SMA Young Investigator AwardSMA Young Investigator Award 2021

Jun Wu is an assistant professor at the Department of Sustainable Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. Before this, he was a Marie Curie postdoc fellow at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU Denmark. He obtained a PhD in Computer Science in 2015 from TU Munich, Germany, and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 2012 from Beihang University, China. His research is focused on computational design and digital fabrication, with an emphasis on topology optimization (which is sometimes referred to as generative design). His work received best paper awards at international conferences including the Symposium on Solid and Physical Modeling 2019, and the World Congress of Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization 2019. He is on the editorial board of Computer-Aided Design.

With a unique background in geometry and mechanics, he made a number of outstanding technical contributions at the intersection of solid modeling, physical modeling, and advanced manufacturing. One of his most recognized works is bone-inspired infill optimization. The bone-like models are lightweight and exhibit superior mechanical properties. Along this direction, he developed novel methods to concurrently optimize digital models and their internal geometry. He further explored geometric and numerical algorithms (e.g., hex meshing, geometric multigrid) to accelerate the generative design process. In a related thread, he proposed innovative methods to design self-supporting 3D printing infill and functionally graded meta-materials. His recent work on space-time topology optimization is yet another example of a very original and promising contribution. The idea of introducing the time dimension in structural optimization opens up a new direction of research by enabling the concurrent design of digital models and their corresponding fabrication process order.

His work demonstrates significant insights in solid and physical modeling for advanced manufacturing. His publications are characterized by rigor, innovative ideas, and potential impact. They have spawned a number of activities in computer-aided design, as well as in computational mechanics and additive manufacturing. Furthermore, it is particularly impressive how quickly his contributions influence industrial applications and commercial software, benefiting the broad design and manufacturing industry.