Lin Cheng

Dr. Lin Cheng is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he leads the Smart Manufacturing and Smart Materials Laboratory. Before joining Maryland in 2024, he was an Assistant Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (2021–2024). He earned his B.S. from Xi’an Jiaotong University, M.S. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 2019, followed by postdoctoral research at Northwestern University. His research integrates scientific artificial intelligence, computational mechanics, and advanced manufacturing to understand and control process–structure–property relationships for both metals and ceramics. Current efforts include interpretable and generative AI, autonomous computational modeling, and laser-triggered flash sintering of ceramics. His computational design methods have been incorporated into ANSYS engineering simulation software. He received the NSF CARE