About the Speaker

Matthew Thompson is the Senior Manager for Carbon Fiber Technical Service at Toray Composite Materials America (CMA), located in Decatur, AL. Prior to joining Toray CMA in 2017, Matthew worked for Boeing Research & Technology in St. Louis, MO, and completed a PhD in Chemical Engineering from West Virginia University. He actively serves on various boards within the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) and the Society for the Advancement of Materials & Process Engineering (SAMPE). He has served on the SPE Additive Manufacturing & 3D Printing (AM/3Dp) Board since 2015. He has several publications, 4 patents, and has served as a guest editor for special issues of SPE journals twice. Related to AM/3Dp, he has given a talk at an international symposium, published a perspective article, served as guest editor for a special issue, and reviewed many papers. He is particularly interested in continuous fiber-reinforced AM and how it may be used alongside other advanced manufacturing processes.

About the Speaker

Dr. Wout De Backer is an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina (USC) Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is PI of the Additive Manufacturing, Composites, and Design Engineering (AMCODE) lab at the McNAIR Center for Aerospace Innovation and Research, specializing in 3D printer design, manufacturing automation, and composite design and analysis. His PhD Research was on development of a continuous fiber additive manufacturing printer, which was industrialized and brought to market. He has since designed over 15 different polymer-based printers, including reactive printheads, continuous fiber printheads and large format robotic AM setups. Dr. De Backer’s lab also includes equipment for filament extrusion and can produce continuous fiber feedstock from engineering thermoplastics. His lab, part of the South Carolina SmartState Center™ for Multifunctional Materials and Structures, is recognized as an SC Center of Economic Excellence. Dr. De Backer founded the AMCODE lab in 2014, and has published over 50 articles resulting in six best paper awards and several granted and pending patents. Recognized as one of AIAA and Aviation Week’s 20 Twenties in 2016, he is an active AIAA and SAMPE member, and faculty advisor of USC's local sections of AIAA, the USC Rocketry Club, and the USC Flight Club. With a Bachelor’s and Master's in Aerospace Engineering from Delft University of Technology, he teaches Aerospace Systems and Aircraft Design, and Aerospace Senior Design in the USC aerospace engineering program.

About the Speaker

Vittorio (Victor) Jaker is currently Technology Development Manager within the Industrial Business Unit at Stratasys in Minneapolis, MN. He leads a team of Materials Engineers, Controls Engineers, Mechanical Engineers and Researchers who develop new manufacturing processes, printer hardware, and consumable materials for FDM thermoplastic AM technology. Prior to this role, Victor was a Materials Development Manager, and Materials Engineer, specializing in compounding, extrusion, and FDM processing of high-performance composites and aerospace materials such as PEEK and PEKK. Prior to Stratasys, Victor worked for two years as a technical aide in radiation processing at 3M’s Corporate Research Process Laboratory in St. Paul, MN. Victor has a Bachelor’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Minnesota, and a Master’s of Polymer Engineering from Lehigh University. Victor holds 14 granted US patents for hardware, compositions, and AM methods. He has been a lead engineer or project team member for over a dozen commercial products in the AM space. He lives in Chanhassen, MN with his wife and two young children.

About the Speaker

Edward T. Samulski is emeritus Cary Boshamer Professor of Chemistry, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he served as Chair of the Department of Chemistry 1995-2000 and Chair of Applied Physical Sciences 2015 - 2020. In 2013 with Joe DeSimone and Alex Ermoshkin he founded Carbon a 3D printing company, and in 2020 he launched BlueSky Polymers focused on high-performance polymers with former PhD student Theo Dingemans.

In 2005 - 2006 he was a Jefferson Science Fellow at the U. S. State Department; he has held visiting faculty positions at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, the Weizmann Institute, and the Laboratory of Solid State Physics, University of Paris. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in New Zealand, where he was a founding member of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology.

Education: B.S., Clemson University, Textile Chemistry (1965); Ph.D., Princeton University, Chemistry (1970).