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 MATLAB’s Partial Differential Equations Toolbox with image processing capabilities 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. His work could open pathways for establishing rational design principles for processing new material chemistries while creating open-source computational tools that advance the broader volumetric printing community toward commercial viability.