Materials engineering professor Anastasia Elias will be establishing long-term research projects through a Humboldt fellowship.
(Edmonton) What better way of spending a sabbatical than expanding research horizons and fostering international collaboration? This is exactly what Anastasia Elias, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering will be doing in Dresden, Germany, as the recipient of a Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers.
Funded through the German government, the fellowship enables academics who demonstrate a substantial track record in research to spend up to 18 months at a research facility in Germany.
"The fellowship, part of their goal, is to establish on-going collaboration," says Elias, who will be working side by side with world-renowned experts at the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research, Dresden.
Elias developed her project proposal in partnership with her host, Petra Pötschke of the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research, a recognized expert in functional nanocomposites and blends. She will also work closely with Julian Thiele, a group leader at the institute and an expert in microfluidics.
The study she's undertaking looks into engineering new polymer composites - a field Elias hopes to explore in greater depth.
"Part of the sabbatical is to learn something new, to form new collaborations," she said.
"In the project, we will develop and characterize unique materials based on polymer-carbon nanotube composites, investigate methods to pattern these materials, and, in one application, integrate these materials into microfluidic devices as electrodes for biosensors" said Elias.
At the end of the fellowship, Elias is hoping to present the project results in Dresden, publish articles in collaboration with Pötschke and Thiele, and advance her research at the University of Alberta.
Here at the Faculty of Engineering, Elias' work focuses on polymers, responsive materials, and macro- and nanofabrication techniques. She leads a research group, Elias Research Group, that develops functional materials for a variety of applications.
"I have students working on all sorts of application areas: from smart sensors for food packaging, to fundamental aspects of degradable polymers, to designing biocompatible devices for biomedical applications," said Elias.
"In addition to studying the processing and properties of degradable polymers, my group has been developing degradable polymer-graphene composites that could potentially be integrated into electrical devices that break down at the end of their lifetime. This work will tie in with the research that I'll be undertaking through the fellowship. In the future, we will continue to engineer functional composites based on these materials, and tailor their properties for sensing and other applications."
She is also an excellent educator - earlier this year, Elias and her colleague, professor Janet Elliott, received the Unit Teaching Award for the work that they have done together instructing CHE 243, Engineering Thermodynamics.
"In part, I'm hoping to establish collaboration that my students could continue, or find people who would want to train with us for some time. I am also looking forward to learning about the excellent research being conducted in Dresden," said Elias of cultivating international co-operation.