Dr. Zhijian (ZJ) Pei has joined the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Texas A&M University and the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) as a professor and researcher.
Pei brings years of experience from working in industry, academia and government environments. He earned his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering in 1995 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, working under Dr. Placid M. Ferreira.
Prior to joining Texas A&M, Pei was a professor in the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at Kansas State University and holder of the Carl and Mary Ice Industrial Engineering Professorship. He also served as the program director of the Manufacturing Machines and Equipment program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 2012 to 2016.
Pei holds three patents and has published more than 140 journal articles and 90 articles in peer-reviewed proceedings. He has received the NSF Director’s Award for Excellence Program Director and NSF CAREER Award. Pei served as an associate editor for three journals and as an editorial board member for seven journals. He also initiated and developed the CAREER Proposal Writing workshop in 2004 and organized this workshop annually with more than 1,400 young faculty members from across the nation in attendance.
During his first year with Texas A&M, Pei will be working as the assistant director for research partnerships in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-hosted Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office.