Jian Cao, PhD
Associate Vice President for Research
Cardiss Collins Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering (by courtesy)
Professor of Materials Science and Engineering (by courtesy)
Director, Northwestern Initiative for Manufacturing Science and Innovation (NIMSI)
Professor Jian Cao joined Northwestern University shortly after receiving her Ph.D. degree from M.I.T. in 1995. She received her M.S. from M.I.T. and B.S. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Currently, she is the Cardiss Collins Professor and Director of Northwestern Initiative for Manufacturing Science and Innovation at Northwestern University. During her tenure at Northwestern, she took a one-year leave at General Motors and a two-year leave at the National Science Foundation as a program director of Materials Processing and Manufacturing (MPM) program. She also served as the Director of Graduate Studies of Mechanical Engineering and served as an Associate Vice President for Research at the university from October 2012 to August 2021.
Prof. Cao’s research contributions have been recognized extensively by her peers in the fields of manufacturing, applied mechanics and control. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAA&S), a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the International Academy for Production Engineering (CIRP), the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Her major awards include the inaugural ASME DeVor-Kapoor Manufacturing Medal, the ASME Milton Shaw Manufacturing Research Medal; the SME Gold Medal; the DoD Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship; the ASME and Pi Tau Sigma Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award; the SME Frederick W. Taylor Research Medal; the ASME Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award (twice); the ASME Ted Belytschko Applied Mechanics Award, ASME/AMD Thomas Hughes Young Investigator Award; and the NSF Early CAREER award. Prof. Cao is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Materials Processing Technology and was the founding Technical Editor of the ASME Journal of Micro- and Nano-manufacturing. In 2012, she was selected to be the panelist representing the field of manufacturing in the World Technology Evaluation (WTEC) study on Societal Convergence for Human Progress: Beyond Convergence of Nano-Bio-Info-Cognitive Technologies, sponsored by NSF, NIH, NASA, EPA, DoD, and DoA.
Prof. Cao is the founding director of the Northwestern Initiative for Manufacturing Science and Innovation (NIMSI), a university research center aiming to undertake research and education initiatives associated with the broad spectrum of manufacturing related both to computational design and manufacturing and to emerging hyper-customized and personalized manufacturing. 24 faculty have been funded on NIMSI extramural grants with a total award amount of $24M since 2015. She leads Research activities for the NSF Engineering Research Center: Hybrid Autonomous Manufacturing, Moving from Evolution to Revolution (ERC-HAMMER), which is a large five-institutional collaboration led by the Ohio State University. Prof. Cao is a member of the Technical Advisory Board of the National Manufacturing Institute’s MxD, previously known as the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII).
Prof. Cao has been active on national and international stages. She served as the Program Director of the Materials Processing and Manufacturing (MPM) program at NSF from 2003 to 2005. During that short two-year period, under her leadership, the WTEC Study on Micro-manufacturing was conducted and co-sponsored by four government agencies (NSF, DoD, DOE, NIST) and more than ten NSF programs. She co-initiated the joint-funding between NSF and DOE for her MPM program. Through collaboration with other programs, she was able to increase funding for her program by over 20%. She is one of the main driving forces behind the well-received NSF workshops on CAREER development. Prof. Cao has served as President of the North American Manufacturing Research Institute of SME, Chair of ASME’s Manufacturing Engineering Division, and Chair of the Scientific and Technical Committee on Forming for CIRP. She has chaired multiple ASME committees, including the Technical Committee on Publications and Communications, the M. Eugene Merchant Medal Committee, the Ehmann Manufacturing Medal Committee, and the Committee of Administration and Finance. She was awarded the ASME Dedicated Service Award. Prof. Cao was an invited speaker at the workshops on additive manufacturing in 2018 and a committee member of the Convergent Manufacturing Platform workshop in 2021 organized by the National Academies. Prof. Cao now serves on the National Materials and Manufacturing Board of the National Academies, Board of Directors of SME, Board of mHUB – accelerator for hardtech innovation and manufacturing in Chicago.
Prof. Cao has served as an Associate Vice President for Research at Northwestern University since 2012 with a short break from 2021 to 2023 as the Chair of the Office for Research Advisory Council (ORAC). During her term, she oversees the unit that administers the university’s core facilities. Working with faculty, staff and leadership at school-level and university-level, she successfully launched new funding models for key scientific instruments and software, and led initiatives for strengthening major supporting units, such as the machine shop, electronics shop and clean rooms. She now oversees University Research Centers and Institutes and Office for Research Development aiming to stimulate cross-school collaborations and internal research initiatives. Prof. Cao has contributed to the collaboration between the physical sciences and engineering, as well as with other disciplines across and beyond NU.