Platt is the Founder and CEO of Branch Technology who practiced as an award winning architect for 15 years prior to leaving a partnership three years ago to found Branch. His fascination with natural beauty and amazing structures led to the initiation of a new technology using freeform 3D printing combined with conventional materials to robotically prefabricate architectural assemblies with resource stewardship and unprecedented design freedom. The Cellular Fabrication (C-FAB™) method takes its cues from proven methods observed in nature, where material use is minimized, but form is free to become almost anything. Branch has evolved from an idea to a global leader in large scale 3D printing, having produced the largest 3D printed pavilions in the world in 2016. They have received awards ranging from Inc, Dezeen, and the publishers of Architect Magazine to the State of Tennessee where they are located. They are working with the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and corporate partnerships to further develop the technology to produce load bearing composite walls used for homes and commercial facades.

Michael Case is a Program Manager at the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL), US Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC). As a Program Manager, he oversees the development and execution of new research and development programs, from concept to technology transition. He currently leads the Automated Construction of Expeditionary Structures (ACES) program that has developed a “concrete printer” to print custom-designed, expeditionary structures, on-demand, in the field, using locally available features. The ACES program printed a Guard Shack at ERDC-CERL in the summer of 2016 and finished printing the walls of a 16’ x 32’ barracks hut on June 27, 2017. Recent awards include the 2016 GreenGov Presidential and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Awards for Green Innovation, 2016 ERDC-CERL Researcher of the Year, a Department of the Army 2016 Civilian Achievement Medal for work on ACES, and the 2016 ASHRAE Best Paper award for work on community energy planning. Dr. Case earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois in 1994 and Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University in 1980.

Ms. Megan Kreiger is a Mechanical Engineer at the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL), US Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC). Ms. Kreiger’s current and recent work include a heavy focus on the research and development of an innovative large-scale additive manufacturing approach to the construction of contingency structures. She currently is the Additive Manufacturing lead on the Automated Construction of Expeditionary Structures (ACES) program where she is a lead in the design, build, and operation of multiple large-scale printers. The ACES team recently completed the print of a 16′ x 32′ building on June 27, 2017 and a 6′ x 6′ building the previous summer. Ms. Kreiger attended Michigan Technological University where she earned her Master’s degree in Materials Science & Engineering with a thesis focused on additive manufacturing under Dr. Joshua Pearce in 2012, a graduate certificate in Sustainable Futures in 2012, and Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics in 2009.

Simon’s professional career as an Industrial Designer includes four years at Fisher & Paykel Ltd. in New Zealand where he contributed to the design and development of home appliances, as well as their first healthcare products in the then newly established Healthcare Division. This was followed by more than twenty years in Europe at the highly regarded Porsche Design Studio, where he designed a wide range of consumer and capital products for major international clients. He was appointed Assistant Design Director at Porsche Design in 1997. In 2001 Simon joined the VUW School of Design as the founding Program Director of Industrial Design. He took over as Head of School in December 2006 until 2013 and was subsequently appointed to a three year term as the Associate Dean (Research & Innovation) for the Faculty of Architecture and Design. Simon is also currently a Principle Investigator (Design and Additive Manufacturing) for the New Zealand Product Accelerator; an Associate Director/Principle Investigator for the Technology Platform/Design & Manufacturing in the Medical Technologies Centre of Research Excellence MedTech CoRE; a Principal Investigator for National Science Challenge#7/Science for Technological Innovation, Portfolio 5: Materials, Manufacturing Processes and Applications/Spearhead project: Additive manufacturing and 3D and/or 4D printing of bio-composites.

Dr. Frank W. Gayle is the Deputy Director of the Office of Advanced Manufacturing at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NIST’s Office of Advanced Manufacturing is responsible for extramural advanced manufacturing programs and serves as a liaison to industry and academia. The interagency Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office coordinates Federal activities in advanced manufacturing, and is the Congressionally-designated National Program Office for Manufacturing USA – the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation. Frank spent 11 years in the aerospace industry before joining NIST. As Division Chief of the NIST Metallurgy Division, Frank developed programs in energy, microelectronics, and mechanical properties, focusing on measurement needs for industry. Frank also led the team of technical experts on the forensics of structural steel in the Congressionally mandated NIST investigation of the World Trade Center disaster on September 11, 2001. Frank earned an Sc.D. in Materials Science from MIT, and degrees in Civil and Mechanical Engineering from Duke University.

Dr. Deborah J. Goodings is the Director of the Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation in the Directorate for Engineering at the National Science Foundation. The Division invests in research that advances knowledge to enable manufacturing, design and use of engineering materials, and building technologies across scales from nanometers to kilometers; to improve the resilience and sustainability of the nation’s civil infrastructure, including reduction of risk and damage from natural and human-induced disasters; and to expand theory in engineering mathematics, engineering decision-making, and systems control and engineering. Deborah is detailed to NSF from her position as Dewberry Chair Professor of Civil Engineering, and Chair of the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering at George Mason University. Before joining George Mason, Deborah held a faculty appointment in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maryland for nearly 30 years. Deborah earned her Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto and her Ph.D. in Geotechnical Engineering at Cambridge University. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers; a Diplomate, Geotechnical Engineering; and a registered professional engineer.

Rob Gorham is the Executive Director of America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute at the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining. He previously served as the Director of Operations and Deputy Director of Technology Development where he was responsible for development of the America Makes roadmap and technology investment strategy. Prior to joining America Makes, he was Senior Manager of the Manufacturing Exploration and Development group at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics – Advanced Development Programs, also known as The Skunk Works. In this position, Rob was responsible for leading the transition-focused development and application of affordable manufacturing technologies for Lockheed Martin. He holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Texas A&M University and an M.S. in Engineering Management from Southern Methodist University.

Dr. Scott Z. Jones graduated from University of Maryland Baltimore with a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 2016. He is currently the project leader of the Additive Manufacturing with Cement-based Materials at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Scott’s project is focused on developing test methods and measurement techniques to assess the integrity of structures fabricated with cementitious materials by additive construction methods. He is the chair of the American Concrete Institute’s Additive Manufacturing task group.

Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis is a Dean’s Professor of engineering at University of Southern California and is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and a member of the EU Academy of Sciences. Through his inventive research activities, he has made many useful inventions and innovations in different domains including robotics, haptics, biomedical, oil and gas, renewable energy, fabrication, construction and space systems. Contour Crafting, his automated construction which was invented two decades ago, was the first large scale 3D printing technology and is regarded as a promising approach for terrestrial building construction and planetary construction of human outposts. A prestigious NASA organization awarded Contour Crafting the Grand Prize of the Create the Future Design Contest among 1000+ globally competing technologies. In 2016, another invention of Khoshnevis, SSS, received the top NASA prize in an international competition on in-space fabrication technologies. Dr. Khoshnevis has nearly 200 technical publications, and holds over 100 U.S. and international patents. He has developed products that help people worldwide. He is a NASA Innovative Advanced Concept Fellow, a Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineering, and a Fellow of the Society for Computer Simulation. He was recognized in 2016 by the Connected World magazine as one of ten pioneers in the Internet of Things (IoT).

Dr. Didier Lootens is a Physico-Chemist leading the Department of Material Physics in the Central Research of Sika Technology, Zurich, Switzerland, responsible of the modernization of the laboratory technologies in 35 countries. He received his MSc in Physico- Chemistry from the Ecole Supérieure de Physique and Chimie Paris and his PhD from the University of Pierre et Marie Curie. His research interests include supplementary cementitious materials, formulation and characterization of grout, mortar and 3D printed concrete for the control of their early age properties such as rheology, volume change, or strength development.

An Architect, Designer, Inventor and Associate Professor based at the MIT Media Lab, Neri Oxman pioneered the area of Material Ecology, which considers form generation, manufacturing, the environment, and the material itself as inseparable dimensions of design. Oxman’s team—The Mediated Matter Group—operates at the intersection of computational design, digital fabrication, materials science, and synthetic biology; and applies that knowledge to design across scales and disciplines, from micro to building scale. Oxman’s work is included in permanent collections at MoMA, SFMOMA, Centre Pompidou, MFA, The Smithsonian Institution, and more. Her awards include the Silicon Valley Forum Visionary Award, the Vilcek Prize in Design, the BSA Women in Design Award, and Carnegie’s Pride of America. Oxman’s work has resulted in more than 100 papers and patents and her innovations have received recognition at the World Economic Forum where she is part of the Expert Network, and the White House.

Julian Leland is a graduate research assistant in the Mediated Matter Group at the MIT Media Lab, where he currently leads the Digital Construction Platform project. His research interests span robotics, manufacturing and mechanical design. At Mediated Matter, his work focuses on creating open, reconfigurable systems to support research in automated construction. Previously, he developed cable-driven robotic arms, manipulators and rehabilitation systems at Barrett Technology, and researched self-scaling manufacturing systems and public policy for global development engineering as an undergraduate at Swarthmore College.

Dr. Brian K. Post is an associate research staff member and technical lead for large scale polymer AM systems development with the Manufacturing Systems Research Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF). His research at the MDF includes the development of large scale additive manufacturing processes capable of producing large parts (8’ x 20’x 6’, 1000+lb) at rates 1000x faster than current commercially available systems. This system was utilized to print the world’s first 3D printed car, the Strati, and the ORNL 3D Printed Shelby Cobra. The process has been commercialized by Cincinnati Incorporated and has been used for composite tools and parts for aerospace, mass transit, automotive, marine and offshore, and construction applications. Other projects include the utilization of additive manufacturing systems to develop novel robotic technologies, including underwater manipulation systems, and prosthetic applications. Dr. Post received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical engineering from Purdue University at West Lafayette, Indiana, with a focus in surgical robotics. Brian attended graduate school at Georgia Tech earning a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering.

Kristy Pottol is the Federal Program Manager for the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute for advanced tissue biofabrication, part of the Manufacturing USA network. Kristy is the Project Manager and Director of the Tissue Injury and Regenerative Medicine Project Management Office (TIRM PMO) at the US Army Medical Materiel Development Activity, Ft Detrick, MD. The TIRM PMO is responsible for developing and delivering innovative products to restore form, function, and appearance for wounded warriors who have suffered catastrophic injuries. The project efforts range across many Defense-related regenerative medicine, prosthetics, and sensory projects spanning skin repair, extremity injury, craniomaxillofacial injury, vascularized composite allotransplantation (hand and face transplants), genitourinary injury, hearing loss, and assistive technologies. Kristy is a certified Defense Acquisition Professional Program Management Level 3 and Project Management Professional (PMP). She has worked in project management, biotechnology product development, FDA quality systems, business operations, and strategic communications for over 15 years and has an extensive and varied background in product development projects for militarily-relevant medical solutions from vaccines to devices. She spent six years in service, in the US Navy and Army National Guard. She holds an MBA from Regis University, a MSc in Accounting with an emphasis on Information Systems from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and a BS in Physics with an emphasis in biophysics from East Carolina University.

Dr. Zofia Rybkowski joined Texas A&M University with degrees from Stanford, Brown, Harvard, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and UC Berkeley, where she earned her PhD. She has a highly interdisciplinary background which includes biology (MS, BS), architecture (MArch), and civil engineering (PhD, MS, MPhil), and which facilitates engagement in interdisciplinary research, dialoging in the nomenclature of the fields with which she partners. Her goal is to improve the quality of the built environment at a cost that is economically feasible. This has motivated her to research topics as seemingly diverse as evidence-based design for healthcare facilities, life cycle cost analysis, target value design, simulation development for Lean-Integrated Project Delivery, and most recently, the development of innovative, self-regulated building skins made from smart materials, which she is investigating under a recent EAGER award from the National Science Foundation. She is the Principal Investigator of the interdisciplinary team of four co-PIs including: Tahir Cagin, PhD (material science and engineering), Ergun Akleman, PhD (visualization and computer science), Terry Creasy, PhD (material science and engineering), and Negar Kalantar, PhD (architecture). The team is working with both graduate and undergraduate student teams to realize prototypes; 3D printing is one of several methods aiding their exploration.

Dr. Negar Kalantar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture at Texas A&M University. Her research and practice lies at the intersection of architecture, science and engineering. She has collaborated with firms in Dubai, Chicago, and New York, including SOM and Gensler. By bringing together digital and analog fabrication work-flows across scales, her interdisciplinary research practice broadly investigates the potency of transformable design principles, helping to create adaptive designs, building components and architecture that are adaptable and demonstrate real-time morphological changes into environment. Her current research focuses on applications of additive manufacturing technology (3D printing) as a catalyst of innovation, in order to expand new ways of design in interactive and responsive environments. The outcome of a decade of experience in developing adaptive design was presented at Technical University of Vienna and Berlin, Maryland University, Tehran University, Virginia Tech and New York 3Dprint SHOW.

Theo Salet is a full Professor in the Department of the Build Environment, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and visiting Professor at the Singapore Centre of 3D Printing (SC3DP) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He combines these positions with a partnership at the consulting engineering firm Witteveen+Bos. During his professional career, he worked on the design of underground buildings and large scale prefabricated tunnels and bridges like the North South metro line in Amsterdam, the Oresund link between Denmark and Sweden, and the Confederation bridge in Canada. He is a member of the board of the Dutch Concrete Association and the chairman of Stufib, the Dutch Association of Structural Engineers in Concrete Structures. His main topic of research is 3D printing of concrete structures, including innovative design, materials testing and numerical modelling of both print process and hardened printed components. He studied structural engineering and obtained his Doctorate of Philosophy from Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands.

Dr. Florence Sanchez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Vanderbilt University. Her research activities are aimed at addressing challenges related to durability, resilience, and sustainable development of infrastructure materials. Her professional service activities include Chair of the American Ceramic Society’s Cements Division (2009-2010); Organizer and Program Chair of the 2nd Advances in Cement-based Materials of the American Ceramic Society’s Cements Division meeting (2011), Organizer and Chair of the NSF funded US-Poland Workshop on Multiscale Computational Modeling of Cementitious Materials (October 2012) and NSF funded 3D Cement Printing workshop (July 2015); Associate Editor, ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering (2013-present); Appointed Member of the Transportation Research Board Task Force on Nanotechnology-Based Concrete Materials (TRB AFN15T of the National Academies); and Member of the American Concrete Institute’s committees on Materials Science of Concrete (ACI 236) and Nanotechnology of Concrete (ACI 241). Professor Sanchez is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2006. She received her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering (Waste Sciences & Techniques) from Institut National des Sciences Appliquees de Lyon (INSA), France.

Sarat Singamneni is an Associate Professor at the Auckland University of Technology, leading a team of researchers, pursuing different lines of enquiry in additive manufacturing (AM). Process evaluation, enhancement, and alternative materials are the main themes of the AM research ongoing under his supervision. Curved and mixed layer slicing for fused deposition modelling, polymer, biopolymer and polymer composite alternatives for both fused deposition and selective laser sintering, and alloys such as duplex stainless steels as new metal choices for selective laser melting are the significant contributions from his team. Considering the thermally sensitive structures resulting from selective laser melting, he took the binder-jet route to harness different ceramic compositions for 3D printing. Conventional consolidation mechanisms of both civil and foundry engineering materials are used to successfully develop plaster-based and plaster-less ceramic compositions and a cement-based material system for 3D printing. While these are mainly used for rapid casting at present, extending their applications in civil construction and architecture is currently under investigation. Apart from fundamental research in both materials and processes, Sarat also strives significantly helping the uptake of additive manufacturing by the end users, closely working with numerous New Zealand industries; Air new Zealand, Airwork, Henley’s Propellers, and NueNZ are notable examples.

Kaleb oversees development of Genesis Dimensions’ long-term strategic direction and key business initiatives. His desire to automate construction processes led him to discover the new technologies that now set Genesis Dimensions apart as a leader in the market. Prior to co-founding Genesis Dimensions, he has managed seed stage investments in the energy and healthcare sectors and has participated in every stage of creation, implementation, and expansion of new business ideas. Kaleb has also had direct experience in the Real Estate market as an independent contractor responsible for presenting purchase offers to sellers and conferring with escrow companies and home inspectors. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Pepperdine University, and a Juris Doctor from Faulkner University, concentrating on venture capital law and entrepreneurship.

Dr. Timothy Wangler is a Senior Researcher at ETH Zurich’s Institute for Building Materials within the group Physical Chemistry of Building Materials. His research is primarily concerned with the role of organics at interfaces in the durability of building materials, ranging from stone in built cultural heritage, to facade coatings, to geotechnical structures such as tunnels. More recently, he has focused on digital fabrication with concrete, and the unique materials and processing challenges to this emerging technology, particularly the use of chemical admixtures to control the rheology and hydration of concrete.

Philip F. Yuan is a professor in College of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tongji University, and a council member of the Architectural Society of China (ASC). He is the co-founder of the Digital Architectural Design Association of the ASC and founding partner of Shanghai Archi-Union Architects and Fab-Union Intelligent Engineering Co.Ltd. He was a visiting scholar at MIT during 2008~2009. He established the Digital Design Research Center in 2010 and has organized the “Digital FUTURE Shanghai” summer school program for the past 6 years. He has accomplished achievements on the research and discovery progress of Digital Design and Intelligent Construction area. In recent years, Philip was awarded a variety of educational and design prizes, including Architectural Society of China, Winner of the Young Architect Award of Architectural Society of China in 2014, the 2014 Wienerberger Brick Award, Shenzhen Biennale Popularity Award in 2015, Gold and Silver Prize of Architectural Design awarded by Architectural Society of China in 2016, and The International Architecture Award by Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design in 2016. Philip has published more than 120 academic papers in academic architectural journals and magazines like ARCHITECT, AD, ARCHITECTURAL VIVA, PLAN, DETAIL, AREA etc. He has written 7 books including Fabricating the Future, Scripting the Future, and From Diagrammatic Thinking to Digital Fabrication.

Dr. Pablo Zavattieri is a Professor of Civil Engineering at Purdue University. Zavattieri received his BS/MS degrees in Nuclear Engineering from the Balseiro Institute, in Argentina and PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering from Purdue University. From 2001 to 2009, he worked at the General Motors Research and Development Center as a staff researcher, where he led research activities in the general areas of computational solid mechanics, smart and biomimetic materials. His current research lies at the interface between solid mechanics and materials engineering. His engineering and scientific curiosity has focused on the fundamental aspects of how Nature uses elegant and efficient ways to make remarkable and more sustainable materials. He has contributed to the area of materials-by-design by investigating the structure-function relationship of naturally occurring high-performance materials at multiple length-scales, combining state-of-the-art computational techniques, additive manufacturing and experiments to characterize the properties. His current research program includes the study of naturally-occurring architectured materials inspired from different organisms including marine arthropods, mollusks, beetles, fish scales, bird feathers, woodpeckers, bamboos, and organic nanocrystals. Prof. Zavattieri is the recipient of the NSF CAREER award, the Roy E. & Myrna G. Wansik Research Award; he is a National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Alumnus and a National Academy of Science Kavli Frontier of Science Fellow. He was recently appointed a Purdue University Faculty Scholar for the period 2015-2020.