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Currently, Dr. Fidan serves as a Professor of the Department of Manufacturing and Engineering Technology at Tennessee Technological University. His research and teaching interests are in additive manufacturing, electronics manufacturing, distance learning, and STEM education. Dr. Fidan is a member and active participant of SME, ASEE, ABET, ASME, and IEEE. He is also the Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology and International Journal of Rapid Manufacturing.

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Dr. Melissa Geist is a Professor of Nursing as well as a nationally board certified Family and Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. Dr. Geist received her doctorate at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. She completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship with the NSF funded VaNTH Engineering Research Center (a collaboration between Vanderbilt, Northwestern, The University of Texas and Harvard Universities) where she developed and implemented Legacy Cycles as part of curricular reformation in Biomedical Engineering aimed at increasing flexible knowledge and adaptive expertise of students. In her classes, nursing students engage in critical reasoning and clinical decision making via Legacy Cycle modules on complex topics such as management of anticoagulants, and interpreting arterial blood gas values. She has received the Outstanding Faculty award, the Award for Innovative Instruction, and the Leighton E. Sissom Award for Innovation and Creativity. Dr. Geist serves on the strategic committee for the newly designed Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) Certificate offered at Tennessee Technological University. The focus of the I&E program is to provide students the opportunity to develop entrepreneurship and innovation skills through problem solving, creativity, working with a team and practicing effective strategies for meeting needs within the increasingly competitive global marketplace. Dr. Geist served as the faculty mentor for two nursing students who were University Innovation Fellows (UIF) with the National Science Foundation Epicenter at Stanford University (only three nursing students nationwide have been selected for the UIF program).

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Dr. Yunbo Zhang is currently an Assistant Professor in Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Dr. Zhang’s research focuses on investigating computational methods for advancing design and manufacturing towards automation, intelligence, intuitiveness and innovation. Dr. Zhang is a member and active participant of ASME, IEEE, ACM, and IISE. He also actively serves as reviewers for more than 25 journals and conferences in design and manufacturing area. From 2014 to 2015, he served as Guest Editor of the special issue of Computer-aided Design and Applications on “Technologies for Human Centric Free-form Products”.

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George Chitiyo, Ph.D., is a Professor of Educational Research and Evaluation at Tennessee Tech University. He teaches courses in research methods, statistics, and program evaluation. His research interests include the psychosocial aspects of HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa as well as economics of health and higher education both in the U.S. and in Southern Africa. He is involved in designing and implementing evaluation initiatives of several educational programs and interventions in PreK-12 and higher education settings.

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