Thomas Willett

Education

• BASc. (Mechanical Engineering), Queen’s University at Kingston, ON, Canada, 2001
• MASc. (Mechanical Engineering), Queen’s University at Kingston, ON, Canada, 2003
• PhD. (Biomedical Engineering), Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada, 2008

Research interests

My main research interests concern the applied mechanics and engineering of skeletal biomaterials and tissues. I am interested in:

Bone quality and fragility

Developing improved understanding of the mechanisms that determine the mechanical behaviour and failure of bone and how collagen modifications due to ageing, disease, irradiation, and other causes alter these mechanisms and the mechanical behaviour of the tissue.

Engineering of bone mimetic materials for skeletal reconstruction

By leveraging the exciting and rapidly advancing fields of additive manufacturing/3D Printing, biomineralization, and mechanics of multi-scale biological and biomimetic composites, we seek to both a) gain improved understanding of the materials science and mechanics of these exceptional materials and b) to develop disruptive new technologies for application in skeletal reconstruction and repair (orthopaedics), particularly graft materials for treating large skeletal defects caused by trauma, cancer, etc.