Viterbi Faculty Directory

Biography

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Behrokh “Berok” Khoshnevis is the Louise L. Dunn Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Astronautical Engineering and Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at USC. He is active in robotics, and mechatronics related research and development projects that include the development of several novel Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing) processes such as Contour Crafting construction-scale 3D printing technology, SIS, which is licensed to HP, for fabrication of polymeric and metallic parts and SSS for fabrication of high temperature alloys, ceramics and composites, as well as development of mechatronics systems for biomedical applications (e.g., digital dental prostheses fabrication, robotics for orthodontics, rehabilitation engineering, and tactile sensing devices), autonomous mobile and modular robots for fabrication and assembly on Earth, in space and on other planets, and specialized innovative equipment for oil and gas as well as renewable energy industries. He has numerous inventions and over 100 US and international patents as well as nearly 200 refereed technical publications.
He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors inductee, a Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineering, a Fellow of the Society for Computer Simulation and a NASA Innovative Advanced Concept Fellow. Because of his Contour Crafting invention Dr. Khoshnevis received the 2014 Grand Prize among 1000+ globally competing technologies in the Create the Future design contest which was organized by NASA. Contour Crafting was selected earlier as one of the top 25 out of more than 4000 candidate inventions by the History Channel Modern Marvels program and the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame; and has been identified as one of the major disruptive technologies of our time by the renowned Harvard Professor, Clayton Christensen, who coined the term “disruptive technology”. The technology has been exhibited in numerous science & technology and art museums around the world. Dr. Khoshnevis’ another 3D printing invention, Selective Separation Shaping (SSS) won another international competition Grand Prize by NASA in 2016 as the most capable and versatile metallic and ceramic Additive Manufacturing technology for micro-gravity and planetary applications. He was recognized in 2017 by the Connected World magazine as one of top 10 academic pioneers in the Internet of Things (IoT). Connected World has celebrated luminaries such as Elon Musk as other IoT pioneers. Dr. Khoshnevis’ inventions routinely receive extensive worldwide publicity in acclaimed media such as New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Business Week, Der Spiegel, New Scientist, and major national and international television and radio networks. His educational activities at USC include the teaching of a popular graduate course on Invention and Technology Development. He routinely conducts lectures and seminars and gives keynote speeches on the subject of invention.