RESEARCH FOCUS
Michael Pagan works to understand how advanced structural materials can be designed and manufactured using dissimilar material joining and high strain rate deformation bonding. His dissertation while at Tennessee was titled Plastic Deformation During Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing (Dissertation). Prior to returning to graduate school, Michael was a process engineer for Alcoa Howmet working on ceramic compounding for investment casting (2015-2017). Michael has won several awards including the Editor’s Choice Award from Metallurgical and Materials Transactions, the First Step Award from UTK, and a Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma manufacturing process improvements. Michael holds a U.S. provision patent from his innovative method of improving bond efficiency during his dissertation research. Michael had several internships and fellowship during his educational career allowing research at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, and the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan. Michael also served as a judge for the UTK EUReCA competition and has provided numerous guest seminar presentations.
