Dr. Scott Smith leads the Precision Manufacturing and Manufacturing Innovation Section of the Manufacturing Science Division at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He is an internationally recognized manufacturing leader. He has a 30+ year record of research and development, technical innovation, and creation of R&D teams and programs in manufacturing at the University of Florida, at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, at the US Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office (AMNPO), and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He has been instrumental in founding ORNL’s multi-million-dollar, multi-year machine tool research program that is finding solutions to the nation’s supply chain issues for defense and energy systems.
He currently serves on the ASME Board of Governors.
In 2023, Dr. Smith was named an ORNL Corporate Fellow – the highest recognition ORNL bestows upon members of the lab’s research staff, for his fundamental and translational research including development of leading systems, processes, sensors, and controls. He is one of 18 US Fellows of the International Academy for Production Engineering (CIRP), a Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), and a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He has served as chair of the Manufacturing Engineering Division of ASME and as president of the North American Manufacturing Research Institute of SME. Dr. Smith has authored more than 100 technical papers, has co-authored two textbooks on machine dynamics and mechanical vibration, and holds 14 patents.
Prior to joining ORNL, Dr. Smith was Professor and Chair of Mechanical Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. From 2012-2013, he served as the Assistant Director for Technology at the AMNPO. He earned his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida where his research focused on the dynamics of machine tools, vibrations, and machine design. He holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Tennessee Technological University.
