Review the accomplishments and aspirations of the 20 most influential academics identified by Smart Manufacturing magazine this year, and you may spot some patterns in the data—no artificial intelligence required.
As one of the professors profiled on the next 10 pages put it, they are the “pioneers and dreamers” exploring opportunities and creating new ones in smart manufacturing. One dreams so big that he wants to enable distributed manufacturing on the moon. Others want to put their work and discoveries to use on earth—and have worked with legacy equipment owners to help them join Industry 4.0. Another opened the doors of her metal additive manufacturing lab to companies interested in trying…
