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-> Join our team! We are looking for motivated Ph.D. & M.S. researchers in Smart Mfg, AI/ML, Federated Learning, & Blockchain etc. to join us!
Thorsten 'Thor' Wuest, Ph.D.
Thorsten 'Thor' Wuest, Ph.D.
Professor
Director Center for Industry Solutions
Director Industrial Engineering
The University of South Carolina
Molinaroli College of Engineering and Computing
Department of Mechanical Engineering
office: McNAIR, Suite 120A
lab: McNAIR
Columbia, SC, USA
email: twuest [at] sc.edu
news
news
[05/08/2026] Austin featured on the front page of USC today covering his interview of the Systems Engineering class taught by Dr. Burkhard Huhnke (CTO, Scout Motors).
[05/03/2026] Soon, Nishat and JuHyeong will join our team for a productive summer session at USC through an NSF EPSCOR project. How wonderful that today a joint paper has been accepted for publciation to kick of this year's visit. The paper is titled "Workforce Competency Requirements in Industry 4.0: A Natural Language Processing Analysis of Job Market Demands" (w./ Alam, Nishat; Rahman, Chowdhury Mohammad Abid ; Harik, Ramy; Wuest, Thor; Ryu, JuHyeong) and is accpeted at the Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management.
[04/29/2026] Check out the new podcast episode of the Peggy Smedley Show featuring yours truly discussing Smart Manufacturing in SC!
[04/16/2026] Hosted Jack Teitel on Campus and had great discussion on AI in manufacturing, showed the labs, and made plans for future collaboration.
[04/15/2026] Keynote at KI-Netzwerk Session VDI-INT on „AI Engineering Across Borders: Global Strategies for Shaping the Future“ representing the US.
[04/13/2026] New paper by Menon, K., Mittal, S., Khan, M., Kärkkäinen, H., Wuest, T., & Uuskoski, M. titled 'Morphological Analysis for Designing and Configuring Outcome-based Contracts for Machine Manufacturers: An Empirically Grounded Conceptualization' accepted in the Journal of Enterprise Information Management.
[04/07/2026] New paper by Khan, I., Farahani, M., & Wuest, T., on 'Blockchain-Empowered Federated Learning Applications in Smart Manufacturing: A Literature Review' published in the ASME Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering (JCISE).
[04/06/2026] Check out the brand new paper on "Hybrid Agentic AI and Multi-Agent Systems in Smart Manufacturing" by Moji, Irfan, and I that was just published in the premier Journal of Manufacturing Systems after being fast-tracked at NARMC'26!
[03/10/2026] Excellent defense workshop at the Center for Industry Solutions with great insights from Daryl Powell, Kongsberg Professor from Norway, Riley Heck, incoming graduate student at USC, and Kostas Stylidis, CEO of Intended Future from Sweden.
[03/09/2026] Congrats to Irfan for having his journal paper on 'Blockchain-Empowered Federated Learning Applications in Smart Manufacturing: A Literature Review' accepted in the premier ASME Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering (JCISE) w/ Moji and myself.
[03/10/2026] Organizing a defense workshop at the Center for Industry Solutions with an exciting speaker lineup, incl. Daryl Powell, Kongsberg Professor from Norway, Riley Heck, incoming graduate student at USC, and Kostas Stylidis, CEO of Intended Future from Sweden.
[02/27/2026] Heading to Clemson to give a seminar and talk to the IE students and faculty! Looking forward to strategizing on how to grow IE in the state together.
[01/26/2026] Proud of the team for having received minor/major revisions on all submitted NAMRC 54 papers! It's gonna be great to share the work we have been doing with the community in June!
[for older 'news', see news time machine]
> become part of our team <
> become part of our team <
You are a talented, motivated, and dedicated future Ph.D. student, M.S. student, or Post-Doc and identify yourself with our core research area of Smart Manufacturing? You want to work in a fast paced environment and are interested in being a part of a diverse team engaged in a variety of exciting research projects?
Please fill out this application form introducing yourself, your background, and your research interest and include your CV, references, and publications. Make sure to check our teams' recent publications and projects, and ideally provide first ideas and research questions you plan to explore in greater detail.
short bio
short bio
Dr. Thorsten Wuest is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Director of the Center for Industry Solutions, and Director of Industrial Engineering at the Molinaroli College of Engineering and Computing at the University of South Carolina. His research focusses on Smart and Advanced Manufacturing, AI/ML in manufacturing (incl. Agentic AI, Hybrid Analytics, & Federater Learning), Industry 4.0, Digital Supply Networks, Blockchain, and Product Service Systems. Dr. Wuest's research is funded by a variety of federal agencies (incl. NSF, NIST, DoD, EPA, NIH, CESMII/DoE), international agencies (incl. Thomas Jefferson Fund, DFG, EC, BMBF, etc.), and industry. He is a globally recognized Smart Manufacturing thought leader and one of SME's 20 most influential professors in smart manufacturing. In addition to publishing his work in the premier academic outlets, he was featured by Forbes, Futurism, IndustryWeek, World Economic Forum, CBC Radio, and World Manufacturing Forum, etc. Active in many professional societies, he is a member of IFIP WG 5.1 & 5.7, IFAC TC 5.3, SME, and IISE. Dr. Wuest gave invited talks in more than 10 countries, served on Ph.D. committees in 7 countries, published three award-winning books and over 190 peer-reviewed articles in international archival journals and conferences gathering over 16,600 citations and a h-factor of 50. He served as Vice-Chair Americas for the IFIP WG 5.7, is an Associate Editor for the Robotics & Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (RCIM), ASTM Journal Smart and Sustainable Manufacturing Systems (SSMS), and the International Journal of Manufacturing Research (IJMR), and a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Manufacturing Systems (JMSY) and Production & Manufacturing Research (PMR) and several more. He serves on the Advisory Board for multiple companies and startups, including the Knudsen Institute, Maven Machines, Veepio, and Sustainment. As a dedicated teacher, he taught over ~1,950 undergraduate and graduate students as the instructor of record at WVU and USC to-date.
Dr. Wuest was awarded his Ph.D. in Production Engineering with Summa Cum Laude by the University of Bremen, a Master's in Industrial Engineering and Management and graduated top of the class in the International Business Master's program at the AUT University, New Zealand. He previosuly worked as a research scientist for BIBA - Bremer Institut für Produktion und Logistik GmbH, the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Southern California (USC), and as a tenured Associate Professor and J. Wayne and Kathy Richards Faculty Fellow in Engineering at the Industrial and Management Systems Engineering department, West Virginia University. Furthermore, he worked for Arthur D. Little (Switzerland), ThyssenKrupp Technologies, and the German Federal Armed Forces.
education
education
Ph.D. (Dr.-Ing.) in Production Engineering, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany.
Master of Professional Business Studies (MPBS), AUT University - Business School, Auckland, New Zealand.
Master of Science (Dipl.-Wi.-Ing.) in Industrial Engineering and Management, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany.
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