The why: Chris Williams is printing the future at Virginia Tech

Chris Williams remembers the exact day that he took a keen interest in additive manufacturing, more commonly known as 3D printing.

In 1997, he sat in an Introduction to Mechanical Design course during his sophomore year at the University of Florida, and the professor, Carl Crane, unboxed this new contraption called a 3D printer. Instead of carving away material from a large block, this machine allowed a person to build an object by depositing material layer by layer until the final shape was complete.

Crane then gave the class a homework assignment – use the machine to design something impossible.

“It just absolutely captured my attention and imagination,” Williams said. “Your creativity was now the bounds of what was possible, whereas in the past, if you had this cool idea, you had to simplify or constrain it to fit within what you were capable of making. Suddenly, there was the ability to make things where that was no longer the barrier.

“That challenge just drove everything I’ve done since then. Even though I’ve been working in the field for quite a while, 3D printing still feels like magic.”

Nearly three decades later, Williams, an L.S. Randolph Professor in Virginia Tech’s Department of Mechanical Engineering within the College of Engineering, has become one of the nation’s leading authorities on 3D printing. His awards and plaques stack like the layers of one of his 3D prints. His list of published papers do the same, testaments to a career spent both pursuing creativity and curiosity, while adding strength and clarity to an emerging technology.

In August, Williams was awarded the Freeform and Additive Manufacturing Excellence (FAME) Award from the International Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium — an award given annually to recognize an outstanding researcher in the field of freeform/additive fabrication. One award recipient is chosen by a committee each year in both a junior and senior category. Williams is the only person ever to have won both the junior and senior awards.

In his 18 years at Virginia Tech, Williams and teams of undergraduate and graduate students have greatly expanded the catalog of materials for 3D printing – everything from copper to polyimide to rubber. In 2023, he and a group of students used a 3D printer to build a drone that autonomously flew away from the printer, and last year, he led a team that pioneered a new approach to 3D printing by using a robotic arm to print composite materials from multiple directions.

But those projects represent something much deeper for this researcher, scientist, and engineer — a pursuit of ideas and a pushing of boundaries.  

That’s something he’s been doing his entire career.

Inspired by family, committed to education

Williams graduated from the University of Florida in 2000 with his degree in mechanical engineering, and he added both master’s and doctoral degrees from Georgia Tech in 2003 and 2007, respectively. At that point, he easily could have enjoyed a lucrative career in the private sector.

But Williams grew up immersed in education. His father was an associate dean for the University of Florida’s College of Health and Human Performance, and his office sat above a gymnasium and next to a swimming pool.

“As a kid, I thought, ‘He got to go to work every day and play basketball,’” Willliams said, laughing. “I’m like, ‘This is a pretty good life.’”

The connections to education don’t end there, though. His mother is a middle school teacher, four in-laws work as educators, and his wife is a school librarian.

In 2008, Williams took a “split” position at Virginia Tech, with 50 percent of his role in the Department of Engineering Education and 50 percent in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

In a sort of odd way, he filled a prophecy when he took the role.

“I would tell people, ‘I want to be at a school where the students are all proud that they’re there,’” Williams said. “It wasn’t their safety school. This was a place where they wanted to be.

“I would tell people, ‘Virginia Tech would be a good fit.’ I literally would tell people that, and then suddenly, it happened.”

In addition to the family influences on him, Williams came to love what a career in higher education allowed him to do.

“What appealed to me about being a professor, and I learned this later, was the freedom to explore new ideas,” Williams said. “It’s hard to try new things as a professional engineer because it costs money and time and it can be difficult to challenge the status quo of how things are currently done. I’m so thankful that professional engineers exist to do that, as it results in safe products that we use every day, but we also need people to go out and try new ideas and think about the future without having to answer to the stakeholders of today.

“Through our research of exploring new ways of manufacturing, we gain understanding of, and clearly define, what can’t be done today, and that helps people today. But then we go imagine what’s impossible, and through our work, we make it possible — and this provides a path for others to follow. That is what I love doing.”

From printer to flight: a drone takes shape

Williams not only enjoys the work, but also enjoys letting students be a huge part of it.

One of his dreams throughout his career had been to 3D print all components of a drone and then see if that drone could fly away from the printer. In 2021, Williams assigned that exact dream to a group of trustworthy seniors as a senior project.

Williams helped write a grant proposal that led to a $75,000 grant from NASA’s University Student Research Challenge, a competition that encourages students in higher education to propose new ideas and concepts relevant to the work of NASA. The group later received an additional $40,000 in combined awards from Boeing, Braskem, Cube Pilot, KDE Direct, Northrop Grumman, RoboDK, Stäubli, and Xoar.

But Williams left all other project details to the students. He asked questions, offered insight when asked, and gave guidance when solicited. For the most part, though, he stayed in the background.

“He is a person who wants students to figure things out themselves. He is the type of person who believes in you,” said Tadek Kosmal ’22, who was on the drone team and currently is pursuing his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech. “He is not somebody who’s a critic just to be a critic. He’s here for his students.”

Under Williams’ guidance, the group printed the body of the drone, the chassis, the electronics, and all other components in the Design, Research, and Education for Additive Manufacturing Systems Lab – better known by the acronym DREAMS Lab. To do so first required the students to enable a robotic arm to both 3D print structures and automatically place and connect electronic components. By treating 3D printing as one tool of many instead of a stand-alone box, they removed the need for multiple machines and assembly to finish the job.

In February 2023, the drone took flight. By extension, Williams and his team had created a manufacturing process that stood apart.

“That goes back to a question you asked earlier, ‘Why be a professor?’” Williams said. “Well, that’s why. How often do you get a chance to just try new things and take the risk and work with brilliant young people who are enthusiastic and eager and passionate and inspired, and it all comes together?”

The project received international acclaim but, of note, caught the eye of Crane, the longtime University of Florida professor who originally inspired Williams.

“What’s neat about that is the students get this sense of accomplishment, as opposed to you finding some drone and writing a purchase order [to buy it],” Crane said. “I think that’s a super experience for the students. For Chris to be able to make that happen, that’s special for those students.”

Extending the reach of discovery

Those students and many others who have learned under Williams continue to make an impact for people. Virginia Tech alumni currently are printing the next rocket engine for SpaceX; printing the next set of orthodontic trays for Align Technology; and working at Ford to look at ways to transform automotive engineering. Some are at national labs throughout the country focusing on innovating materials and cost-effective ways to 3D print equipment for the defense and energy sectors.

Kosmal is one of the next in that line. His work on the drone project eventually led to him working on a deployed manufacturing project for the U.S. Navy while in graduate school. He defends his dissertation this fall and then will work for the Navy for the next three years on drone- and robot-related projects.

He gives credit to Williams for guiding him along this path.

“The big thing that he does is he asks questions and really tries to get students to figure it out themselves,” Kosmal said. “It forces us as graduate students to develop more as thinkers.”

Williams, though, doesn’t view learning as exclusive to students. He spends his days exploring new ideas and challenging conventions, partnering with anyone who shares his passion for innovation.

That’s why he served as the primary driver of Virginia Tech Made: The Center for Advanced Manufacturing. This initiative seeks to cultivate cross-campus collaborations among professors, along with expanding partnerships with industry and government to shape the future of the field and to train the workforce to lead it.

According to Williams, this is imperative.

“It’s inherent to our land-grant mission to work with industry and government to engage students with activities that prepare them for the next era of manufacturing — and that often comes directly through the integration of research and education,” Williams said. “We know that we can’t wait for talent to come to us. We must reach out now, across communities, to engage and build the workforce that will power the future.” Williams already has worked extensively with MELD Manufacturing Corporation, a Christiansburg-based company that prints metal components. Williams and MELD CEO Nanci Hardwick have been teaming to find ways to advance the region as a technology hub for additive manufacturing.

“In preparing a future workforce for the design of MELD printed forging replacements and the use of MELD machines, Chris is a true leader,” Hardwick said.

On campus, Williams has collaborated on a variety of projects, including printing multi-material models of dinosaurs and fossils with Michelle Stocker, a geobiology professor in the College of Science; inventing new materials to make 3D printed heart models feel more realistic for Carilion to help doctors plan for surgeries; and working with faculty members in the School of Visual Arts on using advances in 3D printing to create new experiences and installations.

His lab’s current focus is also interdisciplinary and broad, ranging from creating new machines that print parts from multiple types of plastics in partnership with Greg Young in the Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace Engineering to printing large metal parts that have embedded sensors to alert the user if they’re getting too stressed or about to break in a project with Hang Yu from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He’s also leading a Department of Energy project with Michael Bortner in the Department of Chemical Engineering exploring how to print recyclable wind turbine blades, and a National Science Foundation project with three researchers in the Department of Mechanical Engineering exploring how robots could be used to print materials in new ways to maximize their strength.

All those projects, and the people involved, keep him busy and happy at Virginia Tech.

“I’ve worked with so many different types of people who have great ideas, and what we do together both advances their field and also inspires new ideas for us to pursue to advance our field,” Williams said. “My favorite aspect of my job is being able to work across science and engineering, as well as arts, technology, and design. It’s the disciplinary intersections that are fun and fulfilling.”