Jochen Mueller, assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Systems Engineering (CaSE) has been selected as a recipient of a 2025 Catalyst Award, which will support his work exploring energy efficiency in metal additive manufacturing (AM).
Now in its 10th year, the Catalyst Awards program is designed to advance the creative research endeavors of early-career faculty. A faculty committee, which included representatives from across the university, selected 20 awardees from 123 submissions. Each honoree receives a $100,000 research grant, along with tailored mentoring and professional development opportunities to strengthen connections among the university’s early-career faculty.
Mueller’s work explores material extrusion—a type of 3D printing that dispenses material through a nozzle—for alloys that have a low melting point. Unlike traditional AM processes such as powder bed fusion, which repeatedly overheat metal powders, this approach heats the raw material only once to a temperature just above its melting point, offering the potential to significantly improve energy efficiency.
To broaden material options and reduce energy and material waste in metal AM, Mueller’s team is developing a new extrusion-based printhead to overcome challenges like high processing temperatures compared to polymers, low viscosity and high surface tension of molten metal, and insufficient adhesion among interlayers.
The 2025 honorees represent 19 departments and were selected based on their accomplishments to date, creativity and originality, and academic impact.
“Year after year, the Catalyst Awards remind us of the remarkable talent and drive of our early-career faculty,” said Denis Wirtz, JHU’s vice provost for research. “This year’s awardees are pushing boundaries in every corner of the university, and their proposals reflect the creativity, rigor, and intellectual boldness that define research at Hopkins.”
See the complete list of 2025 Catalyst Award recipients.