Georgia Tech’s H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) announced that Professor Chuck Zhang has been appointed to the Harold E. Smalley Professsorship.

The Harold E. Smalley Faculty Endowment Fund was established in memory of Harold E. Smalley, Ph.D. (1921-1994) and is designed to support ISyE faculty appointments within the area of health.

“Chuck’s substantial contributions to ISyE and to his field are reflected in his appointment to the Harold E. Smalley Professorship,” said ISyE School Chair Edwin Romeijn. “This appointment will give him the opportunity to further his recent work in developing innovative techniques for medical devices to improve health care delivery.”

Zhang's research interests include additive manufacturing, bio-manufacturing, composites manufacturing, and scalable nanomanufacturing. Most recently, he has initiated new research and education programs in cell-manufacturing and composite structures maintenance.

An example of this is Zhang’s optimization of pre-surgery planning for heart operations using 3D printing and machine-learning techniques. In this project, his team is working with doctors at Piedmont Heart Institute in Atlanta to create patient-specific tissue-mimicking heart valves and machine learning-based predictive models for doctors to use to improve surgery outcomes for the transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedure.

In addition, Zhang is developing wireless sensors for monitoring cell manufacturing for cell therapy. In this project, Zhang’s team is working with the CMaT Engineering Research Center to develop advanced wireless sensors that can measure cell density continuously during the cell manufacturing process. These sensors can be used to help monitor and control the cell manufacturing process to ensure the effectiveness of cell therapy.      

“Being named the Harold E. Smalley Professor is especially an honor, given Dr. Smalley’s pioneering work in health care management engineering and its close ties to my work,” said Zhang. “By applying advanced manufacturing technologies – such as 3D printing – to medical devices, we hope to improve and optimize medical care to patients.

“The funding of this professorship will enable me to continue innovating in advanced manufacturing and provide students with new opportunities for learning,” Zhang added.

Zhang received his Ph.D. in industrial engineering from the University of Iowa, an M.S. in industrial engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in China. Prior to joining ISyE, Zhang served as a professor and chairman of the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Florida A&M University - Florida State University College of Engineering.

His research projects have been sponsored by numerous organizations, including the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, and Society of Manufacturing Engineers, as well as industrial companies such as ATK Launch Systems, Cummins, Delta Airlines, GKN Aerospace Services, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and Siemens Power Generation.