Dr. William Bernstein is a Mechanical Engineer in the Systems Integration Division (SID) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). He leads the Extended Digital Thread (EDT) project as part of the Model-Based Enterprise (MBE) Program. In 2019, Dr. Bernstein launched the Digital Information Visualization and Exploration (DIVE) Lab to support research into smart manufacturing systems with an emphasis on deriving actionable knowledge from manufacturing data through advanced visualization modalities. He contributes to standards focused on integrating manufacturing and design knowledge to connect the “digital thread” between these two areas. Dr. Bernstein holds a PhD and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University as well as a BS in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Bernstein has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles and has been awarded a US patent with another patent application in review. He has received multiple honors and awards including, most notably, the 2019 ASME Computers in Engineering (CIE) Young Engineer Award and will receive the Department of Commerce (DOC) Bronze Medal Award in December 2020. Dr. Bernstein co-chairs the AME ManTech Subpanel Working Group on Digital Information Visualization (DIV), chairs the NIST-internal Extended Reality (XR) Community of Interest (COI), and serves on the ASME Design for Manufacturing and the Life Cycle (DFMLC) Technical Committee.

Dr. Bernstein's current research interests include Smart Manufacturing, Digital Enterprise, Sustainable Design, Data-driven Manufacturing, Product Lifecycle Management, Visual Analytics, and Information Visualization.