Emma Betters received her BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida (UF) in 2017. During her undergraduate studies, she taught in the UF Design and Manufacturing Laboratory. Continuing her manufacturing education, she began her graduate studies in the Machine Tool Research Center (MTRC) at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2018. In 2019, she relocated with advisor Dr. Tony Schmitz to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) where she received her MS in 2022. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Mechanical Engineering to be completed in 2023.
Emma began her role as an R&D Assistant Staff Member in the Intelligent Machine Tools Group at the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the fall of 2019. Her research interests are in machining dynamics, machine tool design, and manufacturing workforce development. Her work at UTK and ORNL has included: designing, constructing, and demonstrating a 3-axis CNC milling machine leveraging an additively manufactured mold and concrete filled composite base structure to illustrate alternatives to imported castings; manufacturing a device to make N95 material in support of COVID-19 PPE production efforts; modeling to predict the tool tip vibration response for the selection of stable machining conditions for a library of tool-holder-spindle combinations; and delivering on-machine instruction for America’s Cutting Edge in-person CNC machining training.