On this episode Aaron Fitzgerald, CEO of Mars Materials, joins the show. Carbon fiber has long been a cornerstone of aerospace and defense—but the reality is, the supply chain behind it is anything but secure.

Today, much of the world's high-performance carbon fiber depends on globally concentrated precursor production, leaving critical industries exposed at a time when resilience matters more than ever. But what if you could rethink carbon fiber from the ground up—making it not only domestically sourced, but actually carbon-negative… and still capable of meeting the demands of fighter-jet-grade applications?

That's exactly what Mars Materials is setting out to do with their breakthrough product, Hoigen-C. By leveraging what they call an "impurity-advantaged" approach, they're challenging long-held assumptions about how carbon fiber precursors are made—while building a pathway toward localized, scalable, and strategically resilient supply chains. Recent validation work with researchers at North Carolina State University has put Hoigen-C through the kind of rigorous testing required for some of the most demanding composite applications.

So today, we're going to unpack what this really means—for performance, for sustainability, and for the future of industrial resilience.

On this episode, Krishnan Veluswamy, Ph.D., joins the podcast to discuss the upcoming Demo Day at Fibers and Composites Manufacturing Facility (FCMF). Krishnan is an Assistant Professor, Mechanical, Aerospace & Biomedical Engineering Department and Affiliated with Fibers and Composites Manufacturing Facility, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN.

This upcoming event on Wednesday, March 25th, will provide an opportunity to see the facility in operation through live machinery demonstrations and cutting-edge manufacturing technologies led by the facility's undergraduate and graduate student researchers and staff.

On this episode, we're looking at a project that could say a lot about where advanced manufacturing is headed next. America Makes has awarded UDRI $450,000 for its AACAMS (Affordable and Agile Composite Additive Manufactured Structures) project, focused on pushing forward the integration of additive manufacturing and advanced composites for aerospace and defense.

The DOD has prioritized continuous fiber additive manufacturing (CFAM) for its ability to produce strong, lightweight parts by reinforcing polymers with continuous carbon or glass fibers for high-performance applications.

Steven Floyd and Clark Patterson join the show to discuss the details of the project.

You can learn more by visiting https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=gGWnnqHHCUCj4FsTAqdg5koHgAfVuEJJoOmkPSbaEpVUREhPRlVXSEhKTE5ZNk9VMzJPQkdOS05TVC4u.

On this episode, we feature more interviews from the 2nd day of JEC World 2026. These include a mix of Innovation Award winners, and Startup Booster finalists.

On this episode, we feature several interviews from day one of JEC World 2026, including some Innovation Award winners, and Startup Booster finalists.

On this latest episode, Lisa Anderson, President of LMA Consulting Group joins the podcast. Lisa is one of the most respected voices in manufacturing strategy, supply chain transformation, and SIOP. She's the author of a recently released book titled AI & Advanced Technologies in Manufacturing, where she explores how manufacturers are using AI and advanced analytics to drive real, measurable results—from demand forecasting to optimized production planning.

She'll be sharing how AI is actually improving manufacturing supply chains, where companies are seeing real value versus hype, and what leaders need to get right to turn technology into predictable performance.

You can learn more about her company at https://www.lma-consultinggroup.com.

On this episode, Bryan Hassin, CEO of DexMat joins the show to discuss Galvorn - a next-generation conductive material designed for high-performance, weight-constrained applications across aerospace, defense, automotive, and data infrastructure.

Their latest funding marks a transition point for the company, from deep materials R&D into production scale and customer qualification. Bryan has spent his career working at the intersection of lab innovation and manufacturing reality.

You can learn more about Galvorn at https://dexmat.com/why-galvorn.

Self-healing composites have been talked about for years, but sometimes a piece of research comes along that looks meaningfully different. This week, Andrew Tomaswick, a science journalist, joins the show to discuss his recent article, "The Composite That Heals Itself 1,000 Times."

It highlights a self-healing composite material developed by researchers at North Carolina State University that can repair damage repeatedly, over 1,000 cycles.

It incorporates a 3D-printed thermoplastic healing agent with embedded carbon-based heaters that, when heated, melt the agent into cracks and restore the composite's structural integrity. It's a process that proved effective over many intentional break-and-repair tests.

Andy is a writer at Universe Today and has been interested in space exploration ever since reading Pale Blue Dot in middle school. An engineer by training, he likes to focus on the practical challenges of space exploration, whether that's getting rid of Perchlorates on Mars or making ultra-smooth mirrors to capture ever clearer data.