Keynote Speakers

Dr John Tierney

Senior Scientist - University of Delaware

Dr. John Tierney is a Senior Scientist at the Center for Composite Materials in the University of Delaware. Dr Tierney holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University and has an honors bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the National University of Ireland. Dr. Tierney has extensive experience in design and processing composites and has been conducting research in innovative processing methods for manufacturing composites parts, which include automated fiber placement, discontinuous fiber processing (TuFF), pultrusion, induction lamination, VARTM processing, prepreg production, autoclave manufacturing, OOA processing, filament winding, and high-speed thermoforming. His work has focused on modeling material behavior as well as process optimization for manufacturing composites using numerous analytical and FE based methods.

Dr. Tierney is lead inventor of TuFF (Tailored Universal Feedstock for Forming), a process that aligns discontinuous fibers to produce aerospace grade parts. Dr. Tierney was lead design for NASA’s next generation xEMU spacesuit HUT design. Dr. Tierney was task lead at enhancing soldier Protection to defeat evolving threats. This includes establishing processing-microstructure- performance relationships for the design, optimization, and manufacturing of UHMWPE composites. Dr Tierney was also task lead on composite manufacturing technologies for aerospace performance at automotive production rates using high speed thermoforming with NASA.

Dr. Tierney is lead software engineer at UD-CCM and developed a generic set of design tools called CDS (Composite Design and Simulation Software) and the SMARTree infrastructure that represents the core of all analytical software tools for composites processing, mechanics, and design at CCM. These applications are currently distributed to sponsoring DoD agencies as well as industry and academic institutions worldwide.

Keynote - An Overview of TuFF: Tailored Universal Feedstock for Forming 

For decades, the "holy grail" of composite science has been to create a material that combines the extreme strength of continuous fiber composites with the high-volume, low-cost manufacturability of sheet metal. This presentation will provide an overview of TuFF (Tailored Universal Feedstock for Forming)  a high-performance, recyclable, discontinuous carbon fiber composite developed by the University of Delaware Center for Composite Materials (CCM). It offers aerospace-grade strength with the formability of sheet metal, allowing rapid manufacturing of complex, lightweight parts. The key to the success of TuFF is the alignment of short fibers, which can achieve 57-60% fiber volume fraction in a thin-ply format.  Thermoplastic or thermoset resins are infused to create prepregs and blanks for forming as well as steerable tapes for AFP parts. By achieving near-perfect alignment of short fiber, TuFF provides a high-performance feedstock that can stretch up to 50% and stamped into complex geometries in less than one minute. TuFF is fiber-agnostic and can be produced sustainably from recycled composite feedstock. The history of how TuFF was developed will be presented, as well as an overview of models that describe the physics of fluid-driven fiber alignment. An overview of the constitutive models that predict the stretch forming behavior of TuFF will also be shown as well as examples of TuFF demonstration parts.

Marianna Maiaru

Associate Professor in Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics - Columbia University

Marianna Maiaru (Associate Professor in Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at Columbia University) is an expert in Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME), process modeling, and computational mechanics. She received her Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering as a collaboration between Politecnico di Torino in Italy and the University of Michigan. Her research interests include composite structures, damage mechanics, multi-scale analysis, higher-order finite elements, and additive manufacturing. Maiaru has received numerous grants from NASA, NSF, and the Air Force, including the AFOSR Young Investigator Program award in 2020 and the NSF CAREER award in 2022. She received the DEStech Young Researcher Award in 2021 and the AIAA ICME Prize in 2020 and 2022. 

Keynote - Multiscale Process Driven Behavior in Polymer Matrix Composites

Predictive process modeling is becoming a cornerstone in the design and manufacturing of high-performance polymer matrix composites, enabling the reduction of costly experimental trial-and-error and accelerating materials development. Despite recent advances, accurately capturing the evolving behavior of polymers during curing remains a significant challenge due to the inherently multiscale nature of the problem, strong thermo-chemical-mechanical coupling, and the pronounced sensitivity of material response to processing conditions. This keynote will present the current state of the art in process modeling, with emphasis on fundamental limitations related to multi-physics, multi-scale integration, and time-dependent material behavior, as well as the scarcity of consistent, high-fidelity material data across different stages of cure. Emerging multiscale modeling strategies will be discussed as a pathway to bridge these gaps, linking molecular-scale phenomena to structural performance. Through selected case studies, the talk will demonstrate how predictive modeling frameworks can be leveraged to understand residual stress development, mitigate manufacturing defects, and guide microstructural evolution. The keynote will conclude by outlining a vision for integrated, physics-based process modeling within the Integrated Computational Materials Engineering framework, aimed at enabling robust, predictive design of next-generation composite systems.