Manufacturing Engineering

Engineering Students Gain Hands-On Experience at Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center

Emma Sparkman doesn’t expect to do much welding after she graduates with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, but in the event the need arises, she’ll be ready.

Sparkman, along with five other College of Engineering students, learned welding, machining, electronics, and other applied manufacturing processes (including computer-aided design and programmable logic controllers) in a summer 2023 practicum conducted by the Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center.

Delivering on Amazon’s net-zero pledge

Amazon’s senior manager of worldwide real estate engineering, Andy Balk, B.S. industrial and manufacturing engineering ’98, operates at the core of the company’s global effort to electrify its entire fleet of delivery vans.

Specifically, he’s responsible for ensuring that the European operational support network — which includes distribution hubs and fulfillment centers — is ready for the elemental shift in how the company transports goods. The changeover is a central component of Amazon’s pledge to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.

Devin Roach

Dr. Devin Roach is an Assistant Professor Oregon State University (OSU). He is the Principal Investigator and Director of the Versatile Additive Manufacturing lab at Oregon State (VAMOS) which focuses on developing AI-driven, multi-material additive manufacturing approaches to fabricate functional devices which can realize immediate engineering applications. His research outputs have been highly cited (over 2000 citations) and are in top journals in the field including Advanced Functional Materials, ACS Applied Materials & interfaces, and Additive Manufacturing.

Dong Lin

Dr. Dong Lin is an Associate Professor at Oregon State University. His research mainly focuses on bio-inspired printing of functional structures. Using the 3DFP technique, he has successfully printed the first truly 3D graphene aerogels and this research received Guinness World Record: World’s lightest material (0.5 mg/cm 3 ) via 3D printing. His research outputs have been highlighted by ~136,000 websites: including Science Daily, Materials Today, and MSN.

Burak Sencer

Background: At Oregon State University since 2015 Prior to joining the School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering, Dr. Sencer worked as an assistant professor at the Nagoya University in Japan, and also as a DAAD scholar at the Institute for Machine Tool Control (ISW) at the Stuttgart University in Germany Research Interests: Burak Sencer conducts research in advanced manufacturing. His research interests are in the areas of precision motion control, and optimal trajectory generation for multi-axis machine tools, and intelligent machining process control.