THIRTY UNDER THIRTY PROFILES
Kathryn Tillery-Merk Age: 28
Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII) Chicago, IL
UNDER THIRTY A
s a youngster, Kathryn Tillery-Merk really loved math and science, and her parents knew she’d be an engineer someday. After earning her BS in industrial engi- neering and masters in business administration at the University of Oklahoma, Tillery-Merk worked as an engineer at Raytheon Techni- cal Services and as a pro- gram manager at Armstrong Aerospace after interning at Schlumberger. Today, she is a project manager for the US government-sponsored Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII) at UI Labs in Chicago, which is working to de- velop advanced new digital manufacturing technologies. “My mom always said ‘you’re going to be an engineer,’ but I always told her I didn’t want to drive trains," Tillery- Merk recalled. "Once got older and I realized that being an engineer didn’t mean I would be driving trains, I began to give it more consideration.”
Becoming an engineer may have been a natural fit, but manufacturing wasn’t an obvious choice. “I would say that math was more my strong suit growing up, but I would attribute it to the fact that I worked hard at it,” she said. “Honestly, until college I hadn’t had any visibility into manufacturing. Coming from a small town there wasn’t much that could provide me with that insight. Even in high school I didn’t see or experience any manufactur- ing-related technologies.
“What led me to manufacturing was my math and science desire. My path went from math and science camps as a child, to Industrial Engineering, and even- tually into a manufacturing-related position.” As a high-school junior, Tillery-Merk participated in
a robotics competition. “I had a physics teacher that led the Botball team at our school,” she said. “He had
“I wasn’t much at programming the robot, but I was very interested in designing and building the robot.”
asked me to go with him to OU for a robotics-related afternoon. That’s when I assembled and did some low- level programming for my first robot. I liked the tinker- ing part of the afternoon so I decided to join the Botball team. Unfortunately, I wasn’t much at programming the robot, but I was very interested in designing and build- ing the robot. We didn’t win the competition, but it was a great experience.” At DMDII, Tillery-Merk manages collaborative
projects focusing on digital manufacturing technology gaps. “The Institute was set up with the mission to transform American manufacturing,” she said, “by fully integrating the digital thread across the enterprise to reduce overall manufacturing costs, stabilize and grow the manufacturing industrial base and improve US competitiveness throughout the world.” “Katie has a significant role,” said Dean L. Bartles, DMDII executive director and a member of SME’s board, who nominated Tillery-Merk for 30 Under 30. “There are three primary areas of research that Katie is heavily involved in. One is in advanced analysis, which is an essential aspect of three-dimensional computer modeling and simulation for things like computational fluid dynamics. The goal is to help small and medium manufacturers adopt these technologies more rapidly. “Another area of research Katie is involved in is what the government calls the Advanced Manufacturing En- terprise,” Bartles said. “A lot of people also know this as the Digital Thread. The third area of research Katie is involved in is intelligent machining—being able to add new intelligent sensors to all the legacy machine tools that are out there on shop floors all over the country in small and medium companies that can’t afford to buy brand-new machines with sensors already built in.”
July 2015 |
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