Keynotes Sponsor:
Monday, November 9, 11:10am - 12:10pm
Mattia Giustiniano
Senior Vice President, West Product Development & Motorsport
Bridgestone
Keynote Title: Data-Driven Dynamics: Modernizing Mobility Systems Through Advanced Simulation and Analytics
Biography: Mattia Giustiniano serves as Senior Vice President, West Product Development & Motorsport at Bridgestone, a global leader in premium tires and sustainable mobility solutions. With a presence across major markets worldwide, Bridgestone delivers advanced tire technologies and mobility solutions for passenger, commercial, and motorsport applications, supporting safer, more efficient, and more sustainable mobility.
In his role, Mr. Giustiniano leads product development and motorsport activities across Europe and the Americas. He also oversees Bridgestone’s Technical Centers in both regions, driving innovation, engineering excellence, and the development of next-generation mobility solutions.
A Mechanical Engineer with a Ph.D. in Automotive Engineering, Mr. Giustiniano has spent more than 23 years with Bridgestone, holding leadership positions across research, advanced development, product engineering, and technical management.
Throughout his career, he has worked across the entire innovation spectrum, from fundamental research and technology development to product industrialization, contributing to the advancement of tire technologies for both consumer and motorsport applications.
His international experience spans Europe, North America, and Japan, providing him with a unique perspective on the opportunities and challenges of leading global engineering organizations. A strong advocate for cross-cultural collaboration, he firmly believes that innovation thrives when diverse perspectives, experiences, and ways of thinking are brought together. Throughout his career, he has worked to bridge cultural differences across global teams, fostering environments where technical excellence, mutual trust, and open collaboration can flourish.
Under his leadership, Bridgestone's Technical Centers in Europe and the Americas have accelerated their digital transformation journey, becoming industry leaders in tire modeling and virtual product development. By combining the rigor of scientific research and experimental validation with the speed and flexibility enabled by advanced simulation, digital engineering, artificial intelligence, and data-driven methodologies, he has helped transform the way tires are designed, developed, and validated.
Mr. Giustiniano is the holder of numerous patents and intellectual property assets and has been a frequent keynote speaker and contributor at international conferences and industry events in the fields of automotive engineering, mobility, and motorsport. Throughout his career, he has also led and supported several technological innovation and sustainable mobility initiatives, both within Bridgestone and through collaborative European research programs focused on the future of transportation. His work has consistently focused on translating scientific advances into practical engineering solutions that improve performance, safety, efficiency, and environmental sustainability.
Passionate about the future of mobility, he is particularly interested in the intersection of advanced engineering, digital transformation, sustainable technologies, artificial intelligence, and motorsport as a platform for accelerating innovation.
Tuesday, November 10, 11:10am - 12:10pm
Keynote Panel: Engineering in the Age of AI: Opportunities, Risks, and Responsibilities
Description: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is emerging as a disruptive tool that is impacting mechanical engineering profession. Once-complex tasks are becoming increasingly simple, but often at the cost of integrity and transparency. Once-insurmountable problems now seem solvable, but come with hidden caveats. As AI transforms how we design, build, and test mechanical systems, it brings unprecedented challenges and opportunities to the workforce. Our expert panel will unpack the real-world impact of AI across ME disciplines—from the evolution of daily engineering tasks to the critical aspects of design, safety, security, and professional ethics in an automated era.
Panelist
Mr. Mark Lamoncha
President and CEO
Humtown Products
Biography:Mark Lamoncha is President and CEO of Humtown Products, a third-generation family-owned advanced manufacturer in Columbiana, Ohio, and the 2026 U.S. Small Business Administration National Small Business Person of the Year. Under his leadership, Humtown grew from a traditional pattern shop into a national leader in 3D-printed sand cores and molds for the foundry industry. An inventor, author, and TEDx speaker, Mark patented the Visual Earnings System™, which carries data from the quote through the plant’s control systems to show each operator their earning rate in real time, cycle by cycle. That feedback has produced productivity gains of up to tenfold on some jobs and cut scrap rates from as high as 10 percent to as low as 2 percent. Humtown is now testing camera-based AI that suggests movement improvements to operators. Mark believes the best results come when the intelligence in the machine meets the intelligence in the people running it. He is co-author of The Industrial Athlete Operating System.
Panelist
Dr. James Hemsath
Managing Director and Senior Consultant
IntegrityOne, LLC
Biography: Dr. James R. Hemsath, a licensed professional engineer and ASME member since 1976, is Member at Large (Programs) on the ASME Management Division Executive Committee. He earned his degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan. A retired engineer and executive with more than 45 years of experience in engineering, project management and economic development, he holds a doctorate in business administration and teaches management and leadership at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Over the last year, Jim has been integrating AI into the classroom with specific attention to the ethics of its use. Recently at the University of Alaska Statewide Symposium on AI, he sat on the Ethics of Generative AI where his remarks have informed the University Advisory Council's planning. He will present on Ethics, Technology and the Human Question at IMECE 2026. In addition to his role in the Management Division, Jim is a member of the executive board of the INSciTS (International Network for the Science of Team Science) and a member of the UAA College of Engineering Advisory Board.
Panelist
Dr. Diana Andra Borca Tasciuc
Professor of Mechanical, Aerospace, & Nuclear Engineering
Associate Dean, Undergraduate Studies, School of Engineering
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
Biography: Diana-Andra Borca-Tasciuc is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the School of Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). She earned her B.S. in Physics from the University of Bucharest and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles. She joined RPI as a faculty member following her doctoral studies and has since contributed to the institution through teaching, research, and academic leadership. Dr. Borca-Tasciuc is actively engaged in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), currently serving as Vice-Chair of the ASME Heat Transfer Division Executive Committee and Associate Editor of the ASME Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer. Her honors include the Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools Faculty Teaching Award, RPI's Classroom and Research Excellence Awards, a Fulbright Scholar Award, and the NSF CAREER Award. Her research focuses on thermal transport, energy conversion, microsystems, and nanoengineering, with applications in energy harvesting and sustainable technologies. As an educator and academic leader, she brings a perspective on engineering education, faculty engagement, and the opportunities and challenges of integrating artificial intelligence into higher education while preparing the next generation of engineers to effectively leverage AI in their professional careers.
Panelist
Dr. Siddiq Qidwai
Section Head, Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation Section
National Science Foundation
Biography: Siddiq Qidwai is a Section Head of one of the two Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation Sections in the Directorate for Engineering at the US National Science Foundation (NSF). Before joining NSF, he was a Section Head (acting) in the Materials Science & Technology Division of the US Naval Research Laboratory. Qidwai received his PhD in aerospace engineering from Texas A&M University. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and US National Association for Computational Mechanics (USACM). At NSF, Qidwai is a member of a Foundation-wide team that is working on the Future of Intelligence Frontier Initiative in response to the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s report on Science, A New Golden Age. This initiative acknowledges the disruptive impact of Super Intelligence on both research and education, the twin cardinal aspects of NSF's mission, and the need to immediately start working on the next transformative way forward.
Thursday, November 12, 12:00pm - 1:30pm
John Ustica
President & Chief Executive Officer
Siemens Government Technologies
Keynote Title: Clarity at the Speed of Change: How Engineers Turn Complexity into Advantage
Biography: John Ustica is the President & CEO of Siemens Government Technologies (SGT), Inc., the separate but affiliated U.S. government arm of technology powerhouse Siemens. With project teams throughout the U.S. and overseas, SGT is a cleared provider of Siemens products, technologies, and software to solve some of the most complex government challenges in energy, automation, and digitalization. In his role as CEO, Mr. Ustica leads a dynamic project-focused organization working on transformative initiatives that are unlocking new levels of energy resiliency and digital transformation across military bases and depots, helping federal agencies deploy product lifecycle management software tools and digital twins connecting the real and virtual worlds to optimize operations, predict outcomes more accurately, and reduce overall costs. Mr. Ustica has more than 25 years’ experience with Siemens, serving customers around the world, recognized for his unique depth of blended technical and operational knowledge of the Siemens advanced technology portfolio. Honored for his contributions to local communities and industry, he has been recognized as Public Company CFO of the Year in 2021 and CEO of the Year in 2025 by WashingtonExec, and is a four-time winner of the Wash100 Award organized by the media and events company Executive Mosaic, given annually to those executives who distinguish themselves for their thought leadership, vision, commitment, innovation, and contributions to the broader government contracting community. He serves on the board of directors for Tri-Tool Inc., the Northern Virginia Technology Council, and the Professional Services Council.
Mr. Ustica holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Rollins College and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree in finance from the University of Central Florida.