Team

Kunal Masania

About Kunal

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 the MaP Career Seed Award from the ETH Foundation, JEC Innovation Award and nominated best Academic/Research Team in the 3D printing industry awards.

Vinay Damodaran

Post Doctoral Reseacher

Liquid Crystal Polymers
Topology and lamination optimisation
Multi-physics modeling

Caroline Houriet

PhD candidate

Liquid Crystal Polymers
Bioinspiration
Free-form Manufacturing

Satya Ammu

PhD candidate

Functional materials
4D printing

Muhamad Amani

PhD candidate

Topology Optimization
Computer Vision
Artificial Intelligence

Hao Wang

Visiting PhD candidate

Bio-inspired composite material
Freeze casting
3D printing

Kevin Kruger

Researcher

Bio-Inspired composites
Natural composites
Direct ink writing

Shashank Amin

MSc student

Topology Optimization
Stress Line AM

Guillermo Presa

MSc student

Automated assembly
Digital materials
Collective robots

Boris Ulyanov

MSc student

Liquid crystal polymers
Biomimetics
Composites

Sowrabh Shetty

MSc student

Natural composites
Bio-inspiration

Mihai Fetecau

BSc honours student

Topology optimisation
Bio-inspired composites
Additive manufacturing

Linde Spoelstra

MSc student

Topology optimisation
Bio-based composites
3D printing

Sander Wildenborg

MSc student

3D printing
Liquid crystal polymers
morphing structures

Motivated to join us?

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.