Professor Lih-Sheng (Tom) Turng received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the National Taiwan University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University. He worked in the industry developing advanced injection molding simulation software for 10 years before joining University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW–Madison) in 2000. His research encompasses injection molding, microcellular injection molding, nanocomposites, multi-functional materials, bio-based polymers, tissue engineering, and bio-manufacturing. He has received numerous grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Defense (DOD), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and National Institutes of Health (NIH), in addition to research sponsorships from the industry. He was the Principal Investigator of four Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I and Phase II awards during his tenure in the industry.
Professor Turng holds the Consolidated Papers Foundation Endowed Professorship and was the recipient of the Kuo K. and Cindy F. Wang Professorship and the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship at UW–Madison. He is the Co-Director of the Polymer Engineering Center and Group Leader at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID), a Fellow member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), and the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE), the recipient of the 2023 Faculty of the Year Award from the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, 2018 Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Innovation Award, 2015 Plastics Educator of the Year Award from the SPE Milwaukee Section, 2011 Engineer of the Year award from the SPE Injection Molding Division, and an Honored Service Member (HSM) of the SPE. Professor Turng has served as the UW–Madison Research Site Director of an NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) and the Chair and Board member of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Network for Innovative Plastic Materials and Manufacturing Processes (NIPMMP).
Professor Turng has graduated 17 Ph.D. students, 34 M.S. students, 30 co-advised international Ph.D. students, and has supervised more than 10 research scientists and post-docs, 50+ under-graduate research students, and 20+ visiting scholars. Thanks to the hard work of his students and co-workers, Professor Turng has published over 320 refereed journal papers as well as over 250 conference papers and plenary and keynote presentations. He has received 14 Best Papers awards, several Best Paper/Poster finalists mentions, and has 24 patents and patent applications. He is the 2nd most published author (lifetime) of Polymer Engineering and Science, the flagship journal of SPE, and is among the most published or cited authors of several other top archival journals (e.g.,2one of the most downloaded paper during its first 12 months of publication in Journal of Applied Polymer Science) in his fields. Professor Turng has an h-index of 79, i-10 index of 286, and over 19,000 citations.