Radovan Kovacevic

Herman Brown Chair in Engineering Professor of Mechanical Engineering Director of Research Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Center for Laser-aided Manufacturing

Since August 1997, Dr. Radovan Kovacevic has been a Herman Brown Chair in Engineering and a Professor of the Mechanical Engineering at SMU.  He has also been a founder and Director of the Research Center for Advanced Manufacturing since 1999 and a Director of the NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Lasers and Plasmas for Advanced Manufacturing (SMU’s site) since 2005.  Prior to joining SMU, Dr. Kovacevic was a faculty member at the University of Montenegro, former Yugoslavia, for fifteen years, at Syracuse University for four years, and at the University of Kentucky for six and a half years.  His research interest is in materials processing by high-power lasers, abrasive water jet, and electron beam; hybrid laser/arc welding; friction stir welding; numerical simulation of heat transfer in fluid flow in different manufacturing processes; monitoring and control of different manufacturing processes; micro-machining by short-pulsed lasers; rapid manufacturing with reverse engineering; and design and manufacturing of bio-medical implants.  

Dr. Kovacevic is a Fellow of three prominent engineering societies: the American Welding Society (AWS); the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME); and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME).  He was awarded the 2000 Taylor Research Medal by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers for his accomplishments in education and research related to manufacturing engineering.  Additionally, he was a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Scholarship (Germany) for two years, Carl Duisberg Scholarship (Germany) for one year and the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship for one year.  His work has been presented to the engineering community in over 520 technical papers, five books, seven U.S. patents and over 20 invention disclosures.  Since 1987, his research activities have been financially supported by a number of state and federal agencies and the industry in excess of $19 million.  Over 180 graduate students, visiting scholars, undergraduate interns, and high school teachers have worked in his laboratories since 1987.  More information on his research activities is available at www.lyle.smu.edu/rcam and www.lyle.smu.edu/clam.

The following statements are excellent testimonials of Dr. Kovacevic’s accomplishments as a teacher, adviser, and researcher.

• Dr. Hosein Atharifar, an Assistant Professor at the Department of Industry and Technology of Millersville University of Pennsylvania, a former doctoral student of Dr. Kovacevic who graduated in May of 2008, wrote to Dr. Kovacevic the following note: 

• On February 28, 2009, Dr. Jianming Qu, a Professor and Associate Chair in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology sent a thank you note to Dr. Kovacevic after his visit to SMU with the following content:

“Dear Radovan,

It was a great pleasure meeting you last week.   I am extremely impressed by the quality and quantity of your research operation there.  It is amazing that you single handedly developed such a large-scale research program within such a short period of time.  I have visited many universities and met a lot of people in the manufacturing area.  I rarely see an individual who has carried that much research.

Thank you again and best wishes, Jianming”

• Dr. Geoffrey Orsak, Dean of Lyle School of Engineering made the following statement in the article “SMU Graduate School Specializes in Green and Joining Technology”, published in the Welding Journal, June 2010:

  “The RCAM and CLAM have brought a great deal of international visibility to the SMU Lyle School of Engineering.  The quality and impact of the work conducted in these two aligned centers is simply spectacular”.