NEW MEXICO – A total of five New Mexico State University (NMSU) College of Engineering students attended the second annual summer workshop on quality control in additive manufacturing, or QCAM, at Navajo Technical University in Crownpoint, New Mexico, in May.
NMSU reported that the two-week workshop, led by Scott Halliday, director of NTU’s Advanced Manufacturing Center, was attended by 15 students from NMSU, Prairie View A&M University and NTU who participated in intensive hands-on training in additive manufacturing.
QCAM is a Department of Energy sponsored project initiated by Ehsan Dehghan-Niri in 2021 under the Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program. The mission is to establish a sustainable pipeline of skilled STEM workers with advanced knowledge and experience related to additive manufacturing and quality assurance to serve at the National Nuclear Security Agency, or NNSA, National Laboratories and Plants, and solve high-impact technical problems.
The workshop was designed to give participants the opportunity to engage in various demonstrations and hands-on activities using technologies such as metal additive manufacturing, computer-aided design, and metrology. Students also had the opportunity to attend several presentations and to network professionally with scientists and researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Kansas City National Security Campus, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, who attended the workshop to introduce students to career opportunities available at the national laboratories.
Borys Drach, QCAM program director and associate professor in NMSU’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, said the workshop gave students an overview of the dynamic field of additive manufacturing.
Kate Lewis, QCAM project coordinator and program specialist in NMSU’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, described the workshop as a unique opportunity for NMSU students to expand their capabilities while networking with scientists from national laboratories.
