Process Engineering Lead / December, 2023 — Present

Sole Process Engineer at Fluent Metal a metal additive manufacturing and cladding startup. Process development for molten metal jetting: From-scratch process development for the in-house developed molten metal drop-on-demand technology which is capable of printing with a wide range of metals (including high melting point alloys). Management of co-op/intern: Managed the co-op/intern hiring process end-to-end (reviewing applications, setting up and conducting virtual and in-person interviews, making and following up on offers) and also managed the hired co-op for six months.

Senior Process Engineer / June, 2021 — November, 2023

A member of the Process Team at Velo3D a manufacturer of LPBF metal 3D printers with proprietary SupportFree technology. New material and process development: Developed many core, skin and low-angle processes for Ni, Fe, Ti, and Al-based materials. Laser stitching: Developed a novel algorithm to accurately adjust laser position and eliminate stitch lines when multiple lasers are used. This reduced mismatch from 300+ m to 10 m across the entire build plate and unlocked some novel applications for customers. Laser process metrology: Analyzed metrology data generated by the lasing system during printing to monitor defects. Metallurgical testing: Worked with external labs to coordinate heat treats, comprehensive mechanical testing and microstructural analysis as part of the material qualification pipeline. Additionally was the owner for a few pieces of equipment within our internal lab. Powder metallurgy: Led characterization and qualification for new powders including chemistry, flowability measurement, PSD etc. Powder sourcing: Worked with metal powder vendors domestic and international to source specialty powders. Customer escalations: Swiftly addressed customer concerns by tuning existing processes or developing new ones as required.

Senior Materials Engineer / May, 2020 — June, 2021

Sole Materials Engineer at Gantri a digital manufacturing company using 3D printing to produce designer goods. Process engineering: Led print process development at the production facility sporting one of the largest fleets of FDM 3D printers. Additionally worked with vendors to specify and control incoming feedstock for end-to-end process control. Print farm productivity: Developed printer and process improvements to lower rejection rate and improve print speed often over 50%.

Product Development Engineer / February, 2020 — September, 2020

The team builds new products while working closely with contract manufacturers in Asia throughout the design process. New product development: Competitor benchmarking, prototyping, simulation and experimental evaluation of design and materials selection for structural components and coatings. This includes Design Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (DFMEA). Failure analysis and sustaining engineering: Work with the Customer Support department to identify top failures on returned malfunctioning products, perform failure analysis and roll out changes before the next batch is mass-produced.

Materials Engineer / June, 2017 — December, 2019

A member of the Materials team at Desktop Metal a manufacturer of office-friendly metal and composite 3D printers. New alloy development: Led powder specification, sintering process development, microscopy and microanalysis, and Design-of-Experiments and statistics-backed process qualification for the development of five materials for the Studio System (including Stainless Steels, Tool Steels, low-alloy steels and Ni-based superalloys). Development of materials processing equipment: Worked closely with the hardware and applied science teams in the development of the Studio System furnace, one of the smallest vacuum furnaces capable of sintering stainless steels. Post-processing: Developed and qualified post-processing techniques such as heat-treatment, case hardening, nitriding and mechanochemical surface finishing of additively manufactured parts with partner vendors. Material science-based solution development: Developed the getter system which provides an atmosphere of required purity and allows sintering of certain sensitive materials on the low-cost Studio System furnace (US Patent application US20220065533A1). Select other projects: Geometry accuracy and compensation (protected by 2 patents), toolpath planning, development of infrastructure to store experimental data (including IoT-based equipment logging).

Internship / May, 2014 — July, 2014

Gained familiarity in Ni-based superalloys particularly Single Crystal (SX) and Directionally Solidified (DS) superalloys. Performed systematic metallographic analysis and analyzed the micrographs using image processing techniques.

Capstone Project Researcher / August, 2016 — May, 2017

Improving Reliability of 3D Printed Materials in Biomedical Applications. Performed mechanical testing of additively manufactured metal parts in mildly corrosive environments and employed fractographic methods to understand the causes and modes of failure. Results were used to develop guidelines for AM orthopedic implants.

Bachelors Thesis Researcher / May, 2015 — December, 2015

Design-of-Experiment Based Process Optimization for Single-Crystal CMSX-4 Ni-based Superalloy Processed Through Scanning Laser Epitaxy (SLE) a Metal Additive Manufacturing Process. Setup and independently performed the Scanning Laser Epitaxy (SLE) process a laser-based powder bed metal additive manufacturing process that can be used to repair damaged tips of single crystal Ni-based superalloy parts followed by microscopy and analysis.