The 2025 Shiv Kapoor Award recipients will be honored at SME and NAMRC 53 events throughout 2025.
SME announced the 2025 Shiv Kapoor Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer awardees. Since 1980, SME has recognized manufacturing engineers, age 35 or younger, who have made exceptional industry contributions throughout the early stages of their careers.
The 2025 award namesake is longtime SME member Shiv Kapoor, PhD. Kapoor serves as the Grayce Wicall Gauthier Chair Emeritus and Professor Emeritus in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering. Throughout his career, Kapoor’s research has focused on manufacturing process modeling, automation, and micro-scale systems, with an emphasis on enhancing productivity, quality, and energy efficiency in manufacturing processes.
The 2025 Shiv Kapoor Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award recipients will be recognized at events throughout the year, including the SME International Awards Gala in May, the NAMRI/SME awards luncheon at NAMRC 53, and select corporate and university events.
SME’s 2025 outstanding young manufacturing engineers are
- Trevor Aguirre, Ph.D., Associate R&D Staff Scientist, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN
- Fred M. Carter III, Head of Research and Development, DMG MORI Advanced Solutions, Hoffman Estates, IL
- Callie Higgins, Ph.D., Additive Manufacturing Program Coordinator and Photopolymer Additive Manufacturing Project Leader, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Boulder, CO
- Farhad Ghadamli, Manufacturing and Process Development Engineer, TE Connectivity, Katy, TX
- Erik Huemiller, Ph.D., Senior Researcher, General Motors, Troy, MI
- Elham Mirkoohi, Assistant Professor, Auburn University, Auburn, AL
- Jiew Leng, Ph.D., Professor, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou Province, China
- Maithri Venkat, Battery Cell Engineering Manager, Lucid Motors, Newark, CA
- Shane Whitaker, Applications Engineer Staff, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Fort Worth, TX
- Sheng Yang, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Learn more about the awardees here.
For more information, visit sme.org.
