ASME’s New Faces of Engineering Winners Selected

ASME member Bryony DuPont, Ph.D., and ASME student member Jacob Steinmetz have been chosen to represent the Society in the 2016 class of the New Faces of Engineering program, which each year highlights the significant contributions early career engineers and engineering students make to the profession and to society.

Dr. DuPont was selected as ASME’s winner in the New Faces of Engineering–Professional category, which recognizes the accomplishments of practicing engineers up to the age of 30. Steinmetz was named as the Society’s winner in the New Faces of Engineering–College Edition category, which is open to third-, fourth- and fifth-year engineering students. DuPont and Steinmetz were among six New Faces–Professional and College Edition finalists from ASME who were announced in February. The New Faces winners from each of the participating organizations were announced on April 4 by DiscoverE, formerly the National Engineers Week Foundation, which administers the program.

DuPont, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Oregon State University, conducts research in artificial intelligence and sustainability science, using simulation, optimization, and advanced computation to make sustainable solutions more realistically feasible. These systems include sustainable product design methods as well as renewable energy systems, such as wind farms, wave energy converter arrays and hybrid systems. She is also involved in a number of STEM volunteer and outreach activities for young women, including a student-run organization that develops volunteer opportunities for mechanical engineering students, a design activity that shows sixth- through eighth-grade girls how to build race cars using K’NEX construction sets, and a workshop that teaches high school girls how to program video games.

Bryony DuPont.

The co-lead of the ASME Early Career Engineering Committee’s Design and Advanced Manufacturing Market Segment Team, DuPont has also served the Society as a reviewer, review coordinator and workshop organizer for the Society’s International Design Engineering Technical Conferences (IDETC). DuPont received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Case Western Reserve University in 2008. She earned a both a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2010 and 2013, respectively.

DuPont described being a professor as “the best job in the world” in her New Faces application. “Half of my job is to work with students to help them gain the skills and knowledge they’ll need to be successful engineers; the other half is to work with my undergraduate and graduate assistants to develop, perform and defend research that has potential for global impact,” she wrote. She went on to say that “being a young professor allows me to foster student trust and collegiality, enabling me to be a sounding board for new ideas or an advisor in times of conflict. It’s exciting to interface with many students in many different capacities, and I look forward to it every day.”

Steinmetz, a mechanical engineering major at Iowa State University, is a member of the school’s peer tutoring program, helping his peers with such subjects as Statics, Mechanics of Materials, and Introduction to Materials Engineering. He is also a member of Iowa State’s renewable energy vehicle club and a volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, where he uses his construction abilities to benefit others.

Jacob Steinmetz

An avid tinkerer as a child, Steinmetz pointed to an Engineer’s Week classroom visit from an IBM engineer when he was in seventh grade as a pivotal event in determining his career path. He found the visiting engineer’s enthusiasm contagious, and years later, Steinmetz remains passionate about the field.

“As an engineer, I know that I have the power and knowledge to create and implement solutions that can have a significant positive effect on both my workplace and society,” Steinmetz said in his New Faces application. “It has always been my dream to invent some contraption or application that can benefit a large number of people, and my schooling and past experiences are providing me with the resources to fulfill this dream. I am also very excited to pass my knowledge onto the next generation of engineers. I hope to continue my participation in Engineers Week, especially in the process of exciting middle-school aged students about the wide variety of opportunities that engineers present.”

To view profiles of the 2016 New Faces of Engineering winners from all of the participating organizations, visit http://www.discovere.org/our-programs/awards-and-recognition.