Jennifer Bennett, a PhD candidate at Northwestern University and research & development engineer for DMG Mori USA (Hoffman Estates, Ill.), was awarded the Guy E. Bourdeau Scholarship. With these recognitions, Bennett and Patterson will attend and participate in the AMUG Conference to be held in St. Louis, April 3– 7, 2016.

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

The AMUG Board selected Nathan Patterson for the integration of his additive manufacturing (AM) experience and research in his engineering curricula.

According to Joe Musto, professor at Milwaukee School of Engineering and director of the school’s Rapid Prototyping Consortium, “His industrial experience as a research associate with the Morgridge Institute and as president of the additive manufacturing start-up Radiant Fabrication provided him with both an outstanding technical background and knowledge of the additive manufacturing industry. He has leveraged this expertise to have an immediate impact on additive manufacturing 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.

In his application, Patterson said, “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 AM learning experience.”

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

Bennett said, “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.”

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

For more information, visit www.am-ug.com.