Stephen Holland, associate professor of aerospace engineering and associate director of Iowa State’s Center for Nondestructive Evaluation, has been named a Fellow of the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) class of 2021.
The status of ASNT Fellow is awarded to an individual who has made exceptional contributions to the field of NDE, at least 15 years of professional NDE testing experience, and has been a member of ASNT for no less than 10 years.
Since joining Iowa State in 2006, Holland has made significant contributions to multiple aerospace and NDE research and teaching innovations.
He leads research programs on the forefront of thermal nondestructive evaluation and data integration, all with an aim of making new NDE methods practical for industrial applications.
Holland has made key discoveries about difficult challenges in vibrothermography, including understanding, measuring and controlling the physics and parameters of the vibrothermography test to help increase the method’s reliability. He’s also developed new experimental methods and software tools for creating empirically calibrated physics-based predictions modeling for vibrothermography.
Holland is a pioneer in the area of using computational physical modeling of measurement processes to aid in data interpretation and using “digital twins” for managing NDE data. On this and other work, he’s published 39 refereed journal articles, conference proceedings and book chapters, along with another 48 other conference proceedings. Holland often makes his tools and algorithms available as open-source software, further extending the reach of his research.
His impact in the field of NDE is also evidenced in invitations to participate in editorial boards, standards boards, and other panels. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Nondestructive Evaluation, was a member of the editorial board of Case Studies in Nondestructive Evaluation, and was an independent reviewer of standards drafts for ASTM E3045 – Standard Practice for Crack Detection Using Vibroacoustic Thermography. Holland also served on MForsight Next Generation NDE Workshop panel and as a funded member of the NASA Engineering and Safety Center NDE Technical Discipline Team.
Holland is also an outstanding engineering educator. He designs new hands-on ways to teach in the classroom and lab, improving learning outcomes with interactive techniques like cell-phone based quizzes and self-reflective assignment assessment. And he mentors undergraduate students (44 so far) and graduate students (4 Ph.D. students, with several more soon to graduate, and 7 master’s students) to successful outcomes in industry, government and academia. With an eye to the future of the NDE workforce, Holland is currently renovating nde-ed.org, a worldwide resource for basic explanations of NDE science and technology, and he is the chair of ASNT’s Engineering Council education committee.
“Professor Holland is an extremely valuable, talented and versatile contributor to the aerospace engineering department and to the field of NDE, both in research and education,” said Alric Rothmayer, Vance and Arlene Coffman Endowed Department Chair in Aerospace Engineering. “Stephen is advancing NDE in all he does, whether that’s taking on difficult challenges to improve NDE techniques, leading in NDE organizations, or ensuring that the next-generation of NDE engineers receive effective education and training.”
Holland received a Ph.D. in theoretical and applied mechanics from Cornell University and a B.S. in electrical engineering from Cornell University. After completing his degrees, he held a postdoctoral research position in the Iowa State University Center for Nondestructive Evaluation.