Callie Zawaski

Callie graduated from the Virginia Tech with her Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering in 2014. She first joined the lab in Spring 2013, on the DreamVendor team. This is where she learned about her passion for additive manufacturing.

During her senior year she participated on the DREAMS Lab senior design team to design and build the DreamVendor 2.0 system. She worked on developing the user interface and the heater bed system. She continues to help with the machines, by teaching undergraduates about 3d printing and helping them maintain the machines.

In graduate school Callie continued her research in the area of additive manufacturing material extrusion. Callie worked with the Long Group in the Virginia Tech Chemistry department in a group collaboration to develop new materials for material extrusion. She worked on the mechanical engineering side to test new materials, determine important material properties to measure, and quantify the “print-ability” or material extrusion materials.

She received funding from the Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity (CEED). She worked as a graduate assistant in the inVenTs studio, a makerspace within a living learning community. Her job included managing upper-class undergraduates running equipment training and events, as well as maintaining the supplies, machines, and space for students in the community to use, along with other things CEED does. 

Callie graduated with her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering in 2020.