Heat Treat Show

Heat Treat Today publishes twelve print magazines a year and included in each is a letter from the editor. This letter is a pre-release from the December 2025 Annual Medical and Energy Heat Treat print edition. In today’s letter, Bethany Leone, managing editor at Heat Treat Today, shares about the ASM Heat Treat show of 2025.

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Attending the bi-annual Heat Treat show is always a thrill. The ASM Heat Treat Society did not disappoint, bringing a full line up of technical sessions and engaging panels to attend between walking the busy show floor, itself packed with cutting edge research presentations and informative booths of key players. I had the opportunity to attend more sessions than usual this year to hear what concerns in industry were being raised at this event. 

On Monday, October 20, ASM President Dr. Navin Manjooran, chaired the first ever Executive Leadership Forum, bridging the concerns and forecasts of industry leaders with the bold training methods of frontline academic leaders. The event was specifically hosted for the IMAT conference attendees at the collocated 33rd Heat Treating Society Conference and Exhibition. 

Dr. Manjooran underlined the intent of creating stronger collaborations between these two groups, with the first moderator, Renee Parente, director of Technology and Product Engineering at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), further emphasizing the goal of accelerating innovation through open discussions like these. 

Industry Panel 

At this forum, the first panel included a Q&A portion moderated by Renee Parente with the following four industry panelists: 

• Dr. Aziz Asphahani, FASM, chairman and CEO of Questek Innovations 

• Dr. David Furrer, FASM, principal fellow and discipline lead for materials and processes at Pratt & Whitney 

• John R. (Chip) Keough, PE, FASM, chairman and president at Lightspeed Concepts/Joyworks LLC 

• Dr. Dehua Yang, FASM, president at Ebatco 

From this panel came key thoughts on how research in the business world was being developed to further commercial efforts. First, there was a consensus that corporations were investing in research internally but were instead looking to start-ups to absorb the energies of research and development needs. While academic-industry partnerships were valuable, the concern over IPs was reviewed with Dr. Furrer adding that it is commitment to collaborative internal research efforts and external research industry partnerships that is most meaningful. He also added that the new generation of engineers are entering the workforce with new tools of industry at the ready to implement, and this shift needs to be welcomed to keep pace with the speed of innovation.  

Another important thread of discussion in this panel was the need to both accelerate the development of higher performance materials (Dr. Asphahani), as well as implement this development in a connected manner across engineering counterparts, like the quality, manufacturing, and design departments (Dr. Furrer) for effective product development.  

Academic Panel 

The academic panel revealed specifics on exciting current and developing efforts to train the rising workforce. Dr. Viola L. Acoff, the dean of engineering at the University of Mississippi, passionately shared the success of her breakthrough course design to retain freshmen metallurgy students through a hands one MTE 101 course, which includes access to a fully functioning foundry and efforts to grow already present real-world industry experience through industry-sponsored programs. 

While the panel acknowledged the ongoing efforts to prepare students to use AI and other technologies of Industry 4.0 (and 5.0), there was a mixture of other emphases, including: 

• the “plug-and-play” graduate who does not need remediation training at their first job (especially emphasized by Dr. Christopher Berndt, distinguished professor, Surface Science and Engineering at Swinburne University of Technology) 

• a focus on developing materials engineers who think critically 

• a close look at the publication system, with some specifically advocating the need to rethink this system as the barometer for engaged students and commercially focused research 

The four-person academic panel was completed by Dr. Hanchen Huang, FASM, dean of Engineering and endowed chair professor at Oklahoma State University, and Dr. David B. Williams, FASM, dean emeritus at The Ohio State University. The moderator was Dr. Zi-Kui Liu, FASM, Dorothy Plate Enright Professor in MSE at The Pennsylvania State University. 

Audience 

I sat in a room amidst several dozen heat treat decision makers from both the commercial and teaching ground of heat treat, ranging from student and early career to research veteran and recently retired. Audience members asked their questions after both of the panels and mingled after the session to share a few words amongst ourselves and the generous speakers.  

Clearly, concern for the next generation of materials experts to meet industry needs — both in training and in availability of personnel — was of primary importance. Be it the question of how industry was investing in secondary and primary education interventions or a side discussion questioning how the leaders of both panels were driving young people toward entrepreneurial competition, the room buzzed with interest. 

Summary 

One comment Dr. Furrer shared outside of the panel session was his interest in how the focus of academia was shaping the opportunities available to upcoming industry leaders and engineers. 

Despite the government panel being unable to participate in the forum due to the ongoing government shutdown, this forum proved to be emblematic of Dr. Manjooran’s summary of ASM’s most important attribute: the ability through connections — memberships, partnerships, etc. — to advance materials worldwide.  

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