Jonathan B. Hopkins, Ph.D.

Jonathan B. Hopkins, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on the design, analysis, and fabrication of flexible structures with advanced capabilities, including shape mutability, energy storage, and dynamic complexity. His work utilizes geometric principles to guide the creative process in concept generation. Hopkins has published extensively in journals such as the Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, Precision Engineering, and Composite Structures. His research has been recognized with several awards, including the ASME Leonardo Da Vinci Award and the Compliant Mechanisms Award. He is also affiliated with the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and can be contacted via email at hopkins@seas.ucla.edu.

Jonathan Hopkins is a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) focusing on the development of flexible structures, compliant mechanisms, and architected metamaterials. His work explores the design and fabrication of materials with tunable mechanical properties, including negative thermal expansion and programmable elastic behavior. Hopkins investigates additive fabrication techniques to create micro-mechanical systems and metamaterials with complex functionalities, such as mechanical neural networks and shape-reconfigurable architectures. His research also addresses challenges in precision microscale additive manufacturing and the design of flexure-based motion stages. His publications highlight the integration of freedom and constraint topologies (FACT) to optimize mechanical systems and enhance performance in mechatronic applications.