The mission of Manufacturing Intelligent Dynamics Laboratory (MINDS Lab) to promote manufacturing processes and systems innovations, with a focus on machining, metal additive, hybrid manufacturing and industrial production, to advance next-generation design and manufacturing. His approach is to perform fundamental research in support of this goal, while taking care to consider its integration with practical implementation, manufacturing engineering education, and workforce development. Through this combined agenda, students at many levels are trained to acquire physics-based modeling capabilities coupled with fundamental experimental techniques and data analytics skills, including physics-based machine learning. Our vision is that the students will have strong problem-solving capabilities and therefore a beautiful manufacturing mind to contribute to their careers and life, and human society. 

Research Interests:

• Machining, metal additive, hybrid manufacturing, smart machines and factories

• Machine-tool-process-materials convergence for advancing design and manufacturing

• Machine tool vibration theory and applications for machining and additive friction stir deposition

• Analytical and numerical process modeling from machine tool to materials behaviors 

• Dynamical systems modeling, bifurcation analysis, and control for manufacturing processes

• Physics-based machine learning and artificial intelligence for modeling and optimization

Biography: Dr. Tony Shi is an Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and an joint Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is also an Affiliated Faculty of Machine Tool Research Center and Institute of Advanced Materials and Manufacturing. Prior to joining UT Knoxville in 2022, he was an Assistant Professor of Engineering Management at UT Space Institute. He was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 2017 to 2019.  He received his B.S. in Pure and Applied Mathematics from China University of Geosciences, Beijing in 2011 and his Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering from Peking University in 2017. Dr. Shi’s research has been supported by NSF, DoD-Southeastern Advanced Machine Tools Network, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and AI Tennessee Initiative.