Date: April 16th, 2025 | Time: 2:30 PM - 6:00 PM (EST) | Location: McGill Faculty Club- 3450 McTavish St, Montreal | Free In-Person Event
As industries confront growing environmental challenges, innovation in design and manufacturing is essential for a more sustainable future. How can we rethink material selection, optimize energy use, enhance manufacturing processes, and integrate circular economy principles to minimize environmental impact?
Join us for a panel discussion with leading experts, exploring critical challenges and real-world applications in sustainable innovation. From advanced materials and energy-efficient production to circular design strategies and next-generation manufacturing, this discussion will highlight the role of design and production in shaping a more sustainable world.
Hosted and Moderated by Prof Fiona Zhao
Meet our Panelists
Barbara S Linke
Professor Linke is a faculty member in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at UC Davis and a principal investigator at the Advanced Highway Maintenance and Construction Technology Research Center. She earned her Diplom, doctorate, and Habilitation in mechanical engineering from RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and previously worked at UC Berkeley before joining UC Davis in 2012. Her research focuses on sustainable manufacturing, transportation, abrasive machining, part quality, and smart manufacturing. She has published over 55 journal articles, 50 conference papers, and authored or edited six books. She served as vice-chair of undergraduate studies at UC Davis (2019–2022) and was on the executive committee of ASME’s Manufacturing Engineering Division (2019–2024).
Yong Zeng
Dr. Yong Zeng is a Full Professor at Concordia University’s Institute for Information Systems Engineering. His research focuses on design theory and its applications, particularly through the Environment-Based Design (EBD) methodology. He has developed algorithms for non-parametric curve reconstruction, clustering, and mesh generation and pioneered EEG-based studies on creative design. His work has been applied in aerospace, healthcare, construction, and sustainability, supported by major industry and government grants. He served as Canada Research Chair in Design Science (2004–2014) and NSERC Chair in Aerospace Design Engineering (2015–2020). A leader in the Society for Design and Process Science, he was its president (2019–2023) and is currently on its Board of Directors.
Chris Yuan
Chris Yuan is the Leonard Case Jr. Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Case Western Reserve University and Director of the Laboratory for Sustainable Energy Manufacturing. His research focuses on sustainable design and manufacturing, life cycle assessment, industrial energy efficiency, and lithium battery manufacturing. He has published over 200 research papers and received numerous prestigious awards, including the 2021 ASME Thar Energy Award, the 2018 ASME Chao and Trigger Young Manufacturing Engineer Award, and the 2014 NSF CAREER Award. He has held leadership roles in ASME and other professional organizations and has served as an editor for multiple international journals. Yuan earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley in 2009 and is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Sophie Isaksson Hallstedt
Sophie I. Hallstedt is a Full Professor at Chalmers University of Technology. Her research focuses on integrating strategic sustainability into product innovation, helping companies develop sustainable, value-creating lifecycle solutions. She has developed methods and decision-support tools to assess sustainability maturity, evaluate impacts, and track progress in implementation. Her work enhances product development teams' ability to improve sustainability performance, create circular value-chain solutions, and integrate sustainability into new technology development. She also researches how user behavior affects sustainability in circular systems.
Gaetano Cascini
Gaetano Cascini is a Full Professor at Politecnico di Milano and a Fellow at Alta Scuola Politecnica. With a Ph.D. in Machine Design, his research focuses on engineering design methods, creativity, and innovation. For over 25 years, he has studied design creativity, bio-inspired design, design cognition, human behavior in design, and computational models for collaborative innovation. He is the President of the Design Society and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation. Cascini currently leads the EU IPA ADRION project MISSION4WATER, which develops innovative solutions to reduce water pollution.
Karl Haapala
Dr. Karl R. Haapala is a Professor at Oregon State University’s School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering. He leads research in sustainable manufacturing, life cycle engineering, and engineering education, directing the Industrial Sustainability Lab and Oregon State’s Energy Efficiency Center. He has secured over $39M in research funding and published more than 170 papers, earning multiple best paper awards. Active in ASME and SME, he received the 2024 ASME Kos Ishii-Toshiba Award for contributions to design for manufacturing and the life cycle.