Megan McGovern

Biography

Dr. Megan McGovern is a Staff Researcher at General Motors Research and Development in the Materials and Manufacturing Systems Research Lab. She joined GM in 2016 and uses her NDE skillset to provide automotive manufacturing solutions to internal customers. She leads research projects to develop inline manufacturing inspection systems, crucial for first-time quality.  Her research interests include nondestructive evaluation (NDE) of materials, components, and structures, process monitoring, and inline manufacturing NDE.  Dr. McGovern received a Bachelor’s in General Engineering (Acoustics), and Master’s and Doctorate degrees in Systems Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.  Dr. McGovern is active in various professional societies and is a licensed Professional Engineer. She has 10 patents and 29 peer-reviewed journal articles, two of which received the Outstanding Paper awards. In 2022, she received the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) Research Innovation and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Awards. In 2023, she received the Boss Kettering Award, GM’s highest award for recognizing technical inventions and innovations. In 2024, she was the inaugural recipient of the Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering Young Alumni Excellence award from University of Illinois.