(Press-News.org) Vipin Kumar, a composites manufacturing researcher at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been named one of 21 rising professionals nationwide for the 2026 Emerging Leaders Program of the American Composites Manufacturers Association (ACMA).
The competitive, year-long program develops future leaders in the composites industry through professional development, industry engagement and advocacy training, preparing participants to help shape the future of advanced manufacturing in the United States.
“Vipin translates cutting-edge research into solutions that industry can use. His selection for the ACMA Emerging Leaders Program reflects both his exceptional technical expertise and his growing influence as a leader in advanced manufacturing,” said Yarom Polsky, director of ORNL’s Manufacturing Science Division. “This recognition underscores ORNL’s commitment to developing leaders who will advance U.S. manufacturing competitiveness.”
Kumar’s work at DOE’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF) at ORNL focuses on developing innovative composite manufacturing techniques using large-scale polymer additive manufacturing, along with traditional and advanced manufacturing processes. He also investigates how carbon fiber-reinforced plastic composites respond to direct lightning strikes and is designing novel materials to mitigate damage, improving safety and resilience for applications such as aerospace.
Kumar has published more than 120 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings and holds three granted patents, with 12 additional patents pending. He received a 2023 R&D 100 Award and the 2023 CAMX Combined Strength Award for his contributions to ORNL’s additive manufacturing-compression molding process, a significant advancement in high-throughput thermoplastic composite production. He also received the 2022 Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and the 2021 Young Professionals Emerging Leadership Award from the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering.
The MDF is supported by DOE’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office and acts as a nationwide consortium of collaborators focused on innovating, inspiring and catalyzing the transformation of U.S. manufacturing.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science. — Tina M. Johnson
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Kumar named to ACMA Emerging Leaders Program for 2026
2026-02-20
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