AMUG Announces Scholarship Recipients

The Additive Manufacturing Users Group (AMUG; Chatsworth, CA) has announced the recipients of its scholarships: Dr. Nathan Patterson, an assistant professor at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (Milwaukee, WI), has been awarded the Randy Stevens Scholarship. Jennifer Bennett, a PhD candidate at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and a research and development engineer for DMG MORI USA Inc. (Hoffman Estates, IL), has been awarded the Guy E. Bourdeau Scholarship. With these recognitions, both of them will attend and participate in the AMUG Conference to be held in St. Louis, MO, April 3-7, 2016.

“Nathan and Jennifer will be welcome additions to this year’s conference,” stated Mark Barfoot, the president of AMUG. “What they are doing in the additive manufacturing (AM) world will make a difference and we believe that attending the conference will have a big impact on them. These two individuals certainly deserve the scholarships, but it was a difficult endeavor to select from so many qualified candidates.”

The board selected Patterson for the integration of his AM experience and research in his engineering curricula. According to Dr. Joe Musto, a professor at the Milwaukee School of Engineering and the director of the school’s Rapid Prototyping Consortium, “His industrial experience as a research associate with the Morgridge Institute and as the president of the AM start-up Radiant Fabrication, provided him with both an outstanding technical background and knowledge of the industry. He has leveraged this expertise to have an immediate impact on AM education.”

Patterson has been using, designing, building, inventing, and teaching others about AM technology for just over twelve years. Examples of his integration of past experience in engineering studies include lab activities that use 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.

“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 learning experience,” said Patterson in his application.

The board selected Bennett for her PhD research that is focused on improving the controllability of AM systems. “Many challenges still persist before this technology can reach its full potential,” stated Bennett. “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. “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.”

“Jennifer’s hands-on work in the development of these machines has given her a firm foundation for her scholarly work in this area,” said John Aussem, an applications engineer for DMG MORI. The insight and understanding she has gained through this experience is invaluable. I have no doubt that she 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.”

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 AM. Their members include all commercial AM/3D printing technologies for companies such as Stratasys, Concept Laser, ExOne, Renishaw, HP Inc., SLM Solutions, EOS, Prodways, Carbon and 3D Systems. They meet annually to provide education and training through technical presentations on processes and new technologies. This information addresses operation of AM equipment and the applications that use the parts they make.

www.am-ug.com