publications (total 260) are widely cited in the scientific literature. In fact, ten of his publications have over 100 citations each. He is the author of three successful books that received book-awards and have been translated into French, Japanese and Chinese.
Professor Koren won the most prestigious manufacturing national awards including the Merchant Medal that is awarded jointly by the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) and the Society of Manufacturing Engineering (SME), the SME Gold Medal, the William T. Ennor Manufacturing Technology Award from ASME, and the Hanasufa Outstanding Investigator Award of the Japan/US Society on Flexible Automation. He received the College’s Excellence in Research Award in 1991.
Professor Koren served on the College’s Executive Committee from 1997 to 2001.
Professor Koren has introduced during his career several courses in manufacturing. To better prepare today’s engineering students for the challenges and requirements of globalization, Professor Koren has recently developed a new course entitled Global Manufacturing, and has written for this class a whole new textbook entitled “The Global Manufacturing Revolution.”
