Xiao Shang
Postdoctoral Researcher, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mechanosynthesis Group (MechE) & Gas Turbine Laboratory (AeroAstro)
I want manufacturing to keep pace with AI design, so that what AI designs can be built accurately, quickly and affordably.
Overcoming the manufacturing bottleneck in AI-driven design
AI now designs new alloys and parts far faster than we can make them. My lab, the Additive Innovation and Artificial Intelligence (AI²) Lab, will make AI designs buildable, and AM able to build them.
AI design for AM
Process- and cost-aware AI design
Generative AI
Toolpath planning
Composition-aware toolpaths for graded parts
Bayesian optimization · agentic AI
Process models
Transferable AI process optimization
Physics-informed & transfer learning
Closed-loop control
Adaptive control of composition
Learned control · multi-modal sensing
Critical parts
Affordable, certifiable graded metal parts
Aerospace · nuclear · defence
Two challenges for my lab
Build manufacturability into AI design
AI designs rarely account for what a metal AM machine can build, or at what cost.
Make AM accurate and fast enough
So that AM can build what AI designs, to specification and in a certifiable way.
Ongoing projects
Current, unpublished work at MIT and with collaborators.
Functionally graded turbine blisk
A component-level, multi-alloy gas-turbine blisk, planned with a toolpath–composition optimizer that accounts for dilution and heat build-up.
Hybrid inkjet + laser powder bed fusion
Jetting nanoparticle inks onto each powder layer to alloy metals voxel by voxel and print smooth in-plane composition gradients.
Deep-learning closed-loop control of DED
A learned controller that reads images of the build and adjusts the laser on the fly.
Magnetic fields as a melt-pool actuator
Direct X-ray evidence of thermoelectric magnetohydrodynamic flow in DED of 316L and IN718, toward a new knob for melt-pool control.
All ongoing projects, including impact-resistant bi-metals →
Research highlights
Heterostructured bi-metallic steels
Confined-necking co-deformation raises tensile ductility by 27.3% over 316L.
Custom multi-material DED platform
A full-size DED system I built from scratch, the base for my bi-metallic and multifunctional work.
AIDED inverse process optimization
ML + genetic algorithms find DED process windows from single tracks to multi-layer builds.
Inverse microstructure design
A 3D-CNN and genetic algorithm go straight from target properties to 3D microstructures.
Multifunctional multi-metal parts
Magnetic force, embedded data, better seals and programmable mechanics from one DED process.
Melt-pool morphology in DED
CFD and in-situ high-speed infrared imaging explain and quantify melt-pool shape.
About
Engineer, researcher, builder
I am a licensed Professional Engineer and a postdoctoral researcher at MIT working with Prof. A. John Hart and Prof. Zachary Cordero, supported by an NSERC Canada Postdoctoral Research Award. I earned my PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto with Prof. Yu Zou.
My work sits where manufacturing processes, mechanics of materials and artificial intelligence meet. I build the machines, write the control and optimization software, and test the parts that come out.
Selected recognition
- 2027 AIME Henry DeWitt Smith Scholarship
TMS 2027 · US$2,500 + US$500 travel grant - NSERC Canada Postdoctoral Research Award
2026 · $140,000 - 1st Place, ASM International IMAT Materials Venture Challenge
2025 · autonomous additive manufacturing system - NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship – Doctoral
2023 · $120,000 - Connaught Innovation Award, University of Toronto
2023 · $150,000, with Prof. Yu Zou
Recent updates
- 2026Selected for the 2027 AIME Henry DeWitt Smith Scholarship (US$2,500, plus a US$500 travel grant and complimentary registration), to be announced at the TMS 2027 Annual Meeting.
- Aug 2026Joined MIT as a Postdoctoral Researcher with Profs. A. John Hart (Mechanosynthesis Group) and Zachary Cordero (Gas Turbine Laboratory).
- 2026Awarded the NSERC Canada Postdoctoral Research Award ($140,000).
- May 2026Defended my PhD thesis, Design and additive manufacture of high-performing metallic materials via process and microstructure optimization, at the University of Toronto.
- 2026Invited review on directed energy deposition published in Additive Manufacturing.
- 2026Oral and poster presentations at the 155th TMS Annual Meeting.
- Jan 2026Heterostructured bi-metallic steels published in Acta Materialia, and multifunctional multi-metal parts in MetalMat.
- Jan 2026Received the DND/NSERC Supplemental Funding Award for defence-relevant research.
- Oct 2025Won 1st Place in the ASM International IMAT Materials Venture Challenge for our autonomous additive manufacturing system.
- Aug 2025Received the Joseph R. Benedetto Scholarship from SME Toronto Chapter 26.