- Other College Appointments
- Cornell Design Tech
Biography
James C. Weaver is an associate professor in Cornell Materials Science and Engineering. He received his bachelor’s degree in aquatic biology and Ph.D. in marine science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and went on to pursue postdoctoral studies in molecular biology, chemical engineering, physics, and earth history. Working at the interface between zoology, materials science, biomedical engineering, and multi-material 3D printing, his main research interests focus on investigating structure-function relationships in hierarchically ordered biological composites and the advanced fabrication of their synthetic analogues. He has played critical roles in the development of new model systems for the study of a wide range of biomineralization processes, is an internationally recognized and award-winning scanning electron microscopist, and for ten years, led additive manufacturing research efforts on commercial 3D printers within the greater Harvard community. With a strong history of national and international academic and industrial collaborations, he has coauthored more than 150 journal articles in the biological, physical, and geological sciences. His work has been featured on the covers of more than 40 scientific journals and he has contributed to numerous collaborative art installations, which have been exhibited in Berlin, Boston, Frankfurt, London, New York, Paris, and San Francisco.
Research Interests
Weaver’s research primarily focuses on the following three areas:
- Multi-scale image and materials characterization
- Advanced manufacturing and 3D data visualization
- Biologically inspired materials, architecture, and design
Select Publications
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S Nicita, JC Weaver, H Ishii, J Forman, “A framework for handweaving robotic textiles with liquid crystal elastomer fibers,” Scientific Reports 15 (1), 16883. 2025
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G Maquignaz, R Zoll, M Karpelson, JC Weaver, RJ Wood, “Design and fabrication of a parasite-inspired, millimeter-scale tissue anchoring mechanism,” PNAS nexus 3 (12), page 495. 2024
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A Magnuson, MN Dean, JC Weaver, JP Fontenelle, NR Lovejoy, “Independent transitions to freshwater environments promote phenotypic divergence, not convergence, in stingrays,” Integrative and Comparative Biology 64 (5), 1437-1453. 2024
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L Del Mouro, R Lerosey-Aubril, J Botting, R Coleman, RR Gaines, “A new sponge from the Marjum Formation of Utah documents the Cambrian origin of the hexactinellid body plan,” Royal Society Open Science 11 (9), 231845. 2024
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A Magnuson, M Dean, J Weaver, JP Fontenelle, N Lovejoy, M Kolmann, “Saltwater to freshwater transitions in stingrays result in diversification, but not convergence,” INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY 64, S322-S322. 2024
Education
- B.S., Aquatic Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara
- Ph.D., Marine Science, University of California, Santa Barbara