USC engineering professor earns national distinction

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Ramy Harik, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of South Carolina, has been named one of the 20 most influential educators in the field of smart manufacturing.

The recognition by nonprofit manufacturing organization SME highlights Harik’s Future Factories laboratory, which facilitates the sharing and analysis of data between robots and companies at different stages of product production.

Harik works in advanced composites and industries of the future at USC’s College of Engineering and Computing and will co-chair the Composites and Advanced Materials Expo in Florida in September.

“Ramy is building on the impressive base of manufacturing that has appeared in South Carolina over the past couple of decades,” Hossein Haj-Hariri, dean of the College of Engineering and Computing, said in a news release. “He is elevating the state to a position of leadership in smart manufacturing, which Gov. (Henry) McMaster has often referred to, saying that we want to be the smart manufacturing state. Ramy is leading that charge.” 

Harik’s work has led to funded partnerships with manufacturing leaders including NASA, Siemens, Boeing, Nephron Pharmaceuticals Corp. and Toray, according to the release.

“The whole world wants robots to work together with drones, they want data to come and flow from different equipment, they want to be able to interpret data, they want to be able to make sense of the data. Nobody knows how to do it at large industrial scale,” Harik said. “What we are trying to do in our Future Factories is dig deep into the convergence of multiple aspects of the research fundamentally needed to understand how to do this and enable future manufacturing.” 

Harik has plans to grow his Future Factories platform to introduce robotics to middle schoolers, create an undergraduate industrial manufacturing systems-based program at USC, and to allow retirees to share knowledge with future generations. 

“It’s no surprise that Ramy earned this recognition from SME,” USC President Bob Caslen said. “His Future Factories platform at UofSC continues to redefine manufacturing and encourages collaboration among industry leaders, researchers and students. Ramy is leading South Carolina toward new and innovative possibilities in manufacturing that will transform our state, nation and world for years to come.”