Research

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going." - Beverly Sills

Manufacturing has been a big contributor to improved quality and sustainability of human life. My research goal is to advance the understanding and knowledge of Additive Manufacturing (AM) and to promote its wide applications in future engineering systems. AM is a a direct manufacturing process that has become a disruptive manufacturing technology, especially for medical and aerospace industries, in which small-quantity-production is dominant. It is predicted that AM will dominate most manufacturing concerns in future mass customization. To achieve the full potentials of AM on cost and time savings, the development of novel AM processes, new process control methods, and a wide selection of functional materials are critical. In addition, AM enables revolutionary new design by using complex three-dimensional shapes, heterogeneous material properties, and multi-functionality. Systematic knowledge regarding modeling, analyzing, synthesizing, and optimizing such designs are required to achieve desired performance.

At USC, our research group aims to develop AM technologies that enable people to revolutionize future product design and manufacturing. We are especially interested in Additive Manufacturing in micro-scale and meso-scale and the related design, modeling and computation methods. Since the AM-based digital manufacturing involves both physics-based manufacturing and computation-based design and control, we strive to address the challenges in AM research by fusing theoretical, computational and experimental knowledge with systematic thinking. This interdisciplinary research philosophy by tightly integrating both hardware and software sides of AM technology is at the core of my research group. We are currently working on the following three topical areas:

Novel process, material and machine development for functional additive manufacturing
New modeling and control techniques for accurate and reliable additive manufacturing processes
New design and computation methods for AM-enabled applications

Awards and Honors

2021: Program co-Chair, ASME 2021Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC2021), Virtual conference hosted by the University of Cincinnati, June 2021.
2020: Best Paper Award (2^nd Place), ASME 2020 Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC2020), Cincinnati, Ohio, June 2020.
2020: USC Stevens Center for Innovation Commercialization Award, University of Southern California, April 2020.
2019: Program co-Chair, ASME 2019 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC/CIE), Anaheim, California, August 2019.
2018: Fellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME).
2018: Outstanding Paper Award, SME 46^th North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC), College Station, Texas, June 2018.
2018: USC Stevens Center for Innovation Commercialization Award, University of Southern California, April 2018.
2018: Outstanding Engineering Merit Award 2017, Orange County Engineering Council, Santa Ana, California, February 2018.
2017: Outstanding Paper Award, SME 45^th North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC), Los Angeles, California, June 2017.

2017: Conference Chair, 2017 International Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC/MSEC/ICM&P), Los Angeles, California, June 2017.

2016: Outstanding Paper Award, SME 44^th North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC), Blacksburg, Virginia, June 2016.

2015: Session Chair on Advanced Manufacturing, China-America Frontiers of Engineering Symposium (CAFOE), National Academy of Engineering, Irvine, California, June 2015.

2014: Invited Participant, Dagstuhl Seminar Series: "Computational Aspects of Fabrication," Leibniz-Zentrum fur Informatik, Wadern, Germany, September 2014.

2014: Best Application Paper Award Finalist, IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE 2014), Taipei, Taiwan, August 2014.

2013: Outstanding Paper Award, SME 41^st North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC), Madison, Wisconsin, June 2013.

2013: Honorable Mention Paper Award, 8^th International Conference on MicroManufacturing (ICOMM 2013), Victoria, BC, Canada, March 2013.

2012: Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, National Science Foundation (NSF), January 2012.

2012: CAPPD Best Paper Award, ASME 32^nd Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, Chicago, IL, August 2012.

2012: Best Paper Award (3^rd Place), ASME 2012 Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC2012), Notre Dame, IN, June 2012.

2012: Outstanding Paper Award - Winner, Rapid Prototyping Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, for the paper "A Layerless Additive Manufacturing Process based on CNC Accumulation." Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 218-227, 2011.

2011: CAPPD Best Paper Award, ASME 31^st Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, Washington DC, August 2011.

2011: Outstanding Paper Award, SME 39^th North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC), Corvallis, Oregon, June 2011.

2010: Symposium Outstanding Paper, 21^st International Solid Freeform Fabrication (SFF) Symposium, Austin, Texas, August 2010.

2008: Best Paper Award, ASME 28^th Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, Brooklyn, New York, August 2008.

2008: Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award, Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME).

2007: Zumberge Award for Individual Research and Innovation, USC.

2007: Research Initiation Award, Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME).

2005: Best Paper Award, ASME 25^th Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, Long Beach, California, September 2005.

Startup Companies

Some startup companies created by the Ph.D. students trained in our lab and by the research collaborators: