Dr. Darrell Wallace is a Manufacturing Engineering Professor, recently elected Vice Chair of a national engineering organization. He got his bachelor's and master's degrees in Mechanical Engineering and his Ph.D in Industrial Engineering from the Ohio State University. 

Before working at YSU, Dr. Wallace worked his way through his undergraduate as an engineering intern at Worthington Steel in Columbus.  Throughout his Master’s degree, he worked as a staff engineer for the NSF Sponsored Engineering Research Center for Net Shape Manufacturing (ERC/NSM).  Throughout his Ph.D, Dr. Wallace was employed as a lecturer at Ohio State and as an adjunct professor at Columbus State University. Dr. Wallace has also worked for many companies, including Nestle, as a consultant.

Dr. Wallace was interested in teaching at YSU because he knew Youngstown has a rich manufacturing history.  He came here to teach manufacturing in an environment where it is highly applicable and where technological innovations can have broad impacts for both the students and the community. Dr. Wallace currently teaches Additive and Digital Manufacturing, Manufacturing Processes 2 and the associated Lab, Fluid Power and Automation.

Dr. Wallace, in Summer 2020, was elected to become the vice-chair of the ASME Y14.46 Standards Subcommittee.  That group, composed of industry experts from around the country, is developing the new standard for additive manufacturing design communication: Y14.46 – Product Definition for Additive Manufacturing.

For the past 8 years, Dr. Wallace has been very active in working with ASME to address the unique challenges of describing engineering designs for additively manufactured parts.  The creation of this new standard resulted from a meeting he had with the ASME committee that is in charge of traditional product definition (Y14.5). The Y14.5 standard is commonly known by most engineers (especially mechanical and industrial engineers) as “Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing” or GD&T.  In Dr. Wallace’s presentation to them, he explained how additive manufacturing allows us to design components that can’t be adequately described by the Y14.5 standard.  That led to the creation of the new Y14.46 standard that is under development. He has served as a founding member of that subcommittee, where his focus has been on product definition for complex and gradient geometries.

Dr. Wallace enjoys establishing the standards to share the best practices to be used across all of engineering. He is incredibly excited to have helped establish a new standard from its inception.  Dr. Wallace also finds the position a tremendous honor to have been chosen by his peers on the committee to serve in this leadership role. He is the only academic on the committee.  Most of the members are senior engineers from major companies like Boeing, Lockheed, John Deere, NASA, and the NIST.  In this role, YSU is represented among some of the most advanced and respected technical organizations in the world.  Below is a list of the members:

• J. Gardner, Lockheed Martin, Chair
• D. Wallace, Youngstown State University, Vice Chair
• G. Ameta, Dakota
• L. Bergquist, John Deere
• C. Brown, Honeywell FM&T
• S. Casey, The Boeing Co.
• W. Cockrell, Raytheon
• K. Delaurentis, U.S. Food and Drug Administration
• A. Frey, U.S. Army
• R. Lipman, National Institute of Standards and Technology
• K. Losoncy, Orbital ATK Space Systems Group
• J. Michalowicz, Stryker Orthopedics, Inc.
• G. Nair, Lloyd’s Register
• T. Pilewicz, Rolls-Royce Corp.
• S. Ramasamy, Apple
• J. Schmelzle, Naval Air Systems Command
• J. Sykes, Profile Services
• W. Weiss, NASA (IBW)
• E. F. Zwettler, Alternate, Rolls-Royce Corp.
• J. Herron, member, former Chair, Action Engineering, Inc.
• P. Witherell, member, former Vice Chair, National Institute of Standards and
• Technology
• D. Alonzo, Secretary, The American Society of Mechanical Engineers

When asked about the importance of university research and of organizations like NSF in supporting that research, Dr. Wallace had this to say “University research serves to develop new technologies and, through applied research and industry outreach, helps transition new technologies into application.  Critical to that mission is the funding that is provided through external sources such as the National Science Foundation and other federal and state agencies.  YSU faculty who work on manufacturing-related projects have been extraordinarily successful in securing such funding.  Over the past decade, we have secured more than $20-million of awards, which help to provide world-class resources for YSU students and faculty and the broader Youngstown community.  It is that success that has supported our faculty as nationally recognized experts and for our students to secure prominent opportunities in the region and around the country.”