Daniel Magnuson
Daniel graduated with Honors from UC Santa Barbara with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 2021. As an undergraduate, he worked with Professor Sam Daly at the California NanoSystems Institute. He joined the Mechanical Engineering department as a Ph.D. student in Fall 2021, receiving his masters in 2023. Daniel’s research is focused on growing, testing, and characterizing single crystals of refractory multi-principal element alloys.
Research Interests: Mechanical testing, deformation mechanisms, transmission electron microscopy, multi principal element alloys
Email: dmagnus2@jhu.edu
Jacob Aljundi
Jacob graduated from the University of Tennesse, Knoxville in 2018 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. He works at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division where he performs research on process/property relationships in hybrid wire-arc additive manufacturing. He joined the Hemker research group as a Ph.D. student in the fall of 2022.
Research Interests: Hybrid metal AM, characterization, process/property relationships
Email: jaljund1@jhu.edu
Maddy Selby
Maddy graduated from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) with degrees in Mechanical Engineering (B.S. 2021, M.S. 2022). At UMBC, she investigated metal additive manufacturing repeatability through multiscale mechanical testing while working with Prof. Marc Zupan. Maddy joined the Hemker research group as a Ph. D. student in fall 2022. Her research focuses on characterizing the interface of additively-graded combustion chambers built using directed energy deposition.
Research Interests: Metal additive manufacturing, functionally graded materials (FGMs), multi-scale mechanical testing
Anchen Tong
Anchen graduated Cum Laude from Northwestern University in 2023 with B.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Manufacturing and Design Engineering. At Northwestern, he worked with Prof. Jian Cao on developing experimental setups for in-situ x-ray imaging of laser directed energy deposition (DED) additive manufacturing and Prof. Ping Guo on solid-state additive manufacturing and hyperspectral image thermometry for DED. He joined the Hemker Group as a Ph.D. student in fall 2023.
Research Interests: Metal additive manufacturing
Email: atong5@jhu.edu
Jon Galati
Jon joined the aerospace industry after graduating from Ohio State with a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering in 2020. While working, he specialized in additive manufacturing process development. He joined Prof. Taheri and Prof. Hemker’s groups as a Ph.D. student in the Fall of 2024.
Research Interests: Alloy development, additive manufacturing
Email: jgalati1@jh.edu
Melanie Heider
Melanie Heider graduated from the University of Delaware (UD) in 2025 with dual degrees in Materials Science and Engineering (B.MSE) and Information Systems (B.S.). While at UD, she conducted research under Dr. Mark Mirotznik on the additive manufacturing of lunar regolith for electromagnetic applications. In Fall 2025, she joined the Hemker Lab as a Ph.D. student, where her research focuses on milliscale high-temperature testing of structural materials.
Research Interests: Additive Manufacturing, High-Temperature Testing, Materials Characterization, Structural Materials
Email: mheider1@jh.edu