Professor Shahsavan’s work recognized by PNAS

Congratulations to the Department of Chemical Engineering’s Professor Hamed Shahsavan for his recent honour by the National Academy of Sciences in America. He was the lead author of a paper chosen as a finalist for a Cozzarelli Prize, which recognizes the top work published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in 2020.

Shahsavan’s paper, Bioinspired underwater locomotion of light-driven liquid crystal gels, describes research involving a gel-like robot, inspired by sea slugs and snails, that is steerable by light.

Shahsavan’s research involves the development of a variety of materials that respond to external cues, such as heat, light, and electric and magnetic fields, in a programmable fashion. Because these soft programmable materials have sensing and actuation capabilities that can be miniaturized through microfabrication techniques, they are important building blocks for new generations of soft and small-scale robots.

Such robots have the potential to revolutionize medical and biomedical technologies by enabling minimally-invasive, remote-controlled and targeted diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.

For more information about Professor Shahsavan’s prize, read Prof cited for one of 2020’s top PNAS research papers.