More than a quarter century ago, David A. Dornfeld, PhD, FSME was introduced to acoustic emissions and their manufacturing applications while he attended graduate school. Now, Dornfeld, a manufacturing engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is a leader in novel sensors for manufacturing processing. For this, and his many other accomplishments, Dornfeld is receiving the SME Frederick W. Taylor Research Medal.

Dornfeld's career has been nothing less than pioneering. With research conducted in several areas of manufacturing, including acoustic emission, burr formation, sensor fusion and precision engineering, his work has spread throughout professional societies, industry and government agencies. Early in Dornfeld's career, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) community showed its respect by awarding him the 1986 Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award for his paper titled, "Quantitative Relationships for Acoustic Emission from Orthogonal Metal Cutting."

In addition to the numerous papers and research he published, Dornfeld became one of the leading manufacturing engineering professors among his peer group. He served with great distinction for a number of years as the technical editor of ASME's Journal of Engineering for Industry where he streamlined many of the rigorous review procedures to the benefit of the research community. He also was elected as an active member of the International Institution for Production Engineering Research (CIRP). He later was elected to chair CIRP's Scientific Technical Committee on Cutting in recognition of his contributions to the metal-cutting field and services he provided to the organization.

Dornfeld earned his bachelor's degree (with honors), a master's degree and doctorate degree all in mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has been on the mechanical engineering faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, for 25 years.

From SME News Summer 2004