Joshua D. Summers is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Dr. Summers is currently serving as Interim Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and formerly served as Department Head for Mechanical Engineering.

Dr. Summers earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Arizona State University researching design automation. Dr. Summers received his BSME and MSME from the University of Missouri-Columbia working on VR-based submarine design. Dr. Summers has worked at the Naval Research Laboratory (VR Lab and Naval Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence) and served on the Foreign Relations/Armed Services staff of Senator John D. Ashcroft. Dr. Summers’ research has been funded (>$22M) by government (NASA, NSF, US Army TACOM), large industry (BMW, Michelin, General Motors), and small-medium sized enterprises (Wright Metal Products, Hartness International, and others).

Dr. Summers’ areas of interest include collaborative design, knowledge management, and design enabler development with the overall objective of improving design through collaboration and computation. The work has resulted in over 350 peer reviewed publications.

Dr. Summers teaching interests has resulted in introduction of four new courses in engineering design, revamping of the senior design program, and the introduction of an international study abroad experience for senior engineers. This research and teaching has been recognized with awards from SAE (Ralph Teetor Award and Arch T. Colwell Merit Award), TMCE (Outstanding Researcher Award), Innovision (Innovations in Education), the Toshiba-Kos Ishii DFMLC Award (research contributions to Design for Manufacturing), the South Carolina Governor’s Award for Scientific Awareness, and with election to Fellow status in ASME (2012). Most significantly, Dr. Summers has been the advisor of record for 6+ post-doctoral students, 16+ completed PHD dissertations, 60+MS theses, 11 MS projects, 2 honor’s undergraduate thesis, and currently supervises over a dozen graduate and undergraduate students.

All of his former post-doctoral advisees and several PHD students are currently in academic positions at University of Georgia, Florida Poly, the Citadel, Clemson University, Texas State University, St. Louis University, North Texas University, Florida Tech, University of Maryland, and James Madison University. He formerly was Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Clemson University, co-directed the CEDAR Group (Clemson Engineering Design Applications and Research), was the Director of Graduate Studies, and was the Director for Educational Initiatives for the Center for Advanced Manufacturing.