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Kunal Masania

Principal Investigator
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 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

PhD candidate
Bio-inspired composite material
Freeze casting
3D printing

Ji Cheng

PhD candidate
Discrete lattice structures
Robotics
Machine learning

Mark Ablonczy

Researcher
Fungi materials
Living materials
Self-healing materials

Ranjan Gaur

MSc student
Liquid Crystal Polymers
Laminate optimisation
​Topology optimization

Shashank Amin

MSc student
Topology Optimization
​Stress Line AM

Berend van Leengoed 

MSc student
Liquid Crystal Polymers
Topology Optimization
​Permeability Testing

Kevin Kruger

MSc student
​Bio-Inspired
Natural Composite
Direct Ink Writing

Sungi Han

MSc student
Stress aligned AM
Long fibre plastics
Large scale AM, Robotic AM

Boris Ulyanov

MSc student
Liquid crystal polymers
Biomimetics
Composites

Sowrabh Shetty

MSc student
Natural composites
Bio-inspired

Stefano Morese

MSc student- Erasmus exchange
​Smart materials
4D-printing
Self-healing materials

Linde Spoelstra

MSc student
Topology otpimisation
Bio-based composites
3D printing

Mihai Fetecau

BSc honours student
Topology otpimisation
Bio-inspired composites
Additive manufacturing

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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.

Alumni

Chiara Mascolo

Lead Materials Engineer, NematX, CH

Camille Daganaud

Packaging Materials Performance, Nestlé, CH

Joana Kane

Mechanical Engineering Master Student, University of Patras, GR

Nick Faber

Structural Engineer, Lightyear, NL

Lars Nilsen

Head of Integral Planning Cell (IPC) Helicopter Type-Unrelated Equipment, NL

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