Rate My Professor Brett Compton

Brett G. Compton serves as the Stewart McCorkle Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He received his PhD in 2012 from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his BS in 2006 from the University of Kentucky, Lexington. Compton's career includes a Post-doctoral Research Fellowship at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University from January 2013 to April 2014, followed by a role as Materials Scientist in Additive Manufacturing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Manufacturing Demonstration Facility from June 2014 to July 2015. He joined the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, as Assistant Professor in August 2015 and was promoted to Associate Professor in August 2021.

Compton's research specializes in developing high-performance materials for additive manufacturing technologies, focusing on the fundamental understanding of processes to engineer components via links between feedstock processing parameters, deposition parameters, and mechanical or functional properties assessed through mechanical testing, numerical simulation, and modeling. His work encompasses printable fiber-reinforced polymer matrix composites, ceramic matrix composites, and multi-material hybrid structures for applications in aerospace, nuclear power, armor, wear materials, and lightweight structures for transportation. Key publications include "3D-Printing of Lightweight Cellular Composites" (Advanced Materials, 2014; cited 2138 times), "Structure and Mechanical Behavior of Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) Materials" (Rapid Prototyping Journal, 2017; cited 550 times), "What Makes a Material Printable? A Viscoelastic Model for Extrusion-Based 3D Printing of Polymers" (Journal of Manufacturing Processes, 2018; cited 452 times), "Rotational 3D Printing of Damage-Tolerant Composites with Programmable Mechanics" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018; cited 364 times), and "Thermal Analysis of Additive Manufacturing of Large-Scale Thermoplastic Polymer Composites" (Additive Manufacturing, 2017; cited 330 times). Awards include the AFRL Summer Faculty Fellowship (2016), an invitation as speaker at the NAE Japan-America Frontiers of Engineering Symposium (2016), R&D 100 Award for GENOA 3D printing software with AlphaStar Corporation, Web of Science Highly Cited Paper for his 2014 Advanced Materials publication, and cover art feature for the same paper.