Youping Gao, PhD

Dr. Gao founded Castheon Inc to advance the state of the art in additive manufacturing and industrialization.  He is a Fellow, SME, the Laser Institute, and an additive manufacturing DINO (Distinguished INnovator Operators), previously, Technical Fellow & Discipline Chief, Manufacturing Engineering at Aerojet Rocketdyne (Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Boeing Rocketdyne, Rockwell Rocketdyne) where he perfected AM process, made it a robust manufacturing platform where it is the first in the nation received NASA’s production certification for AM producing mission critical hardware for manned spaceflight.  Now AM is part of an indispensable production platform that enables low cost and rapid product development and production systems.  Dr, Gao has over 30 years experiences in industrial R&D and project management particularly in materials and processes development, design for manufacturing, products & materials development, and technical consulting which covers from additive manufacturing, laser and electron beam material processing, high temperature and high-pressure material processing, advanced refractory alloys development, hypersonics and rocket propulsion.