WIN Distinguished Lecture - Professor Joanna Aizenberg: "New bio-inspired materials: When nanotechnology meets chemistry, optics and surface science"

As part of the third annual Waterloo Nanotechnology Conference (WNC), the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) presents a Distinguished Lecture by Professor Joanna Aizenberg, Professor of Materials Science, Chemistry, and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Lecture: 2:00-3:00pm

New bio-inspired materials: When nanotechnology meets chemistry, optics and surface science

Living systems sense, respond to, and harvest energy from the changing environment by interweaving chemistry, mechanics, optics, electronics, and fluid dynamics across time and length scales. In this lecture, materials chemist Joanna Aizenberg will give us a taste of how the inspiration from nature teaches us to break barriers between these fields in the synthetic realm and leads to fascinating new concepts in materials design. She will look at a deep sea sponge and envision a green, illuminated skyscraper that harvests energy from the wind. The brittle star’s intricate skeleton will inspire dynamic optical systems that can collect light. She will present cilia-inspired adaptive hairy surfaces that alter their wetting, optical, and adhesive behavior via chemomechanical reconfiguration of tiny nanostructures. Creating liquid-sensing “noses” from chemically patterned photonic crystals inspired by butterflies, or ultra-slippery, antifouling surfaces with self-tuning transparency inspired by pitcher plant and cacti – these are just the beginning of the multifunctional, dynamic materials possibilities waiting to be explored at the interdisciplinary border between nanotechnology, biology, chemistry, and physics.

Professor Joanna Aizenberg

Joanna Aizenberg, Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials Science and Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, pursues a broad range of research interests that include biomimetics, self-assembly, smart materials, bio-nano interfaces, crystal engineering, surface chemistry, nanofabrication, biomineralization, biomechanics and biooptics. She received the B.S. degree in Chemistry in 1981, the M.S. degree in Physical Chemistry in 1984 from Moscow State University, and the Ph.D. degree in Structural Biology from the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1996.

Joanna is the Director of the Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Technology and Platform Leader in the Wyss Institute for Bioinspired Engineering at Harvard University. She has served at the Board of Directors of the Materials Research Society and at the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. She served on the Advisory Board of Langmuir and Chemistry of Materials, on Board of Reviewing Editors of Science Magazine, and is an Editorial Board Member of Advanced Materials.

Aizenberg is elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science; and she is a Fellow of American Physical Society and Materials Research Society. Dr. Aizenberg received numerous awards from the American Chemical Society and Materials Research Society, including Fred Kavli Distinguished Lectureship in Nanoscience, Ronald Breslow Award for the Achievement in Biomimetic Chemistry, Arthur K. Doolittle Award in Polymeric Materials, ACS Industrial Innovation Award, and was recognized with two R&D 100 Awards for best innovations in 2012 and 2013 for the invention of a novel class of omniphobic materials and watermark ink technologies.