Dr. Umer is a Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Khalifa University of Science and Technology (KUST), Abu Dhabi, UAE. He received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Auckland, New Zealand, and was with the Composite Vehicle Research Center (CVRC), Michigan State University, USA, as post-doctoral research fellow. Dr. Umer is a leader and an innovator in the field of advanced manufacturing of composite structures. Dr. Umer has worked in industries, research institutes and universities in Europe, Australasia, USA, Asia and the Middle East. He possesses vast experience in establishing composites and advanced manufacturing facilities from scratch. He is the co-founder of the joint research center between STRATA manufacturing and KUST called Aerospace Research and Innovation Center (ARIC) and the Director of the Composites Manufacturing Lab at KUST. Currently, he is a theme and project lead in the newly developed center in collaboration with University of Manchester, UK, called Research and Innovation Center on Graphene and 2D Materials (RIC-2D). Dr Umer also served as Acting Department Chair, Aerospace Engineering, KUST, in 2021. Dr. Umer has good industrial experience as well, and was the member of the founding team that developed the Airbus Helicopter manufacturing site in Brisbane, Australia.
Since 2002, Dr. Umer is involved in pure and applied research, teaching, management of research projects and activities related to aerospace, defense, civil, and automotive sectors. Dr. Umer has a proven teaching and research record of accomplishment with an excellent history of publications. Dr. Umer has published three books; many refereed journal and conference articles and holds four US patens. Dr. Umer has several industrial collaborations and is an associate editor of a high impact journal. He has been leading or been part of the team who received funding of over USD 33 million, including AUD 3 million from CRC-P Govt. (AUD 10M total) of Australia. He is a theme/project lead on 2D materials enhanced fiber reinforced composites for aerospace and defense applications on a USD 100M UAE Govt. funding to establish RIC-2D. Dr. Umer has led several international composites processing benchmarking and standardization exercises, and is a key member of the management and scientific committee on the conference series of “Flow Processes in Composite Materials” (FPCM). Dr. Umer is currently listed in the top 2{0961db0d5220b4955a3f07ef234db6dc96890fe8a6be6f8a7c66584c2fe2ed1b} most cited scientists globally (according to the Stanford list) in Aerospace and Aeronautics.
Dr. Umer promoted faculty collaboration efforts for increased interdisciplinary research funding, and led efforts to accreditation and growth of the undergraduate and graduate programs, developed several courses and represented the department at the College and University level meetings and actively interacted with the advisory board of the department.
Dr. Umer specializes in the digital design and processing of high-value composite components and structures for aerospace, automotive, defense, and civil applications. His main focus is on; experimental process development, process modeling and simulations, process monitoring, innovative and automated manufacturing using robotics and automated fiber placement, additive manufacturing of lightweight composite structures, advanced liquid composite molding technologies, autoclave and out-of-autoclave manufacturing of thermoset and thermoplastic composites, repair of composite structures, non-destructive and in-situ µCT analysis of 3D and 2D reinforcements, smart manufacturing of smart structures using FBGs, graphene and other 2D nano-material based sensors, smart shape memory alloys and composites, artificial intelligence, machine learning, digital twin and augmented reality of advanced manufacturing in Industry 4.0.
2D materials enhanced fiber reinforced composites for aerospace and defense applications.
Smart manufacturing of smart aircraft skins.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence in aerospace composites manufacturing
- Post Doc. Research Asscosite in composites manufacturing with strong backgraound in 2D materials processing.
