Woodruff Professor
The George Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
Site Director, NSF IUCRC SHAP3D (Science of Heterogeneous Additive Printing of 3D Materials)
Office: MRDC 4104, RBI 377
Phone: 404-385-2457
Fax: 404-385-8535
Email: qih@me.gatech.edu
Education
- BS (1994), MS, PhD (1999), Tsinghua University
- ScD (2003), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Postdoc Associate (2004), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Professional Experience
- 2016-Present, Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology
- 2023-2024, Visiting Professor, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
- 2022, Visiting Professor, University of Technology of Belfort-Montbéliard, Sevenans, France
- 2018-2020, Yangtz River Scholar (Type B, visiting), Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
- 2014-2017, Tengfei Scholar Professor (Type B, visiting), Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
- 2014-2016, Associate Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology
- 2010-2014, Associate Professor (tenured, 2010), University of Colorado Boulder
- 2004-2010, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, University of Colorado Boulder
Awards
- The ASME Warner T. Koiter Medal (2024)
- Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate (2024)
- The T. H. H. Pian Award from International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences (2024)
- James R. Rice Medal, Society of Engineering Science (2023)
- Gerhard Kanig Lecture by the Berlin-Brandenburg Association for Polymer Research (2019)
- Sigma Xi Best Faculty Paper Award (2018)
- ASME Fellow (2015)
- The Woodruff Faculty Fellow (2015)
- J. T. Oden Faculty Fellowship, UT Austin, (2012)
- AFRL summer faculty fellowship (2010-2012)
- Mechanical Engineering Outstanding Research Award (2009)
- Mechanical Engineering Chair Faculty Fellow (2008)
- NSF Career Award (2007)
- Woodward Outstanding Mechanical Engineering Faculty (2006-2007)
- University of Colorado Graduate School Junior Faculty Development Award (2005)
Research Areas
- Mechanics and Physics of Polymers
- Nonlinear constitutive models for soft materials
- 3D printing of polymers and ceramics
- 4D Printing
- Polymer recycling and sustainability
- Automated lab for material discovery
For complete CV, click Jerry_Qi_02_2025.
Prof. Qi’s research is in the broad field of nonlinear mechanics of active polymers with a focus on developing fundamental understanding of multi-field properties of active polymers and advancing their processing methods. He has made significant contributions at the intersection of nonlinear mechanics of polymers, additive manufacturing, and recycling to develop multifunctional active composites and structures and sustainable manufacturing.
He is a world-leading researcher in the nonlinear mechanics of active polymers. His 2013 paper titled “Active materials by four-dimension printing”[1] is the first journal paper in the emerging field of 4D printing. His fundamental research has led to many industrial applications. For example, his research on polymer with dynamic bonds[2,3] has led to a startup company Mallinda (Mallinda, Inc; https://mallinda.com/, founded in 2014 by a student involved in this research [2,3], which focuses on developing recyclable thermoset composites. His research on stretch-induced crystallization[4] has led to the establishment of PolyMaker (https://us.polymaker.com/), which uses stretch-induced crystallization to enhance the stiffness of the 3D printing filament to avoid clogging. Today, Polymaker is one of the premium brands in 3D printing filaments, and its 2024 sales have reached $100M. The constitutive models he developed for thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU)[5], shape memory polymers[6,7], and photocuring mechanics[8] are widely used by academic researchers as well as industry, such as Apple, Inc. and Boeing, Inc. As the site director of the NSF Industry/University Collaborative Research Center (IUCRC) on Science of Heterogeneous Additive Printing of 3D Materials (SHAP3D), which is the only NSF center focusing on additive manufacturing, he also promotes the connections between university research and industrial needs.
Prof. Qi published more than 240 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He was listed as one of the highly cited researchers by Clarivate in 2024. His research has been funded by federal agencies, such as NSF, AFOSR, ONR, and DARPA, as well as industry, including Cornerstone Research Group, Sandia, Boston Scientific, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, HP, Toyota North America, etc. He is a recipient of Sigma Xi Best Faculty Paper Award (2018), Gerhard Kanig Lecture by the Berlin-Brandenburg Association for Polymer Research (2019), the James R. Rice Medal from Society of Engineering Science (2023), the T. H. H. Pian Award from International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences (SES) (2024), and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Warner T. Koiter Medal (2024).
Summary of Major Works
Active polymers, such as shape memory polymers (SMPs), liquid crystal elastomers, hydrogels, light-activated polymers (LAP), and dynamic covalent network polymers (or vitrimers), are at the forefront of materials research for multifunctional applications. They can generate large shape changes in response to environmental stimuli, such as heat, light, etc. The shape change of active polymers has inspired novel concepts for a plethora of applications, including morphing structures, programmable matter, actuators, and sensors. Their integration with 3D printing (or additive manufacturing) also leads to the birth of 4D printing. Dr. Qi has established an internationally recognized leading group in four areas 1) 4D printing; 2) multimaterial 3D printing techniques; 3) multiphysics modeling of active polymers; 4) polymer recycling.
4D printing Recent developments in 3D printing enable the precise placement of multiple materials to create complex 3D configurations. This unprecedented design freedom has motivated a myriad of studies and applications to create heterogeneous engineered structures. Dr. Qi pioneered the concept of 4D printing, where the printed material/structure can change its shape after 3D printing, and time becomes the 4th dimension of the shape formation. In his 4D printing paper[1], which is the first journal paper in 4D printing field, he demonstrated this concept through printed active composites, in which the fiber material is an SMP. Since 2013, he has published about 100 papers in the 3D/4D printing area. His works on 4D printing were widely reported by public media (more than 100 reports), such as Design News, Physics News, Composites Today, and GizMag, NPR, and ABC, etc. A figure in his 2017 work [9] was included by Soft Matter in its promotional brochure in 2019. Today, 4D Printing has been identified as an emerging technology in the Gartner Technology Hype Cycle and has exploded worldwide as a new research and technology field with major funding initiatives by governments and industry in the US, Europe, and Asia. Recently, the 4D Printing Society was founded to bring together 4D Printing researchers from across the world. Because of his leadership in this field, the first in-person 4D printing conference was held at Georgia Tech in September 2023.
Multimaterial 3D printing techniques One highly demanded area in 3D printing is to fabricate parts with different properties, or multimaterial 3D printing. This is very challenging due to the drastic difference in processing conditions for materials of different properties. Dr. Qi’s group is the leading group in developing multimaterial 3D printing techniques for polymers. They developed a multi-material multi-method (m4) 3D printer[10], which is the first one in the world. They also combined two different printing techniques, direct ink writing (DIW) and digit light processing (DLP) into one platform [11], by which they fabricated functional structures [12,13]. Recently, they developed a novel single vat grayscale DLP (g-DLP) printing to create “multimaterial-like” parts [14, 15]. This new technology represents a breakthrough as DLP printing is traditionally regarded as a single material printing approach. Currently, they are working on licensing the g-DLP technique to a small start-up company. In addition, the grayscale 3D printing is intensively pursued by researchers at different institutions, such as UT Austin, Sandia, etc.
Multiphysics modeling and applications of active polymers Dr. Qi’s work in this area mainly focuses on SMPs and LAPs. For SMPs, he identified two fundamental mechanisms that can lead to shape memory effects: a dramatic change in relaxation time in amorphous polymers and phase evolution in semi-crystalline polymers. They developed two constitutive models based on these two mechanisms, respectively. These models are among the first two 3D constitutive models for SMPs ([6,7]. His study of two-way shape memory effects due to stretch-induced crystallization[4] has led to the establishment of PolyMaker, (https://us.polymaker.com/), which uses stretch-induced crystallization to enhance the stiffness of the 3D printing filament to avoid clogging during printing, Today, PolyMaker is one of the premium brands in 3D printing filaments, and its 2024 sales have reached $100M. LAPs are a novel group of active polymers that can deform upon light irradiation. They developed the first 3D constitutive model for LAPs[16] by considering multi-physical processes, including light propagation, light-induced chemical reactions, material structure changes, and stress relaxation. They also used the model to guide the design of photo origami. This work[17] was selected for APL’s 50th Anniversary Collection. He has published about 50 papers related to SMPs and LAPs. He also developed the first constitutive model that captures the change of mechanical properties during the photopolymerization process. This model is used by researchers in Apple, Inc. This new polymer has properties that are close to the very popular but not recyclable PDMS and can be 3D printed, offering a potential solution of sustainable additive manufacturing.
Polymer recycling Polymer recycling has become an increasingly important topic in the past 5-10 years. Dr, Qi’s work started with the modeling of vitrimers, which are network polymers containing dynamic bonds with bond exchange reactions (BERs). BERs can rearrange the network connections, leading to reshaping, welding, reprocessing, and recycling. He started to work on vitrimers in 2013. Their initial work on developing polyimine-based vitrimer and composites[2,3] has led to a start-up company by Taynton (Mallinda, Inc; https://mallinda.com/). They demonstrated the powder-based reprocessing of vitrimers[18]. They further developed the recycling method by using small molecules to decompose vitrimers[19]. Several papers were published on this new approach, including one on the recycling of carbon fiber reinforced thermosetting composites [20] and two issued patents [21, 22]. More recently, his group developed a network polymer that can be depolymerized into monomers at low temperatures [23, 24]. The polymer has properties that are close to the very popular but not recyclable PDMS.
NSF IUCRC SHAP3D SHAP3D (Science of Heterogeneous Additive Printing of 3D Materials) is an NSF Industry/University Collaborative Research Center (IUCRC) and was established in 2018 by three universities (U Mass Lowell (lead), U Conn, and GT). It is the only NSF IUCRC on additive manufacturing. It conducts pre-competitive research and fills the gap between typical NSF fundamental research and higher TRL centers such as American Make. The industrial members (including past members) include Stratasys, HP, Markforged, Desktop Metal, Raytheon, Boeing, AFRL, Army Soldier Center, Army Armaments Center, Sandia, Akita, etc. It has funded more than 50 projects. It helped to increase the connections between university faculty and industry. The center just finished Phase I and is in Phase II.
Prof. Jerry Qi was the founding chair of the Mechanics of Soft Materials Technical Committee of Applied Mechanics Division (AMD) of ASME (2009), which is one of the most active technical committees in AMD. He was also the vice chair (2007-2009) and chair (2009-2011) of the Mechanics of Time-Dependent Material Technical Division of the Society of Experimental Mechanics. Currently, he serves on editorial board of seven international journals. He is a member of Board of Directors for the Society of Engineering Science (SES). He is organizing the 2025 SES Annual Technical Conference, which will be held on 10/12/25-10/15/25 in Atlanta, GA. The 2025 SES conference is expected to have more than 1000 attendees. He is the co-chair of the 2026 Gordon Research Conference on Multifunctional Materials and Structures, which will be held 1/25/26-1/30/26.
[1] Ge, Q., Qi, H.J., Dunn, M.L., Active materials by four-dimension printing, Applied Physics Letters, 2013, 103, 131901. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4819837
[2] Taynton, P., Yu, K., Shoemaker, R.K., Jin, Y., Qi, H.J., Zhang, W., Water-driven malleability in a highly recyclable covalent network polymer, Advanced Materials, 2014, 26(23), 3938-3942. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201400317
[3] Taynton, P., Ni, H., Zhu, C., Yu, Y., Loob, S., Jin, Y., Qi, H.J., Zhang, W., Repairable woven carbon fiber composites with full recyclability enabled by malleable polyimine networks, Advanced Materials, 2016 28 (15), 2904-2909. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201505245
[4] Westbrook, K.K., Parakh, V., Chung, T., Mather, P.T., Wan, L.C., Dunn, M.L., Qi, H.J., Constitutive modeling of shape memory effects in semicrystalline polymers with stretch induced crystallization, Journal of Engineering Materials and Technology, 2010, 132(4): 041010. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4001964
[5] Qi, H.J., Boyce, M.C., Stress–strain behavior of thermoplastic polyurethanes, Mechanics of Materials, 2005, 37 (8), 817-839. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mechmat.2004.08.001
[6] Qi, H.J., Nguyen, T.D., Castro, F., Yakacki, C.M., Shandas, R., Finite deformation thermo-mechanical behavior of thermally induced shape memory polymers, Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 2008, 56 (5), 1730-1751. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmps.2007.12.002
[7] Nguyen, T.D., Qi, H.J., Castro, F., Long, K.N., A thermoviscoelastic model for amorphous shape memory polymers: incorporating structural and stress relaxation, Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 2008, 56 (9), 2792-2814. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmps.2008.04.007
[8] Wu, J, Zhao, Z., Hamel, C.M., Mu, X., Kuang, X., Guo, Z., Qi, H.J., Evolution of material properties during free radical photopolymerization, Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 2018, 112, 25-49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmps.2017.11.018
[9] Yuan, C., Roach, D.J., Dunn, C.K., Mu, Q., Kuang, X., Yakacki, C.M., Wang, T.J, Yu, K., Qi, H.J., 3D printed reversible shape changing soft actuators assisted by liquid crystal elastomers, Soft Matter, 2017, 13 (33), 5558-5568. https://doi.org/10.1039/C7SM00759K
[10] Roach, D., Hamel, C.M., Dunn, C.K., Johnson, M.V., Kuang, K., Qi, H.J., The m4 3D printer: A multi-material multi-method additive manufacturing platform for future 3D printed structures, Additive Manufacturing, 2019, 29, 100819. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2019.100819
[11] Peng, X., Kuang, X., Roach, D.J., Wang, Y., Hamel, C.M., Lu, C., Qi, H.J., Integrating digital light processing with direct ink writing for hybrid 3D printing of functional structures and devices, Additive Manufacturing, 2021, 40, 101911. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2021.101911
[12] Peng, X., Wu, S., Sun, X., Yue, L., Montgomery, S.M., Demoly, F., Zhou, K., Zhao, R.R., Qi, H.J., 4D printing of freestanding liquid crystal elastomers via hybrid additive manufacturing, Advanced Materials, 2022, 34 (39), 2204890. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202204890
[13] Roach, D.J., Sun, X., Peng, X., Demoly, F., Zhou, K., Qi, H.J., 4D Printed Multifunctional Composites With Cooling‐Rate Mediated Tunable Shape Morphing, Advanced Functional Materials , 2022, 32 (36), 2203236. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202203236
[14] Kuang, X., Wu, J., Chen, K., Zhao, Z., Ding, Z., Hu, F., Fang, D., Qi, H.J., Grayscale digital light processing 3D printing for highly functionally graded materials, Science Advances, 2019, 5 (5), eaav5790. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aav5790
[15] Yue, L., Montgomery, S.M., Sun, X., Yu, L., Song, Y., Nomura, T. Tanaka, M., Qi, H.J., Single-vat single-cure grayscale digital light processing 3D printing of materials with large property difference and high stretchability, Nature Communications, 2023, 14 (1), 1251. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36909-y
[16] Long, K.N., Scott, T.F., Qi, H.J., Bowman, C.N., Dunn, M.L., Photomechanics of light-activated polymers, Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 2009, 57 (7), 1103-1121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmps.2009.03.003
[17] Ryu, J., D’Amato, M., Cui, X., Long, K.N., Qi, H.J., Dunn, M.L., Photo-origami—bending and folding polymers with light, Applied Physics Letters, 2012, 100, 161908. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3700719
[18] Yu, K., Taynton, P., Zhang, W., Dunn, M.L., Qi, H.J., Reprocessing and recycling of thermosetting polymers based on bond exchange reactions, RSC Advances, 2014, 4 (20), 10108-10117. https://doi.org/10.1039/C3RA47438K
[19] Kuang, X., Zhou, Y., Shi, Q., Wang, T., Qi, H.J., Recycling of epoxy thermoset and composites via good solvent assisted and small molecules participated exchange reactions, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, 2018, 6 (7), 9189-9197. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b01538
[20] Yu, K., Shi, Q., Dunn, M.L., Wang, T., Qi, H.J., Carbon fiber reinforced thermoset composite with near 100% recyclability, Advanced Functional Materials, 2016, 26 (33), 6098-6106. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201602056
[21] Qi, H., Yu, K., Shi, Q., Methods of Recycling and Reshaping Thermosetting Polymers and Composites Thereof, US 10,829,612 B2 (11/2020).
[22] Qi, H., Yu, K., Shi, Q., Kuang, X., Methods of Recycling and Reshaping Thermosetting Polymers and Composites Thereof, US 11,421,095 B2 (08/2022).
[23] Yue, L., Su, Y.L., Li, M., Yu, L., Montgomery, S.M., Sun, X., Finn, M.G., Gutekunst, W.R., Ramprasad, R., Qi, H.J., One-Pot Synthesis of Depolymerizable δ-Lactone Based Vitrimers, Advanced Materials, 2023, 35 (29), 2300954. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202300954
[24] Yue, L., Su, Y.L., Li, M., Yu, L., Sun, X., Cho, J., Brettmann, B., Gutekunst, W.R., Ramprasad, R., Qi, H.J., Chemical circularity in 3D printing with biobased Δ‐valerolactone, Advanced Materials, 2024, 36 (34), 2310040. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202310040