Rayne Research Group
Additive Manufacturing and Metamaterials
Research Areas
At UC Berkeley, our team focuses on advancing additive manufacturing and processing technologies through innovative techniques that integrate mechanics, optics, and material science. We aim to create multifunctional materials and all-in-one devices with precise 3D architectures for various applications from energy transduction and storage, robotics, health care and structural applications. Our group’s research excellence and translational impact have been recognized through multiple prestigious honors, including the DARPA Young Faculty Award, DARPA Director’s Fellowship for Outstanding Projects, ONR and Air Force Young Investigator Awards, the NSF CAREER Award, as well as Bakar and AIC Awards for entrepreneurship, among others. Beyond research achievements, our group has a strong record of mentorship and academic leadership: more than 40% of our alumni have gone on to secure faculty positions at leading universities. I invite you to visit our research page for a snapshot of our current research activities.
Developing multi-material additive fabrication technologies that combine piezoelectric, dielectric, and conductive materials.
Utilizing artificial intelligence to design metamaterials with prescribed behaviors, such as energy storage and conversion and dynamic responses.
Creating sensors, transducers, battery materials and robotic materials enabled by our breakthroughs in functional materials synthesis, design and manufacturing
Dec 2025 Congratulations to our group winning AIC Catalyst Award for Commercialization
Nov 2025 Congratulations to Desheng Yao for accepting an assistant professor position at Xi'an Jiaotong University.
Sept 2025 Congratulations to Marco Maurizi for accepting an principle investigator position at Italian Institute of Artificial Intelligence.
Dec 2024 Congratulations Zhen Wang for accepting an assistant professor position at Dalian Institute of Technology!
Sept 2024 Our group presented at the annual BSAC research conference. Victor won a Best Presentation Award! Congratulations!
Feb 2023 Welcome Marco Maurizi, Ph.D..! Marco joined our group as a postdoc scholar. Marco completed his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Jan 2023 Welcome Yang Xu, Ph.D.! Yang joined our group as a postdoc scholar. Yang completed his Ph.D. from Prof. Yong Chen's group from University of Southern California.
Sept 2022 We are recruiting at UC Berkeley !
July 2022 Check LA Times featuring our search !
Sept 2021 [Member] Welcome new lab member Victor and David!
Aug 2021 [Award] We received a prestigious award from NSF DMREF (Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF). Rayne will lead the research with co-PI Professor Mathieu Bauchy, Profs. Wei Wang and Yizhou Sun from the CS department at UCLA.
June 2021 Rayne Zheng has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure.
May 2021 [member] Congratulations to Ryan Hensleigh for passing his Ph.D. Defense. Ryan will join Naval Research Laboratory in June.
April 2021 [member] Welcome new lab member Zhen Wang
April 2021 [Award] Congratulations to our group on receiving a prestigious DARPA Director's Fellowship Award!
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