Linda Catherine Schmidt (November 27, 1958 – March 12, 2021) was an American mechanical engineer whose interests included the engineering design process, the use of formal grammars in design, and engineering education. She was a faculty member in the

A. James Clark School of Engineering The A. James Clark School of Engineering is the engineering college of the University of Maryland, College Park. The school consists of fourteen buildings on the College Park campus that cover over . The school is near Washington, D.C. and Balti ...

at the

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of Mary ...

Life

Schmidt was born on November 27, 1958 in Blue Island, Illinois. She studied

industrial engineering Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex process (engineering), processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, kno ...

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

, earning a bachelor's degree in 1989 and a master's degree in 1991. Her master's degree research concerned queueing theory, under the mentorship of John Jackman. She next went to

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

for doctoral study in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

, completing her Ph.D. in 1995. Her dissertation, ''An Implementation Using Grammars of an Abstraction-Based Model of Mechanical Design for Design Optimization and Design Space Characterization'', was supervised by Jonathan Cagan. She joined the University of Maryland as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering in 1995, and was tenured as an associate professor there in 2001. At the University of Maryland, she founded and directed the Designer Assistance Tool Laboratory, and the DesignME Suite, a group of three student engineering design laboratories. She died on March 12, 2021.

Recognition

Schmidt was the 2008 winner of the Fred Merryfield Design Award of the American Society for Engineering Education. She was named as an ASME Fellow by the

American Society of Mechanical Engineers The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing ...

in 2014, "for her influential role in the development of the field of engineering design and her lasting contributions to these fields".

Books

Schmidt was the author or coauthor of books including: *''Product Engineering and Manufacturing'' (with Cunniff, Daily, Dieter, Hermann, Zhang, and Cunniff, College House, 1998; 2nd ed., 2002) *''Engineering Design'' (with George E. Dieter, McGraw Hill, 4th ed., 2009) She was coeditor of: *''Decision Making in Engineering Design'' (with Chen and Lewis, ASME Press, 2006)

References

External links

Home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schmidt, Linda 1958 births 2021 deaths People from Blue Island, Illinois American mechanical engineers American women engineers Iowa State University alumni Carnegie Mellon University alumni University of Maryland, College Park faculty Fellows of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers