Panel

Mikael THELLNER, Technical Expert | Scania

Mikael THELLNER currently holds a position as technical expert for structural optimization at Scania and has more than fifteen years of experience of working with simulation in the automotive industry. He has a MSc from Lund University and a PhD from Linköping University.

Jeswin Joseph CHANKARAMANGALAM, Research Manager and Program Manager for the Emerging Technologies | NIAR

Jeswin Joseph Chankaramangalam is the Research Manager and Program Manager for the Emerging Technologies and CAD/CAM series of labs at WSU’s National Institute for Aviation Research. Mr. Chankaramangalam has had growing roles within NIAR and has served in various continuous improvement programs, standards development and has set up of technologies and successful laboratories. Mr. Chankaramangalam has worked for NIAR for the last 17 years during which he managed multiple high value projects for the Composites Fabrication and Manufacturing labs, environmental conditioning labs, Additive Manufacturing Labs, Digital Twin lab and Emerging Technologies Labs. Mr. Chankaramangalam manages state-funded and industry-funded programs and is a subject matter expert in the field of advanced manufacturing, recycling of composites, additive manufacturing and machine learning methods for manufacturing. In his role, he leads the cutting-edge research in emerging technologies, with a focus in additive manufacturing and advanced manufacturing technologies. Mr. Chankaramangalam is also responsible for the Model Based Systems Engineering efforts at NIAR which has expanded into training and deployment across various industries.

Mr. Chankaramangalam manages the large scale additive manufacturing programs and equipment at the Emerging Technologies lab. His research work involves developing large format additive manufacturing tooling and creation of design allowables for large format tooling. He has contributed to the material characteristics and qualification efforts for both polymers and metals. He was part of the development team that developed a system for “Reverse Engineering of Composite Repairs”.

Mr. Chankaramangalam’s team won 1st place (gold) for the Air Force’s inaugural Advanced Manufacturing Olympics (AMO) competition that featured aerospace and aviation’s primes and OEMS. Mr. Chankaramangalam led the team to prove NIAR’s capabilities in Digital Twin, Digital Engineering and Reverse Engineering capabilities.

Mr. Chankaramangalam has been awarded two patents, one for fully-automated pathing of collaborative robots for automated finishing (which has been licensed for commercial manufacturing), and a second one for “boxellation” (a unique concept for additive manufacturing).

Mr. Chankaramangalam has also earned the title of “CATIA Champion” by Dassault Systemes for his contributions to the digital engineering industry.

Mr. Chankaramangalam is also the Vice President of the Wichita chapter for the Society for the Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering.  

Most recently, Mr. Chankaramangalam won the Engineering Service Award from the Wichita Council of Engineering Societies, for his contribution to engineering at large and service to the community.

Etienne BAER, Co-founder | HYVIATE GmbH

Etienne Baer has worked in the Aerospace industry for over 11 years. He is a co-founder of HYVIATE GmbH, an Aviation/Greentech start-up focusing on liquid hydrogen, and is in charge of R&D.

As part of leading HYVIATE’s engineering effort, Etienne has deployed methodologies relying on Dassault Systèmes 3DEXPERIENCE platform and overseen the design of a first semi-functional prototype that must undergo testing in early 2023.

He still resides in France but contemplates moving to Bavaria with his wife Charlene and their two daughters. When he isn’t running optimizations, you can find him hiking or skiing.