Bill Peter

William H Peter

Advanced Manufacturing Program Director

Dr. Bill Peter is the Program Director for Advanced Manufacturing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.  He manages a research portfolio of over $50M annually in advanced manufacturing. Dr. Peter has over 25 years-experience in advanced manufacturing and materials research for energy and national security applications. Bill Peter was one of the founding creators and Director of DOE AMMTO’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility from 2016-2022. The MDF is the U.S. Department of Energy’s manufacturing research facility established to provide industry with affordable and convenient access to infrastructure, tools and expertise to facilitate rapid adoption of advanced manufacturing.  Under Dr. Peter’s direction, the MDF established over $1B of follow-on private funding based on the manufacturing and materials research, and has developed over a dozen new manufacturing systems, collaborating with over 250 companies. Dr. Peter has led groups of greater than 160 people in joining research, metal and ceramic processing, carbon fiber and composites, energy storage, separations, manufacturing systems development, techno-economic analysis, and additive manufacturing.  He has been the principal investigator for over 30 R&D projects including research in the areas of additive manufacturing, powder metallurgy of titanium powders, the fabrication of amorphous/nanocrystalline materials, and the processing of aluminum, magnesium, and iron-based alloys.  Dr. Peter has been author or co-author for 90 publications and has won 8 R&D 100 Magazine awards for research in the development of new composite manufacturing processes, high temperature aluminum alloys, coating solutions for large additive manufacturing, engineered additive manufacturing materials, consolidation of new titanium powders, additive manufacturing of prosthetics, development of a roll mill technology, and the development of laser-fused NanoSHIELD coatings. Dr. Peter was selected as a Fellow for SME in 2020. Dr. Peter received his B.E. from Vanderbilt University in 1996, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee in 2002 and 2005, respectively. 

2022 to present   Director, Advanced Manufacturing Program, ORNL

2021 to 2022       Director, Manufacturing Science Division, ORNL

2016 to 2022       Director, Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF)

2015 to 2016       Deputy Director, Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF)

2013 to 2015       Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow (LIFT) [previously ALMMII] and Joint Faculty Appointment, The University of Tennessee (UT), Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering (MABE) Department (15% Appointment)

2013 to 2014       Associate Division Director - Materials Behavior and Process, Materials Science and Technology, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

2008 to 2015       Senior R&D Staff Member / R&D Staff Member, Materials Science and Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Principal Investigator for Over 20 New Projects (~$25M of R&D)

2009 to 2013       Group Leader, Materials Processing and Manufacturing Group, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

2005 to 2008       R&D Associate / Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Post Doctoral Fellow / Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Materials Processing and Manufacturing Group, Materials Science & Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

 2000 to 2005      Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, Advised by Dr. Raymond A. Buchanan, Dr. Chain T. Liu, and Dr. Peter K. Liaw; National Science Foundation (NSF), Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) Program on Materials Lifetime Science and Engineering.

2001 to 2005       Guest Researcher, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Supervised by Dr. Chain T. Liu.

Summer 2002     Guest Researcher, Institute of Materials Research (IMR), Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan; Supervised by Dr. Akihisa Inoue and Dr. Dmitri Louzguine.  

1996 to 2000       Structural/Geotechnical Engineer

2023 R&D 100 Magazine Winner for Precise, Continuous, & High-Speed Manufacturing of Thermoplastic Composites Using Additive Manufacturing-Compression Molding, AM-CM

2022 R&D 100 Magazine Winner for DuAlumin-3D: An Additively Manufactured Dual-Strengthened Aluminum Alloy Designed for Extreme Creep and Fatigue Resistance

2020  Elected 2020 SME College of Fellows, Class of 2020, one of seven selected.

2018  FLC Awards for Excellence in Tech Transfer “ORNL’s Co-Development and Licensing of Large-Area Additive Manufacturing Technologies

2017  FLC Mid-Continent Region Outstanding Regional Partnership Award for “National Rotor Testbed: Using Large-Scale 3D Printing to Test New Wind Blade Designs"

2017  R&D 100 Magazine Winner for “Coating Solutions for Large-Format Additive Manufacturing”

2017  R&D 100 Magazine Winner for “Techmer Engineered Additive Manufacturing Materials (TEAMM)”

2017  CAMX Award Winner for Composites Excellence in the Innovation in Green Composites Design category, “Large Scale 3D Printing Using 100% Bio-Composite Materials”

2016  World’s largest solid 3D printed object by GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™

2016  Invited US Session Chair for the Additive Manufacturing Session, 2016 National Academy of Engineering’s Japan - America Frontiers of Engineering (JAFOE).2014                

2014  National Academy of Engineers, Frontiers in Engineering Selected Participant

2013  “40 Under 40” for the Greater Knoxville Area

2012  R&D 100 Magazine Winner for Laser Fusing of Wear Resistant Glassy Powders / Nano SHIELD

2012  R&D 100 Magazine Winner for Isothermal Shear Roll Mill

2012  R&D 100 Magazine Winner for Additive Manufacturing of Meso-Fluidic Hydraulically Driven Robotic Hands.

2012   Executive of the Year, Integrated Association of Administrative Professionals, Oak Ridge Regional Chapter

2011   Nominated as Group Leader of the Year, Materials Science & Technology Division, ORNL

2010   Nominated as Group Leader of the Year, Materials Science & Technology Division, ORNL

2007  R&D 100 Magazine Winner for Development of Low Cost Titanium and Titanium Alloy Powder and Products

2006  DOE-OCRWM-HPCRM Project - 2006 Outstanding Young Scientist Award

2000-2005  NSF IGERT Fellow, Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) Program on Materials Lifetime Science and Engineering, National Science Foundation.

2003-2004  “The Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant Award”, University of Tennessee, College of Engineering, Honors Banquet.

2002  National Science Foundation, International Opportunities for Scientists and Engineers. Wrote Proposal and Was Awarded 3 Month Internship in Japan “International Collaborative Research for the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training Program on Materials Lifetime Science and Engineering”, Research Conducted at Institute of Materials Research (IMR), Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.  Studied the Devitrification of Amorphous Alloys.

1996  Engineer-In-Training Certification

Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 2005

M.S. Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 2002

B.E. Civil Engineering (Structures), Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 1996                       

  1. “Rapid Non Contact Energy Transfer for Additive Manufacturing Driven High Intensity Electromagnetic Fields”, US Patent # 10124531, 2018
  2. “High Quality Large Scale Single and Multilayer Graphene Production by Chemical Vapor Deposition” U.S. Patent # 10023468, 2018
  3. “In-Situ Composite Formation of Damage Tolerant Coatings Utilizing Laser”, U.S. Patent # 9347138/8673455/ 7939142, 2016/2014/2011
  4. Nano-composite stainless steel”. US Patent # 9,080,229, 2015.
  5. “Freeform fluidics”, US Patent # 8951303, 2015
  6. “Metal-carbon composites and methods for the production”, US Patent Application # 14/264121
  7. “Titanium and titanium alloy carbon composites for capacitive water purification and other applications”, US Patent Application # 13/219034
  8. “Mechanically Alloyed High Performance Magnesium Alloys”, DOE S-124,637
  9. “Armstrong Ti, Ti Alloy Composites for Battery and Ultracapacitor Applications”, DOE S-NUMBER: S-115,400 INVENTION DISCLOSURE NUMBER: 201002360
  10. “Additive Engineering: Z-Direction Fiber Reinforcement” U.S. Patent Application No. Pending
  11. “Arcam Electron Beam melting of Hdh Ti Powder”, U.S. Patent Application No. Inactive