About Kunal
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The lab is headed by Kunal Masania (CV) and was founded in Jan 2020. Kunal obtained his PhD in Mechanical Engineering on the fracture mechanics of multi-scale composites from Imperial College London, UK in 2010. In 2011 he joined the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, to develop innovative manufacturing of new high-performance materials at industrial scale. In 2015 at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, he turned focus to the development of hierarchical structured materials with inspiration from the natural world using additive manufacturing. His work has been recognised by various prizes such as an ERC Consolidator Grant, MaP Career Seed Award from the ETH Foundation, and JEC Innovation Award.

Our team

Motivated to join us? 
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We continually seek talented, motivated people that are keen to be a part of our research team. A willingness to hang out near the coffee machine and/ or being left-handed is a plus! Researchers at all levels are invited by contacting us.

Post-Doctoral Researchers

Sarah Schyck

 
Mycelium materials
Nanoparticle functionalization
Advanced microscopy techniques

Saurav Sharma

 
Computational Solid Mechanics
Electromechanical Coupling
Active Metamaterials

Chintan Jansari

w/ M. Langelaar & C. Ayas (Mech)
Computational Solid Mechanics
Topology Optimisation
Additive Manufacturing of Composites

Sourav Patranabish

w/ L. Jourdin (Biotech)
Liquid Crystal Polymers
Multi-Axis Printing
Functional Materials

Shardul Bhusari

 
Engineered Living Materials
3D Bioprinting
Mycelium materials

​Winston Lindqwister

w/ M. Lesueur, I. Rocha
Engineered living materials
Multi-scale modelling
Surrogate modelling

Sang-Joon Ahn

 
Additive Manufacturing
Functional Materials
Liquid Crystal Polymers

Amin Hodaei

 
3D Printing of Functional Systems
DNA-of-Things
Materials Chemistry

Hang Yu

w/ G. de Croon
Computer Vision
Vision-based Additive Manufacturing
Robotics

PhD Candidates

Muhamad Amani

w/ ​C. Dransfeld
Topology Optimization
Computer Vision
Artificial Intelligence

Deniz Sayinbas

w/ J. Teuwen
Bio-based composites
Additive manufacturing of composites
Flax fibre-reinforced materials

Natalia Sofia Guevara-Sotelo

w/ J. Teuwen
Living composites
Biomimetic materials
Metamaterials

Zhiyuan Xu

w/ S. Teixeira de Freitas (Uni. Lisb.)
Bio-based epoxy adhesive
​Biomimetic structures
​Composites

Ingo Nettersheim

w/ J. Verdonk (WUR)
Engineered living materials
Bio-based composites
Wood additive manufacturing

Mark Ablonczy

w/ ​B. Kumru
Functional mycelium materials
Engineered wood composites
Bio-inspired material design

Christopher Lankhof

w/ ​C. Dransfeld
Shaping hydrogels
Binder jetting
Living materials

Swaliha Binth Hamza

w/ R. Groves
Optical properties of matter
Optical modelling
NDT methods

Mrinal Chaudhury

w/ C. Carre & C. Weimar (Airbus)
Bio-Based Composites
Eco-Design & Circularity
Aerospace Interior Materials

Alex Luijten

w/ J. Wu
Discrete Metamaterials
Hierarchical Composites
Lightweight Structures

Shanthalakshmi Kilambi

w/ B. Caglar
Physics-Informed Machine Learning
Mathematical Modelling
Artificial Intelligence

Gustavo Asai

w/ J. Morlier & F. Lachaud (ISAE-SUPAERO)
Topology optimization
Computational mechanics
​Eco-design of composites

Jimmy Cheng

w/ J. Jovanova
Adaptive structures modelling
Bio-inspired gripper design
Robotics system integration

Nikon Rooghani-Ochdakan 

w/ J. Teuwen
Bio-based composites
Recombinant proteins
Circular economy

Valentin Lorenzen da Silva 

w/ M. Popescu (MIT)
Fabrication-Aware Segmentation
CNC-Knitting
​Membrane Structures

Tejas Iyer

w/ M. Fotouhi 
Composite Manufacturing
FRP Design
Composite Architectures

Master's Students

Stefan Brunner​

Multi-axis Printing
Topology Optimization
Liquid Crystal Polymers

David Canosa Ybarra

Topology Optimization
Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composites
Additive Manufacturing

Leonard Besse

Dielectrics
Additive Manufacturing
Lens Antennas

Greta Skorupska-Ruiz

Multi-axis printing
Additive manufacturing
Mechatronics

Marco Ferretti

Electric Field Alignment
Short Fiber Reinforcement
Topology Optimization

Matteo Messetti

Kirigami - Shape Morphing Metamaterials
Machine Learning
Additive Manufacturing

Giulia Leda Spinelli

Liquid Crystal Polymers
Space Robotics & Soft Grippers
Additive Manufacturing

Alida Schokker

Engineered Living Materials
Plant Tissue Formation
Cell Wall Biochemistry

Pim van der Molen

Metamaterials
Topology Optimization
Machine Learning

Alumni

Radha Dave

Matas Venckauskas

Chiara Battistelli

Jasper Groen

Kathrin Weiland

Satya Krishna Ammu

Silvan Schai
Mischa Alexander Trüb

Kimon Plaisier

Elijah Downs

Francesco Vinzoni

Napat Tomano

Poorva Shrivastava

Harold Rutten

Wouter van der Sluis

Lorenzo Impelluso

David Beaumann

Caroline Houriet

Evelien Claassen

Chinmayi Narasimha

Boris Ulyanov

Vinay Damodaran

Sander Wildenborg

Shiyun Rahel Tremp

Nick Faber

Chiara Mascolo

Joana Kane