The future of additive manufacturing looks bright with scholarship recipients like these:
Dr. Nathan Patterson, an assistant professor at Milwaukee School of Engineering (Milwaukee, Wis.), has been using, designing, building, inventing, and teaching others about AM technology for just over twelve years. He has used fused deposition modeling extruders to illustrate engineering principles, such as conservation of linear momentum and Bernoulli’s equation, and a first-hand account of the design of a three-year-old boy’s prosthetic to inspire students to not give up when a design approach fails.
Jennifer Bennett, a PhD candidate at Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.), is focused on improving the controllability of AM systems. Bennett stated, “Many challenges still persist before this technology can reach its full potential. The major deficiencies are a lack of process repeatability, dimensional integrity, and material quality.” Her research seeks to address these challenges by establishing a physics-based model to inversely determine the melt pool size and cooling rate needed to achieve ideal material quality and to develop a control system to meet these conditions.
These are the recipients of the 2016 Additive Manufacturing Users Group (AMUG) scholarships. Dr. Nathan Patterson has been awarded the Randy Stevens Scholarship. Jennifer Bennett, has been awarded the Guy E. Bourdeau Scholarship. With these recognitions, Ms. Bennett and Dr. Patterson will attend and participate in the AMUG Conference to be held in St. Louis, Missouri., April 3– 7, 2016.
Mark Barfoot, AMUG president, stated, “Nathan and Jennifer will be welcome additions to this year’s conference. What they are doing in the additive manufacturing world will make a difference, and we believe that attending the conference will have a big impact on them.” He continued, “These two individuals certainly deserve the scholarships, but it was a difficult endeavor to select from so many qualified candidates.”
The AMUG Board selected Nathan Patterson for the integration of his additive manufacturing (AM) experience and research in his engineering curricula. According to Dr. Joe Musto, professor at Milwaukee School of Engineering and director of the school’s Rapid Prototyping Consortium, “His industrial experience as a research associate with the Morgridge Institute and as president of the additive manufacturing start-up Radiant Fabrication provided him with both an outstanding technical background and knowledge of the additive manufacturing industry. He has leveraged this expertise to have an immediate impact on additive manufacturing education.”
In his application, Patterson said, “The Randy Stevens Scholarship will allow me to better translate the current state and challenges of AM and its users to the classroom, providing students with a richer AM learning experience.”
John Aussem, applications engineer for DMG Mori USA, said, “Jennifer Bennett’s hands-on work in the development of these machines has given her a firm foundation for her scholarly work in this area. The insight and understanding she has gained through this experience is invaluable. I have no doubt that Jennifer has the demonstrated potential to be a high achieving engineer who will make transformative breakthroughs in engineering research and become a leader in her career.”
Bennett said, “If successful, this will enable quick qualification of components, increase the process autonomy, truly integrate design and manufacturing and ultimately release this technology from the hands of a few to the hands of many.”
The Guy E. Bourdeau Scholarship, founded by Guy’s wife, Renee Bourdeau, is awarded annually to one college student. The Randy Stevens Scholarship, founded by Randy’s employer, In’Tech Industries, is awarded annually to one educator that emphasizes or focuses on additive manufacturing.
AMUG is an organization that educates and advances the uses and applications of additive manufacturing technologies.
