Dr. Lei (Leo) Zhang will join SFTC at Columbus, OH, in July 2008, as a senior software engineer. Leo joined our CAM Lab. three years ago to be in charge of the continuation of the CHT technology development. He has co-founded a small business, JYL Solutions, as the Chief Technical Officer and successfully acquired the NSF STTR funding for improving the CHT furnace model and CHT technology commercialization. As a result of the project, SFTC may work with CHTE and JYL to make the CHT technology as part of their Deform product. Congratulation to Leo on his new professional career.

The “oldest” member of our CAM-Lab, Radha Purushothaman, has successfully defended his dissertation on Evaluation and Improvement of Heat Treatment Furnace Model, on Friday, June 6, 2008. Radha joined the CAM Lab in 2001 and graduated with his MS in Manufacturing Engineering in 2003, worked on a fixture design project. After working as a research associate for a year, he returned India for some industrial practice and came back WPI in 2005 to start his study toward a Ph. D in Manufacturing Engineering. Radha has worked with Caterpillar in Illinois for one and half years as a intern student before coming back in January this year to finish up his dissertation. He has worked as both TA and RA with us for years and will start working as a formal employee at Caterpillar in July 2008. Congratulations to Radha.

On Tuesday, May 27, 2008, Puja Ghatpande has successfully defended her thesis on Simulation based Fixturing Accessibility Analysis, toward her MS in Mechanical Engineering. Congratulations to her.

A new exchange student from Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea, Mr. Hu-jung Nam, arrived at WPI on Monday, March 24, 2008. He will study at our CAM Lab for six months. Welcome to Hu-jung.

The exchange senior student from Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea, Hyoung-jun Lee, has finished his one-year study at WPI and went back KNU on February 26, 2008. He has studied on “computer-aided fixture design for part family” and enjoyed working on the topic. Hyoung-jun made a final presentation on Monday, February 25 and had lunch with Professor Rong and the WPI students who are going to KNU for summer senior projects (MQP) this year. All of the CAM Lab members enjoyed having Hyoung-jun stay with us and welcome him to visit back in the future. Best wishes to him on his finishing his BS study at KNU.

Professor Qingyan Xu from Tsinghua University arrived at WPI on February 11, 2008. He will work with WPI’s Metal Processing Institute as a research scientist for a year, jointly sponsored by Tsinghua University/Chinese Government and MPI. Professor Xu is a friend of our CAM Lab and has visited WPI twice before. Welcome.

Ted has found a job and is now working at Mascon Inc., Woburn, MA. Congratulations to him.

Yao Zhou has been admitted to Columbia University at New York City for his Ph. D study in Mechanical Engineering. He was offerred a full Teaching Assistantship to support his study over there. Yao has been with us since January 2004 and worked on our DOE project on simulation and optimization of heat treatment processes of Aluminum castings, as well as his personal interest in optimization. He has brought a lot of fun and joy to us. Congratulations to him.

Professor Jianfeng Li, Dean of Mechanical Engineering School at Shandong Univesrity, Jinan, China, and his Ph. D student Dong Lu joined us at CAM-Lab on April 5, 2006. Professor Li will stay with us for 4-5 months while Ms Lu will study at WPI for a year,as part of her Ph D study plan. Ms. Lu is working on Clamping Optimization as part of her dissertation in the area of Computer-aided Fixture Design. With their visit, it is a good opportunity to exchange information on technical and educational experience, and establish potential research collaboration. Welcome Professor Li and Ms. Lu.

Dr. Hua Li from Shanghai Marine University joined us at CAM-Lab. as a Research Associate on March 30, 2006. He graduated with Ph. D in ME from Dalian University of Science and technology, Dalian, China several years ago. He did computer graphics and CAD package development work for his dissertation. He will work in the area of Computer-aided Fixture Design.

Four from six (two did not get visa) senior ME students from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) have come to WPI for their senior projects. Yuxuan (Popeye) Liu and Jiaxing (Jim) Liu are working on a project of developing a special dynamometer for precision grinding processes, sponsored by Saint Gobain Worcester, and Wei (Wayne) Tian and Bomiao Li are working on a shop layout design project based on the lean manufacturing principle, sponsored by New Age Technologiesy, Attleboro, MA.Ice Chung is helping the latter one too. The HUST students are also sitting in ES 3323 class to learn Advanced CAD technology, under WPI education system.

Weisheng (Darren) Qiu joined GE Corporate Research Center at Niskayuna, NY for an internship fron January 2006. Congratulations to him.

Dr. Jinwu Kang came back from Tsinghua University and worked with our research team on the CHT-q/t project. He, Dr. Zhang and Radha visited Surface Combustion and Timken companies in Ohio. Dr. Kang gave a report presentation on Friday, August 5.