In 2019, the Board of Directors of the Ultrasonic Industry Association (UIA) received and reluctantly accepted the resignation of Board Member Janet Devine. Devine served as president of the UIA from 1997 to 1999. She has also held the position of vice president and was board secretary for many years. In recognition of her long-time service to the UIA and her significant contributions to the ultrasonics industry, the board has awarded her with a Lifetime Honorary Membership in the UIA.

For those who may not be familiar with the UIA, Devine is credited with playing a large role in building the UIA from its roots as a loose alliance of domestic industrial high-power ultrasonic manufacturers into a strong multinational technical association dedicated to expanding technology research and manufacturing applications. Ultrasonics is now a significant assembly method for manufacturing medical, scientific and commercial devices.

Devine’s impact on the ultrasonics Industry goes far beyond her efforts for the UIA. She was born and educated in England and graduated from the prestigious Imperial College of the University of London, with a B.Sc. Degree in Mathematics and Physics. After immigrating to the U.S. in 1959, she joined the predecessor company to Sonobond Inc., which was working on the then nascent concept of using ultrasonic energy for metal welding. She served as the company’s vice president and technical director and a key member of the team that developed and patented the Wedge-Reed System, specifically created for ultrasonic metal welding. It provides strong solid-state metallurgical welds without bending stress or stalling. 

Devine has been an active participant in the development of many of the most significant commercial, medical and industrial systems and applications for ultrasonic metal welding and ultrasonic bonding of nonwovens and synthetic materials, many of which are employed to this day.

In 1990, she was named president of Sonobond Inc., a position she still holds as of this writing, when it was rare for a woman to head an important technology company.

Devine has been awarded multiple patents. She has also authored numerous papers in the field of ultrasonic metal welding, textile bonding, and ultrasonic processing (e.g., extrusion and wire drawing). Several of the papers were presented at UIA Symposia over the years. 

In 1991, she was a member of the committee that authored the chapter on Ultrasonic Welding for Volume 2, Eighth Edition of the American Welding Society’s Welding Handbook. She also authored the chapter on “Ultrasonic Welding” for the ASM International Handbook, Volume 6A‐Welding Fundamentals and Processes, published in November 2011.

As much as, if not more so than these accomplishments and accolades, Devine has had a lasting impact on the technical community through her willingness to give to others her knowledge and insights into the world of ultrasonics. She has always been quick to answer questions and provide information to technologists in the field, even if it is outside of her normal business scope. In this way, she has encouraged the expansion of the application of ultrasonic energy in science, medicine and commerce.