Newswise — Andrew Honeycutt and Nick Horvath, machine tool researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have been selected to receive the 2021 Geoffrey Boothroyd Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from SME, the professional manufacturing engineering association.

Honeycutt and Horvath were two of 14 engineers 35 and younger from throughout North America recognized for making considerable contributions to manufacturing technologies, operations and processes.

Honeycutt’s research focuses on additive manufacturing design for machining, precision metrology, machining dynamics, and future machine tool technologies. Horvath’s research includes the development of both processes and machine tools to enable next-generation reflective optics and optical systems including ceramic lightweight mirrors.

“Nick and Andrew are early career researchers who have made significant contributions to ORNL’s research initiatives in machining and machine tool research,” said Scott Smith, ORNL’s group leader for intelligent machine tools. “Their combined knowledge has led to the design and development of equipment to realize and scale components in both size and quantity. We appreciate SME recognizing and honoring their machine tool achievements.”

Honeycutt and Horvath earned PhDs in mechanical engineering from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and joined SME in 2019 and 2020, respectively.

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE’s Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.