When Dr. Mohsen Seifi was a graduate student in Case Western Reserve University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, he made it a priority to attend main conferences in the field. His advisor, Professor John Lewandowski, encouraged the students to go to those conferences so they could present their work to members of technical societies, build their networks and sharpen their skills.
Seifi has been using ASTM standards since his undergraduate studies. In 2013 he was encouraged by fellow graduate student Janet Gbur to attend one of the ASTM International committee week meetings so he could meet some “big names” in the field and see how standards were being created.
Seifi was “drawn in” at that meeting and fascinated by ASTM’s focus on various areas of his research which he had been focusing on at the time. In particular, he was attracted to ASTM’s committee E08 work on fatigue and fracture and committee F42 on additive manufacturing. He then became a fan of attending those meetings and learning more during his studies while frequently applying for ASTM’s student grants and scholarships. In 2014, Seifi was awarded a $10,000 ASTM graduate scholarship. He was encouraged to further get involved and work with the standardization community. In 2015, he applied for the second time and received the same award again, which is quite rare. In the same year, he got actively involved and was co-leading a task group as part of ASTM’s committee on additive manufacturing technologies to develop a guideline for mechanical testing of additive manufacturing materials. This work resulted from a funded project that America Makes awarded CWRU in 2013. Many research collaborations took place between Seifi, Lewandowski and ASTM researchers during his time at CWRU, most of them focused on the standardization issues in additive manufacturing.
After Seifi graduated from CWRU in 2015 with his Ph.D., he stayed at CWRU as a postdoc scholar to continue his contribution to the field, then as staff research associate, before officially joining ASTM in 2018. He was originally brought onboard as the director of ASTM’s additive manufacturing programs. In his new role, Seifi will oversee ASTM’s advanced and additive manufacturing programs, and it will be his responsibility to bring technical leadership and capabilities to develop ASTM’s large portfolio of products and services. After four years of serving in this role, he was promoted to be the Vice President of the ASTM's Global Advanced Manufacturing Programs Division in May 2022, making him the company's youngest vice president joining ASTM’s senior staff team.
He will continue to be responsible for ASTM’s Center of Excellence established in 2018 with focus on research to standards. He will leverage his role to connect industry, governments, universities and research institutes to fill standardization gaps. ASTM has also devoted efforts to workforce development to support industry in understanding how to achieve quality. Additionally, he will be responsible for developing standardization programs and supporting technology areas beyond additive manufacturing in a larger framework of industry 4.0.
"(Mohsen) has received well-deserved international recognition and promotions based on his global efforts at ASTM International,” said Lewandowski.
Seifi credits his time at CWRU, particularly his work with Lewandowski, for his accomplishments at ASTM. “John has been a true mentor and role model for me during the past 11 years and I still continue to learn from his expertise, ethics and intelligence,” said Seifi. Still affiliated with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering as an adjunct, Seifi continues to collaborate with Lewandowski and work on research papers together, including one that has been cited over 1100 times. Having given close to 100 technical presentations nationally and internationally, Seifi always points back to his CWRU research during his talks.
"The world-class CWRU facilities, faculty and environment were so helpful,” said Seifi, pointing out that all three nurture students to develop their careers. In addition to working in Lewandowski’s Advanced Manufacturing and Mechanical Reliability Center, Seifi was a “superuser” on the scanning electron microscopes at Swagelok Center for Surface Analysis of Materials, taking thousands of images on the microscopes during his studies to investigate fracture and fatigue behavior of advanced materials. He frequently conducted mechanical testing and prepared samples in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering’s Engineering Services Fabrication Center as well. He gave more than forty technical presentations internationally during his CWRU studies, which he described as “presenting CWRU’s world class research to the rest of the world.” To this day, he still has several publications in his drafts with content from his CWRU studies which will soon be published.
Seifi also has fond memories of happy hours and picnics in the materials science and engineering department. “The department is good at bringing people together and maintaining a stimulating environment for students,” he said.
"Mohsen conducted excellent work during both his M.S. and Ph.D. on the stress corrosion cracking of aluminum alloys used in naval applications as well as fracture and fatigue of additively manufactured alloys,” said Lewandowski. “His work was published in collaboration with leading international researchers in the field and contributed to our understanding of materials behavior under extreme conditions.”
When Seifi was finishing his B.S. studies he knew he wanted to join a world class university like CWRU. He then found Lewandowski’s profile and publications on the CWRU website and “was drawn in.” After coming to CWRU and taking a class with Lewandowski, he became further interested and quickly offered a spot in Lewandowski’s research group.
"If current students want to be successful in their careers, they have to have passion and grit about what they’re doing and think about what makes them motivated,” said Seifi. “Perseverance and working hard are key elements of success. Technical aspects of research are important, but non- technical aspects are also a key and shouldn’t be forgotten. The ability to communicate complex scientific information in simple ways can immensely impact your career.” He encouraged current students to attend major conferences to present their findings, receive feedback and get connected with key individuals in their fields who they can learn from.
Lewandowski looks forward to continuing interactions with Seifi and observing his growing impact on our field.
