Hunter Whaples

Hunter Whaples is a graduate student in materials science and engineering establishing rational design methods for volumetric additive manufacturing through coupled multiphysics modeling and experimental validation. Rather than relying on trial-and-error material development, he predicts stable operating regimes by integrating polymerization kinetics, heat transfer, and tomographic dose optimization into computational frameworks. He combines numerical modeling with image processing to perform linear stability analysis on the Navier-Stokes and reaction-diffusion equations governing the process, while building material-aware tomographic optimizers using coupled optical-kinetic models. As a MathWorks Fellow, he will expand these models into full 3D parameter space analysis and experimentally validate the resulting stability boundaries. Hunter aims to establish design principles for processing new material chemistries and develop open-source tools that could help move volumetric printing toward commercial viability.