Meet the Committee

Journals Committee Chair

Xun Xu, PhD, FSME, FASME
Professor, Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering
The University of Auckland
Auckland, New Zealand

Xun W. Xu, PhD, FSME, FASME, is a professor of Manufacturing at the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, The University of Auckland. He has been working in the field of intelligent manufacturing solutions for some 30 years. Dr. Xu is an internationally recognized expert in smart manufacturing systems, STEP-NC, cloud-based manufacturing and smart manufacturing. He serves as an Associate Editor and member of the Editorial Board of a number of international journals and has published over 350 research papers.

Dr. Xu is the Director of Laboratory for Industry 4.0 Smart Manufacturing Systems (LISMS), the only Laboratory for Industry 4.0 in New Zealand. His current research focus is on Industry 4.0 technologies, e.g. smart factories, digital twins, cloud manufacturing, model-based manufacturing, and AI for manufacturing. Dr. Xu is a Fellow of the American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and Engineering New Zealand (EngNZ). In 2020, he is named one of the “20 Most Influential Professors in Smart Manufacturing” by SME. He was also recognized by Web of Science as a Clarivate™ Highly Cited Researcher in 2020.

Journals Committee Chair-Elect

Stefania Bruschi, PhD
Professor, Manufacturing Technologies
University of Padova
Padova, Italy

Stefania Bruschi, PhD, is a professor of Manufacturing Technologies at the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Padova, Italy, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the University. Her major research areas include sheet and bulk metal forming and machining of metal alloys, focusing on material behavior, process, and product performances. The research activities are carried out in the framework of EU and Italian-funded projects, and research contracts with Italian and European manufacturing companies.

She is a fellow of CIRP (The International Academy for Production Engineering), and currently Vice-Chair of the CIRP Scientific Technical Committee “Forming”. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the North American Manufacturing Research Institution (NAMRI), where now serves as Chair-elect of the Scientific Committee. She is a co-author of more than 300 Scopus-indexed publications.

Journals Committee Past Chair

Robert X. Gao, PhD, FSME, FASME
Professor and Department Chair, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio

Robert X. Gao, PhD, FSME, FASME, is the Cady Staley Professor and Department Chair of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Case Western Reserve University. Since receiving his PhD from TU Berlin, Germany, in 1991, he has been working in the fields of multiphysics sensing, multiresolution signal processing, AI/machine learning and wireless communication for monitoring and control of manufacturing processes and product quality. He has published two books, over 450 technical papers (including 220 journal articles), and holds 13 patents.

Dr. Gao is a Fellow of SME, ASME, IEEE, and CIRP, and a Distinguished Fellow of IIVA (The International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration). He received several professional awards, including the SME Gold Medal, SME Eli Whitney Productivity Award, ASME Milton C. Shaw Manufacturing Research Medal, ASME Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award, IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society Technical Award, IEEE Best Application in Instrumentation and Measurement Award, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Andrew P. Sage Best Transactions Paper Award. He served as the Chair of the CIRP Collaborative Working Group on AI in Manufacturing (CWG-AI) and a Senior Editor of the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics. He is among SME’s “20 Most Influential Professors in Smart Manufacturing” and was recognized by Web of Science as a Clarivate^TM “Highly Cited Researcher” in 2023 and 2024, respectively. SME Member Since 2005

Ex-Officio

Melissa Orme, PhD, NAE
The Boeing Company

Melissa Orme is vice president for additive manufacturing at the Boeing Company, where she leads activities across engineering, manufacturing, and new design development to differentiate Boeing products. She is also focused on developing new materials and processes and establishing the digital thread throughout the end-to-end value stream. Orme is a pioneering leader in additive manufacturing, with over three decades of work that have resulted in 15 U.S. patents and numerous peer-reviewed journal articles. Orme began her career in academia, rising to the rank of full professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Irvine. There, she established globally recognized research laboratories in what is now known as additive manufacturing. She later transitioned into leadership roles in high-tech startups, serving as chief technical officer of Morf3D, a company specializing in additive manufacturing for aerospace and defense. Orme was then recruited by Boeing to lead additive manufacturing across all business units. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and was inducted into the TCT Hall of Fame for 3D printing. Orme also received the SME Eli Whitney International Award for Productivity in 2024. SME Member Since 2023

Editor-in-Chief

Manufacturing Letters

Laine Mears, PhD, FSME, FASME, CMfgE, PE
Professor and Chair
Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research
Greenville, South Carolina

Laine Mears is the BMW SmartState Endowed Chair of Automotive Manufacturing, Professor and founding faculty member in the Automotive Engineering department at Clemson University. He teaches and conducts research in manufacturing quality estimation, Intelligent Machining Systems, manufacturing process design and control, and manufacturing equipment diagnostics, at the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research. Current efforts are in expanding the Multimaterial Joining Lab and growing a new Center of Automotive Assembly. He has published over 160 peer-reviewed articles, and is the recipient of the NSF CAREER award, SAE Ralph Teetor Educational Award, the South Carolina Governor’s Young Researcher Award for Excellence in Scientific Research, and the IMECHE George Stephenson Gold Medal and Thatcher Bros. Prize. He currently directs the Clemson Vehicle Assembly Center and the NSF THINKER Research Traineeship Program.

In addition to academic experience, Dr. Mears has over 10 years in industry, holding positions with Hitachi Automotive and SKF Bearings as both Manufacturing Engineer and Engineering Manager in high-volume precision manufacturing environments. Applicable work in industry includes leading quality implementation teams for QS-9000 and IATF-16949 quality systems, power optimization of hard machining processes, and startup of a new bulk deformation rolling process.  Dr. Mears has a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech (1993) and M.S. (2001) and Ph.D. (2006) degrees in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech.  He is a Fellow of both the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and SME, and a Senior Member of the American Society for Quality.  He is a Certified Manufacturing Engineer, ASQ Certified Quality Engineer (CQE), BMW Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and licensed Professional Engineer.

Editor-in-Chief

Journal of Manufacturing Processes

Shiv Kapoor, PhD, FSME
Professor and Director
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Urbana, Illinois

Shiv G. Kapoor is Professor and Grayce Wicall Gauthier Chair and Director of the Center for Machine Tool Systems Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prof. Kapoor has sustained a relevant and well-supported research program in the areas of manufacturing process modeling and process automation. The main goal has been to develop science-based understanding of the processes for the purpose of increasing productivity and improving quality. For the past 10 years, he and colleagues at UIUC and Northwestern University have been engaged in laying the foundation of a new manufacturing paradigm related to micro/meso-scale mechanical manufacturing. The main idea is the creation of miniaturized manufacturing equipment and processes that are integrated into autonomous “microfactories” and promote the concept of mass customization through distributed manufacturing (DM). Prof. Kapoor’s research is developing a better scientific understanding of emerging nano- and micro-scale manufacturing processes to bridge the gap between the laboratory technologies and their industrial applications.

Prof. Kapoor is a Fellow of SME and ASME and a senior member of IIE. He is a past president of NAMRI/SME (North American Manufacturing Research Institution of SME), past technical editor of the Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering (ASME) and currently serves as editor of the Journal of Manufacturing Processes (SME). He received the SME S.M. Wu Research Implementation Award in 2010, the ASME Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award (for best research paper) in 1992, 1997 and 2008, the SME Education Award in 2005 and the ASME William T. Ennor Manufacturing Technology Award in 2003.

Editor-in-Chief

Journal of Manufacturing Systems

Lihui Wang, PhD, FSME, FASME, PE
Professor and Chair of Sustainable Manufacturing
KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Stockholm, Sweden

Lihui Wang is a Professor and Chair of Sustainable Manufacturing at KTH, Sweden. He is also the Director of Centre of Excellence in Production Research (XPRES) - one of the five national strategic research centres at KTH. He has served as the President (2020-2021) of North American Manufacturing Research Institution (NAMRI) of Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), and the Chairman (2018-2020) of Swedish Production Academy. In 2020, he was elected one of the 20 Most Influential Professors in Smart Manufacturing by Society of Manufacturing Engineers. He is the Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Manufacturing Research, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Manufacturing Systems, Editor-in-Chief of Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, Editor of Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing (2007-2019), Associate Editor of International Journal of Production Research, and an Editorial Board Member of other 17 international journals. He is also a Fellow of The Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), a Fellow of The International Academy for Production Engineering (CIRP), a Fellow of International Academy of Engineering and Technology (AET), a Fellow of SME, a Fellow of ASME, and a registered Professional Engineer in Canada.

Committee Members

Livan Fratini, PhD 
Chair and Professor, Department of Engineering
University of Palermo
Palermo, Italy

Prof. Livan Fratini graduated with honors in Mechanical Engineering in 1993 and took his PhD in Production Engineering at University of Palermo in Italy in 1997. Currently he is a full professor of Manufacturing at the University of Palermo. He has been Vice-Rector for Research and Third Mission from 2018 to 2021. Since November 2024 he has been Director of the Department of Engineering.

The scientific activity has been mainly focused on the development of numerical models for the analysis of the plastic behavior of metals during forming processes. Most recently he has been working on solid bonding processes. He has been coordinating or involved in several national and international research projects. He is co-author of over 350 papers on international scientific journals or on the proceedings of national and international conferences (ORCID: 0000-0002-1059-2850; Scopus Author Id. 56274137600). Prof. Fratini was awarded the F.W. Taylor Medal by the CIRP (2007). He has been Vice-President of AITEM (Italian Association of Manufacturing) in 2013-2017; he is a Fellow of CIRP (The International Academy for Production Engineering). He has been President of NAMRI|SME for 2022-23; he has been President of ESAFORM (European Scientific Association for Material Forming) from 2020 to 2024. SME Member Since 2014

Ihab Ragai, PhD, PE, CMfgE, FASME
Professor of Engineering
The Pennsylvania State University
The Behrend College
Erie, Pennsylvania

Ihab Ragai, PhD, PE, is a Professor of Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University, Erie. He is also a Visiting Professor at Rosenheim Technical University of Applied Sciences, Germany. His research interests include advanced manufacturing processes, smart manufacturing, machine and tool monitoring, design optimization, and materials constitutive modelling. For over 20 years, he has held several positions in the aerospace and heavy equipment industries. Prior to joining academia, he was a Senior Engineering Manager at Hitachi Canada, overseeing projects related to product development, structural and systems design, and manufacturing research.

Dr. Ragai serves as the 2024-25 NAMRI President. He also served as the Chair and Host of NAMRC 47-MSEC 2019, a Director on the NAMRI Board, the 2020-22 NAMRI Scientific Committee Chair, and the 2014 MSEC Technical Program Chair. Additionally, he is a guest editor of SME’s “Journal of Manufacturing Systems,” “Journal of Manufacturing Processes,” and “Manufacturing Letters.” He is a registered Professional Engineer in Canada and the USA, a Certified Manufacturing Engineer, a fellow of ASME, a research fellow of DAAD Germany, and a recipient of several national and international awards. SME Member Since 1998