Faculty Spotlight: Barbara Linke
This spotlight is part of our 2022 International Women's Day feature.
Describe your personal and professional background and current role in the College of Engineering.
I am a mechanical engineer who received most of her academic training in Germany (including mechanical engineering diploma, doctorate, postdoc, and habilitation). I spent two years as a postdoc at UC Berkeley. I am an associate professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) Department and have been the Vice-Chair of Undergraduate Studies in my department. I am the faculty advisor for the SME student chapter (formerly known as Society of Manufacturing Engineers) and on the executive committee of the Industrial Ecology (IE) Graduate Academic Certificate (GAC).
What led you to the engineering field?
I took physics and mathematics as emphasis courses in high school and have always been creative. As an engineer, you can work in design, production, R&D, or marketing and business. I like the applied nature of engineering, while it also offers many options to explore engineering phenomena with natural sciences.
Highlight your current research. What do you love about it, why are you excited and how do you stay motivated?
My research interests are in sustainable manufacturing and abrasive surface finishing. It is exciting to see how complex a seemingly simple process like grinding with abrasives is when you look at the physical and chemical mechanisms and how the surface integrity of workpieces is affected. It is amazing to see how my research can be applied in other fields. I have wonderful collaborations with colleagues from the School of Veterinary Medicine on orthopedic implants and bacteria attachment, with a surgeon on 3D printed organ replica, with colleagues from my department on distortion and residual stresses, operator behavior, heat exchangers, and aerospace education, and with international researchers on sustainable grinding, metrology, and more. It is fun to explore the topics with students and colleagues, see the students own the research in reports, theses and presentations, and publish the research at conferences and in journal papers.
The 2022 International Women’s Day theme is #BreakTheBias. How do you support gender equity and #BreakTheBias in the engineering field?
I like to connect with role models and support all my students. I think it is important that we know that we belong in the engineering field without explaining why. I co-organized the first and second Women in Advanced Manufacturing (WIAM) forum at the ASME MSEC and SME NAMRC conferences, highlighting career pathways and leadership experiences of successful women in advanced manufacturing.