Dr. Soydan Ozcan is Distinguished Research Scientist and the Group Leader for the Sustainable Manufacturing Technologies Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Ozcan leads the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Hub and Spoke R&D program “The Specialized Materials and Manufacturing Alliance for Resilient Technologies (SM2ART)” (https://www.ornl.gov/content/sm2art) with the University of Maine (https://umaine.edu/biomaterials/). The program addresses the broad and vital issue of identifying novel, high-value biomaterials to drive down the cost of manufacturing by using locally sourced materials and leveraging the scale of production made possible. SM2ART is creating the factory of the future and supporting the onshoring on manufacturing jobs in the United States.
Ozcan also leads the Composite Recycling pillar for Institute for Advanced Manufacturing Composite Innovation (IACMI) (https://iacmi.org). IACMI is the national Composite Institute within Manufacturing USA which helps U.S. manufacturers employ leading-edge technology to become more competitive. In this scope, He facilitates the development of composite recycling technologies and utilizes various composite techniques to repurpose them into useful applications. Ozcan and his team are developing manufacturing techniques and exploring new materials to improve energy efficiency during composite manufacturing, decrease material waste, and improve material cost and performance. Ozcan’s team is integrating a smart circular economy concept within product development, production processes, and use and reuse systems right from the beginning.
Applied R&D of Ozcan’s team engages over thirty industrial partners and delivers research with more direct applications to society. Ozcan is also a prolific researcher who has published over 100 papers, holds 28 issued and pending patents, has published 11 book chapters, and has been an active speaker with over a hundred presentations and short courses on sustainable manufacturing materials-related topics and research.