Sounder Kumara, an Indian-American professor of industrial engineering at Pennsylvania State University, has been appointed to the Society of Manufacturing Engineering’s (SME) College of Fellows.
Kumara, the Allen E. and Allen M. Pierce Professor of Industrial Engineering at Penn State, was among eight manufacturing professionals inducted into the Class of 2026 Fellows, according to a university announcement.
Established in 1986, the SME College of Fellows recognizes members who have made outstanding contributions to the social, technical, and educational aspects of manufacturing.
This honor is awarded to individuals with at least 20 years of experience who have demonstrated sustained leadership and made a significant impact on the manufacturing engineering profession.
Read: Indian-American researchers seek clean, affordable hydrogen energy
(July 9, 2026)
“I am truly honored to be recognized as an SME Fellow. This is a very rewarding accomplishment for me,” Kumara said. “It’s especially rewarding to see how the research that my group began in the early 1980s, including sensing, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), manufacturing applications, and networked edge computing in manufacturing, is helping to shape smart manufacturing research, education, and practice today. As academics, engineers, and researchers, it is an immense privilege to have the opportunity to make such an impact.”
At Penn State, he is director of the Center for Industrial Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AIMI) within the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences.
His research spans nonlinear real-time sensor analysis, machine learning for process diagnostics, and large-scale complex networks. One of his most notable contributions was the co-development of the label propagation algorithm, a widely used machine learning technique that has been incorporated into major machine learning software platforms.
Read: Indian-American researcher wins $4 million NIH grant to research autoimmune diseases
(July 8, 2026)
The study was recognized as one of only 25 “landmark papers” chosen from more than 50,000 publications to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the journal Physical Review E.
Kumara is a fellow of the Society of Industrial Systems Engineers, the International Academy of Industrial Engineering, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Previous awards include the IISE Baker Award, ASME Computers and Information in Engineering Research Excellence Award, and the Pearson Digital Pioneer Award.
Kumara was also recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and as an Outstanding Industrial Engineer by Purdue University.
Beyond academia, Kumara has served as a consultant to the Army Science Board and currently serves on the Pennsylvania Governor’s Advisory Committee on Artificial Intelligence, helping to guide the responsible development and application of artificial intelligence technologies. Kumara is an SME member since 2021.
