Adam Cohen is Principal Consultant and CEO of Additive Insight and a pioneer and veteran of the 3-D printing / additive manufacturing industry, with 31 years of 3-D printing experience.
Adam developed and brought to market three major 3-D printing technologies:
• He led the team at 3D Systems that commercialized the industry’s 1st 3-D printing machine, yielding over $100M in sales.
• He co-founded and was VP R&D of Soligen Technologies, a public company that was the 1st to bring to market MIT’s next-generation “3D Printing” process.
• He invented MICA Freeform, the 1st and only mass production 3-D printing technology, then founded and was CEO of Microfabrica, raising $17M in funding from top-tier VCs including Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
He also founded and edited the 1st 3-D printing industry periodical and directory, co-wrote one of the 1st books on 3-D printing, authored numerous papers and conference papers on 3-D printing, launched one of the 1st consultancies focused on 3-D printing, and holds approximately 70 issued U.S. patents, mostly in the field of 3-D printing.
As an SMU Professor of mechanical engineering and Director of the Laboratory for Additive Manufacturing, Robotics, and Automation, Adam leads a team developing several new 3-D printing technologies, including Fiber Encapsulation Additive Manufacturing (FEAM), a breakthrough multi-material 3-D printing technology that monolithically fabricates devices with embedded actuators, sensors, and circuitry; printing of ultra-soft elastomers; and sintering-based and isotropic fiber-reinforced 3-D printing. Multiple patents are pending on these technologies.
Adam serves as a member of the Editorial Board of the scholarly journal 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing and has been an invited speaker at the Inside 3D Printing Conference and Expo, the 3D Printer World Expo, the Army Research Labs, the Naval Research Labs, Raytheon, and the University of Minnesota. He has also been an invited topic co-organizer and session chair for the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition conference and an invited session chair for the Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium.
EXPERIENCE
- Principal Consultant and CEO, Additive Insight LLC
- Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, SMU
- Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President, Technology, Microfabrica Inc.
- Founder, CEO, and President, Microfabrica Inc.
- Project Leader, USC Information Sciences Institute
- Co-Founder, Vice President R&D, Soligen Technologies
- Founder and President, F Cubed
- Product Line Manager/Program Manager, 3D Systems, Inc.
- Engineer-Mechanical Products Engineering, Dataproducts Corporation
RECOMMENDATIONS
“Adam is simply the most consistently innovative person I have ever worked with. His inventive productivity is attested not only by the extraordinary number of patents he has authored, but also by their breadth. Adam has conceived commercially useful inventions in fields as diverse as microfabrication, minimally-invasive medical devices, MEMS, rapid prototyping, and electrochemistry. He is one of those very rare people who combine a penetrating intelligence with a sincere humility. This makes him a very effective listener, collaborator, and team player, able to readily grasp the ideas of others as well as originating his own. He is also intensely entrepreneurial. Adam has founded companies, developed platform technologies, raised venture funding, managed teams, and executed business plans in widely varying industries.” -Michael Lockard, President and Chief Operating Officer, Microfabrica
“If I were to describe Adam, the first word to come to mind is creative. He is one of the most creative and innovative people I know. Because of this strength, he is able to find a solution to almost any problem. He has solved countless process fabrication and design problems in his career at Microfabrica. It is hard to imagine where we would be without him. He also has an extensive knowledge base in many different fields, such as micro-manufacturing, radio frequency circuits, mechanical design and medical devices to name a few. What makes him such a valuable asset to the company is his ability to become an expert in a new field very quickly. He is an agile thinker and there is no doubt in my mind that he would be able to make a very positive impact on any organization in a very short period of time. He is detail-oriented, highly organized and has an insatiable appetite for learning. On a personal level, Adam is very humble, well-respected and has a great sense of humor. I’m glad to have the privilege of working with him.” -Richard Chen, Vice President, Product Development, Microfabrica
“In my eighteen year career as an engineer and manager, Adam stands out as one of the most intelligent, innovative and inspiring people I have ever had the pleasure of working with. I reported directly to Adam for four years and consider myself very fortunate to have had him as a mentor and manager. Adam’s curiosity and energy are contagious and everyone that worked for him came to expect more of themselves and of the team. Adam is an exceptionally creative and innovative thinker. After inventing the technology on which Microfabrica was founded, Adam has continued to be the most prolific contributor to the company’s extensive portfolio of patents. Lastly, Adam is the most humble and ethical person I know and someone with whom I much enjoy working.” -Uri Frodis, Vice President of Process Engineering, Microfabrica
“In April of 2011, I reached out to Adam to help eV3 Neurovascular/Covidien develop a new catheter that was more complex than any we had previously attempted. The catheter design was converging to a solution, and I sought an engineer to develop the processes that would produce consistent units in our pilot lab within 3 months. Since Adam had never worked on catheters, he might have appeared an unlikely choice. This was a high-visibility, high-stakes program, so I placed a premium on ability to deliver. Based on our 11 years working together, I knew Adam would achieve where others may stumble. Adam has a tremendous ability to dive quickly into a new field, initiate a rigorous engineering approach to determine a course of action, and then tirelessly pursue it while maintaining a good rapport with all team members. His deep yet broad background in design and process informs his approach, and allows him to identify opportunities that others who rely solely on experience may overlook. Experience alone may lead teams to poor choices if not backed by a solid grasp of engineering principles. Since Adam combines both experience and fundamentals, he turbocharges through new projects. Not only did Adam deliver the pilot line processes on time with an understaffed team, but he also co-developed a new catheter process that we are considering for a patent. This is typical work arc for Adam; he charges up the hill, executes the deliverables, and creates new ideas when others are still absorbing the staus quo. Working with Adam has been a highlight of my professional career. In addition, I have always been grateful for Adam’s exceptional level of personal integrity, which I value tremendously. I would retain Adam again for any of our most critical, challenging projects.” -Chris Folk, Manager, R&D, Covidien Neurovascular/eV3
“Adam is the founder of Microfabrica, the main inventor of the company’s process technology, and is named on over 160 of the company’s issued and pending U.S. patents. He is a prolific thinker and creative problem solver, and has been an indispensible member of the company’s technical brain trust in tackling a large number of challenges Microfabrica faced in process and materials development and device design. Moreover, Adam led the activity to identify and develop medical applications for Microfabrica, rapidly becoming highly conversant with a wide range of clinical needs, medical devices, and procedures; designing several ingenious devices; and landing early customers and a major NIH grant. Last but not least, he has played a key role in marketing and evangelizing the company’s technology over the years, and has excelled at establishing close relationships with customers. Adam has been indispensible in setting the tone for the level of dedication we needed to make meaningful progress: any project he takes on, he applies all of himself to the task selflessly, thinking through every aspect and detail, improvising almost effortlessly on resources, and getting things done. He is very driven, and does not need any prompting to pitch in and immerse himself in tackling problems, whether by himself or while managing a technical team. A strong team player, he is also brutally honest and egoless when it comes to the best interests of the company, and he never hesitates to volunteer whenever he is needed.” -Vacit Arat, President & CEO, Microfabrica
“Adam not only invented the fundamentals of Microfabrica’s technology, he has repeatedly shown his inventiveness -not to mention his breadth of knowledge and ability to learn- by researching and identifying new application areas. He single-handedly identified opportunities and designed proof-of-concept medical devices to demonstrate the viability of the medical market. These became the “spark” which provided the necessary credibility to establish a medical device product line and propel the company into this new application area. Both his inquisitiveness, which leads him to find better solutions, and his focus, which enables him to successfully tackle challenging goals without getting sidetracked, serve him well as a technologist. Adam is also humble, which allows him to keep an open mind and enables him to learn from others and adopt their suggestions when appropriate. It continues to be a pleasure to work with Adam; he’s someone I definitely want on my team now and in the future.” -Ira Feldman, Vice President Business Development, Microfabrica
“Adam is a very-talented, creative individual–a founder of a pioneering company, Microfabrica. His uniquely innovative thinking would be an asset to any company looking for someone who can bring creative, outside-the-box, ideas. I always enjoyed my interactions with Adam.” -Kevin Wasserstein, Managing Director, Versant Ventures