Speakers

Dr. Robert Gao (Case Western Reserve University, USA)

Bio‑Sketch: Prof. Gao received his PhD. degree from the Technical University of Berlin, Germany in 1991. Since then, he has been working on physics based sensing methods, design, modeling, and characterization of measurement systems, multi-resolution signal analysis, and energy-efficient sensor networks for improving the observability of dynamical systems such as machine equipment to understand the underlying physical mechanisms and predicting performance degradation, for the ultimate goal of improved process and product quality control. Prof. Gao is a Fellow of the ASME, IEEE, SME, and CIRP (International Academy for Production Engineering), an elected member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE), and a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society. He served as Associate Editor for four technical journals of the ASME, IEEE, and IFAC, and is a guest editor for the Special Issue on Data Science-Enhanced Manufacturing of the ASME Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering. He supervised approximately 40 PhD and MS students to their graduation, and published over 340 technical papers. He holds 11 patents, and is a recipient of multiple honors and awards, including the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society’s 2013 Technical Achievement Award, multiple Best Paper awards, Outstanding Junior and Senior Faculty awards, Outstanding Research Award, and an NSF CAREER award.

Dr. Kai Goebel (NASA Ames Research Center, USA)

Bio‑Sketch: Dr. Kai Goebel is an area lead of the Discovery and Systems Health Technology Area at NASA Ames Research Center. He also coordinates the Prognostics Center of Excellence and is the Technical Lead for Prognostics and Decision Making in NASAs System-wide Safety and Assurance Technologies Project. Prior to joining NASA in 2006, he was a senior research scientist at General Electric Corporate Research and Development center since 1997. Dr. Goebel received his Ph.D at the University of California at Berkeley in 1996. He has carried out applied research in the areas of real time monitoring, diagnostics, and prognostics and he has fielded numerous applications for aircraft engines, transportation systems, medical systems, and manufacturing systems. He holds 18 patents and has co-authored more than 300 technical papers in the field of IVHM. Dr. Goebel was an adjunct professor of the CS Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, NY, between 1998 and 2005 where he taught classes in Soft Computing and Applied Intelligent Reasoning Systems. He has been the co-advisor of 8 Ph.D. students. Dr. Goebel is a member of several professional societies, including ASME, AAAI, AIAA, IEEE, VDI, SAE, and PHM. He was the General Chair of the Annual Conference of the PHM Society, 2009, has given numerous invited and keynote talks and held many chair positions at the PHM conference and the AAAI Annual meetings series. He is currently member of the board of directors of the PHM Society and associate editor of the International Journal of PHM.

Dr. Alper Erturk (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA)

Bio‑Sketch: Prof. Alper Erturk is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology where he leads the Smart Structures and Dynamical Systems Laboratory. His theoretical and experimental research program is centered on the intersection of smart structures and dynamical systems for various interdisciplinary applications ranging from energy harvesting and bio-inspired locomotion to electroelastic metamaterials and vibration attenuation. He has published more than 170 articles in archival journals and conference proceedings, and 4 book chapters. He authored a book entitled Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting (Wiley, 2011) as a product of his dissertation and relevant research during 2007-2010, and co-edited a recent book on Advances in Energy Harvesting Methods (Springer, 2013). His publications have received more than 7000 citations (h-index: 39) according to Google Scholar. Dr. Erturk is a recipient of the prestigious NSF CAREER Award (2013) in Dynamical Systems. He received the 2015 ASME Gary Anderson Early Achievement Award, the 2017 ASME C.D. Mote Jr. Early Career Award, and the 2015 (inaugural) and 2017 ASME Energy Harvesting Best Paper Awards. His share of externally sponsored research at Georgia Tech is $1.5M, out of a total project budget exceeding $2.5M. Dr. Erturk is a Fellow of the ASME.

Dr. Jan Helsen (Vrije Universiteit Brussel / OWI-Lab, Belgium)

Bio‑Sketch: Dr. Jan Helsen joined the department of Mechnical Engineering at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in 2014. Within OWI-lab he is coordinating drivetrain monitoring and big data related projects. His main research focus is on the use of big data based analytics for wind turbine drivetrain O&M and design optimization.  The availability of embedded sensors brings the opportunity for new insights in the complete lifecycle of rotating machinery ranging from design to O&M optimization. Big data based analytics is combined with physical knowledge to gain in depth insights. Before joining VUB Jan managed several research projects with the wind industry, amongst others his post-doctoral project at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) funded by ZF Wind Power, Siemens PLM and IWT on the use of advanced simulation models in a monitoring context. Jan obtained a doctoral degree in Electro-Mechanical Engineering sciences at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. This doctoral research funded by ZF Wind Power and IWT was done in close cooperation with National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL).