Mr. Michael Childers, ASNT Director, Board of Directors, and current Vice-Chair of the Advocacy Committee for ASNT.

Mr. Childers is an accomplished member of the Natural Gas Industry with over 30 years’ experience and is the senior appointed American Gas Association (AGA) voting member for the American Petroleum Institute (API), representing the American Gas Association. Mr. Childers is past Chair of the API/AGA Joint Industry Committee; API 1104, Co-author of the API RP 1169 Pipeline Construction Inspection International Certification Test, Chair of the API RP 5MT, Recipient of the 2025 American Petroleum Institute, Hilton Prejean Mentorship Award, and Chair of the recently created API: American Gas Association Pipeline Operators Committee (APOC).

Dr. V.R. Krishnan is an accomplished Materials Technologies Consultant with over four decades of experience in welding, materials selection, corrosion, and related engineering services across industries such as oil & gas, petrochemicals, power, and infrastructure. He holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (Underwater Welding) from IIT Delhi, an M.S. in Industrial Metallurgy (Welding Technology) and a B.Tech. in Metallurgy from IIT Madras. He currently serves as an Independent Consultant and Subject Matter Expert for organizations like GAIL, IGL, MNGL, BPCL, Reliance, and EY India, and is Chairman of the Centre of Excellence for Welding at TISS, Mumbai. Previously, he held senior positions at Engineers India Limited, including Executive Director and Head of Materials & Welding Technology. He is a Fellow or Member of several professional bodies such as IIW, IIM, ISNT, and NACE, and has served in leadership roles including Chairman of IIW Delhi, Vice President of IWS, and Chairman of BIS Welding Applications Committee. He has been a keynote speaker at international conferences, a visiting professor and examiner at IITs/NITs, and recipient of multiple Lifetime Achievement Awards for his contribution to welding and materials engineering.

Tom Meulendijks is a Dutch entrepreneur and technologist best known as the founder and CEO of SteelTrace B.V., a company he established in July 2017 in Maastricht, Netherlands. SteelTrace is a digital platform that utilizes blockchain and cloud computing to enhance transparency, traceability, and efficiency in the steel supply chain, particularly for the chemical and petrochemical industries. Tom was previously co-founder of Mediablenders and The Euregio Tech meetup. His educational background includes a Bachelor's degree in Communication and Media Studies from Zuyd University and is a self taught programmer.

Dr. Nithin Puthiyaveettil is a research scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, specializing in structural integrity and advanced NDE technologies within the nuclear sector. With a PhD from Center for Non-Destructive Evaluation (CNDE) at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, his work bridges fundamental research and industrial applications in NDE. His expertise spans a wide spectrum of inspection techniques including ultrasound, infrared thermography, terahertz imaging, laser-based diagnostics, and computed tomography. Currently, he is significantly engaged in the development of NDT 4.0 solutions, integrating machine learning and real-world inspection applications. His contributions extend to online monitoring of high-temperature manufacturing processes such as casting, welding etc, multi-physics simulations, signal processing, and the digital transformation of inspection systems. With over 10 years of NDT research experience, Nithin has published in peer-reviewed journals, presented at international conferences, and currently reviews manuscripts for scholarly publications.

Jason Riggs is the Vice President, Quality and Technical Services at Marmon Rail (a Berkshire Hathaway Company) where he and his exceptional team of leading industry experts manage the QA and technical programs for the Marmon Rail subsidiaries of Union Tank Car Company, Procor Limited and Transco Railway Products. He has performed various quality, technical, operational, management and engineering related roles. Jason possesses 33 years of experience in the NDT profession, with most of his time in the rail industry and several years in the oil/gas, petrochemical, structural steel and aerospace industries. He has served on numerous AAR, ASNT, RSI and DOT regulatory and industry committees. Jason is the Vice President of ASNT, is a trustee for the ASNT Foundation and the Chair of the ASNT Advocacy and Legislative Affairs Committees. He is a graduate of the Lone Star College NDT & Materials Science Program and holds and ASNT NDT Level III in UT, MT, PT & VT as well as an AWS – Certified Welding Inspector and Educator..

Chandra Shekhar Prasad is a seasoned professional with 33 years of experience in aircraft maintenance and non-destructive testing (NDT). He holds qualifications as an ASNT Level 3 in ET, UT, PT, and MT, an EN4179 Level 3 in ET, UT, PT, and MT, and is a certified Aircraft Maintenance Engineer (AME) by DGCA India. He also holds a B.Sc. and AMIAE (Auto) credentials, and is certified by DGCA for NDT. Currently, he is the General Manager at GMR Aerotechnic, RGI Airport, Hyderabad. His extensive career includes roles as Vice President at Magnum Aviation, Delhi; Manager Workshop at Etihad Airways, Abu Dhabi; Manager (Head of Workshops) at Jet Airways, Delhi; and NDT Engineer positions at Airworks India and East West Airline in Mumbai.ence Program and holds and ASNT NDT Level III in UT, MT, PT & VT as well as an AWS – Certified Welding Inspector and Educator.

Dr. Srinivas Kuchipudi is a Scientist G and Deputy Technology Director at DRDO's Directorate of R & QA, Advanced Systems Laboratory in Hyderabad, India. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Osmania University, Hyderabad, with 24 years of research experience in material characterization and non-destructive evaluation of composite structures, specializing in Solid State NMR, Microwave NDE, Thermography, and Ultrasonics. He has received numerous awards, including the DRDO Technology Group Award (2008), AGNI Award for Excellence in Self-Reliance (2011), and DRDO Titanium Medal (2012). Dr. Kuchipudi serves as a research guide for Ph.D. and Master's students at Osmania University, NIT Warangal, JNTU, and NIT Tadepalli, guiding 3 Ph.D. and 6 Master's students, with 4 additional Ph.D. students currently under his mentorship. He has published 65 international and 58 national and conference papers.

Prof. Badheka, a Metallurgical Engineering graduate from The M.S. University of Baroda, holds a Bachelor's, Master's, and Ph.D. in Metallurgical Engineering and a Diploma of International Welding Engineer from the International Institute of Welding (2011). He is currently a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Dean of Academic Affairs at Pandit Deendayal Energy University (PDEU), Gandhinagar, India. His research focuses on advanced welding processes including Narrow Gap Welding, Friction Stir Welding, Friction Welding of dissimilar pipes, and Activated TIG welding of critical steels. He has successfully completed eight sponsored R&D projects funded by agencies like DST, ISRO, DRDO, and DAE, and has supervised 40 M.Tech and 13 Ph.D. scholars. Prof. Badheka has over 150 international journal publications, 100 conference presentations, two Indian patents, and has edited books published by CRC Press. A member of numerous professional societies including IIW, ISNT, AWS, and IIM, he also chairs the IIW-PDEU student chapter and represents India as a Young Professional Volunteer at IIW. His accolades include the Dr. Vikram Sarabhai Award (2009-10), Best Paper Awards by IIW, National Technical Teacher’s Award by AICTE (2022), and the DST-TARE Award (2022).

Paul Lang is the Chief Global Strategy Officer for the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) and Executive Director for ASNT Certification Services LLC (ASNT CS). He oversees all ASNT certification, accreditation, and standards activities with a shared vision of strengthening and expanding ASNT’s global presence through its portfolio of products and services. Lang served 21 years in the US Navy, retiring as a Chief Warrant Officer. He has led engineering departments, intermediate repair facilities, and served as a local government inspector performing repair and NDT oversight for the US Navy. He also led training and audit teams that provided training and rigorous evaluation of the Navy’s engineering operations and quality assurance programs. After retiring from the Navy, Lang joined an internationally renowned insurance and inspection company providing risk assessments on facilities of various industry sectors such as power generation and large manufacturing along with supervising a regional jurisdictional inspection force for in-service boiler and pressure equipment. He joined ASME in December 2013 as Director of Audit & Inspections and moved to lead the technical aspects of all ASME Conformity Assessment Certification programs in 2016, recently overseeing all engineering operations and services activities." Paul joined ASNT in 2022.

Florian Knigge joined Waygate in 2010 as a software engineer for x-ray and computed tomography. After several roles in application & technical sales, he moved to his current role as product manager for Waygate’s software offering in the radiography systems business. He holds a diploma and master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover, Germany.

Dr. Jai Dev Chandel is heading operations as Senior Vice President (Operations) at Jindal SAW Ltd., Samaghogha, India large diameter facility. This facility consists of 1500+ employees and produces SAWL, SAWH large diameter line pipe of CS ranging from 16” to 120” diameter, connector casing, Hot Induction bends.
He was responsible for SS welded pipes diameter ranging from 10” to 72” and SS seamless ranging from 33.4 mm to 88.9 mm of various grades from beginning to Oct 2022. This location has facility of Clad pipes diameter ranging from 6” to 42” through weld overlay route for Oil and Gas and water transportation industry.
This facility is also having anti-corrosion and internal flow coating namely 3LPE, 3LPP, Dual Layer Fusion Bond Epoxy and internal Fusion Bond Epoxy coating.
His responsibility includes emphasis on environment, Health and Safety as well as productivity improvement by identifying the area for growth through product development, modification and technology up gradation to enhance the productivity and increment in the product quality.
He did his doctorate work on API ultra high strength steel line pipe manufacturing. He published various Research and Developmental publications in national and international Journals. The research work on line pipe particularly the J-C-O-E forming process and welding metallurgy of line pipe steel and its weld.