Photopolymer Additive Manufacturing Alliance relaunches website and launches PAM JAM monthly research series

The Photopolymer Additive Manufacturing Alliance (PAMA), a collaboration between NIST and RadTech, has relaunched its website at pama3d.org and debuted a monthly virtual research series called PAM JAM. The website now features a curated library of peer-reviewed publications, magazine articles, and videos alongside event information. PAM JAM launched in April 2026 with a 30-minute presentation followed by 20 minutes of Q&A, and the next session on May 11 features Kaiwen Hsiao of Texas A&M University discussing micron- and nano-resolution polymer structuring with light. The initiative was led by executive committee chair Vince Anewenter of Scot Forge and incoming chair Callie Higgins of NIST, with a full schedule of talks through end of 2026.

This move matters because photopolymer AM — encompassing SLA, DLP, and DLS technologies — remains the largest production AM process by unit volume, driven overwhelmingly by Align Technology's dental aligner production. Yet the research community supporting vat photopolymerization has lacked a centralized, peer-reviewed knowledge hub comparable to what ASTM or ISO committees provide for metal powder bed fusion. PAMA's curated library and monthly series directly address this gap, creating a structured pathway for methodological rigor and reproducibility in photopolymer research. The NIST involvement signals that this is not merely a marketing exercise but a standards-adjacent effort to formalize best practices, which could eventually feed into qualification frameworks for medical and dental applications where photopolymer AM already dominates.

For researchers and engineers working with photopolymer AM, the practical value is straightforward: PAMA now offers a single source for vetted technical content and a regular forum for discussing new work. The key test will be whether the library achieves critical mass of high-quality submissions and whether PAM JAM attracts consistent attendance beyond the initial launch. If the alliance can sustain this programming through 2027, it will become a genuine resource for method validation and community building in a process segment that often gets overshadowed by metal AM headlines.