The highly interdisciplinary project will be executed in close collaboration between the department of materials engineering, the department of electrical engineering and the department of bioscience engineering.
The Postdoc can thus benefit from the complementary expertise of the different supervisors.
The current position exploits the capabilities and experimental facilities of Prof. Mignon (polymer science) and Prof. Bloemen (additive manufacturing via melt electrowriting) and bridges to the field of sensors (Prof. Taurino’s) for plant diagnostics (Prof. Van de Poel).
KU Leuven, established in 1425, ranks number 43 on the Times Higher Education list. Moreover, according to the Reuters ranking, it is the seventh most innovative university worldwide (number one in Europe, after six American universities).
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Responsibilities
Sensor development for health has made great progress over the years, especially with respect to wearable electronics that measure in real-time patients’ physiological processes. However, this technology has not yet been applied to other life forms such as plants.
With the era of smart farming at our doorstep to make crop production more sustainable, we want to develop a novel real-time wearable sensor that is able to measure leaf transpiration from different crops.
We will deploy the latest technologies in electrowriting and microfabrication technology, to develop new wearable and stretchable sensors tuned to measure humidity changes in the boundary layer of a leaf.
This new sensor will enable us to quantify leaf transpiration in real time and assess the plant’s physiological behavior, detect abnormal transpiration patters to allow early stress detection.
This novel electronic plant sensor could be an important addition to plant diagnostics field, and finds its implementation in the field of smart farming.
More specifically the project aims to:
- Develop new hydrophilic crosslinkable polymers
- Use melt electrowriting (MEW) to create a MEW substrate of these newly developed polymers
- Optimize the polymers for MEW with the right hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity
- Unravel the methods that can be used to integrate sensor materials on the MEW substrate
- Test the functionality of the developed sensor in agricultural relevant crops under normal and stressed conditions
Profile
Our team is recruiting a highly motivated Postdoc, who has a strong interest in polymer chemistry and processing through additive manufacturing. We are looking for someone with the following requirements.
- You hold a PhD in (chemical) engineering or equivalent.
- You are a team-player with a critical mind, work accurately and have a profound interest in polymer science, additive manufacturing or microfabrication.
- You have good interpersonal skills and motivation to work in a multidisciplinary research team
- You are able to work independently in a creative and critical way
- You have good communication skills to report results through articles and oral presentations at conferences
- You are very fluent in English, both spoken and written
Previous experience as PhD or industrial expertise in a specific domain of the position is a plus
We are looking for enthusiastic candidates who show a proactive attitude towards research in developing original sensing concepts.
Offer
We offer a full-time position for 1 year . Our young and dynamic team will support you to successfully work at a top-ranked university.
You will participate in a larger multidisciplinary project, and collaborate with multiple PIs.
You will have opportunities to participate at national and international meetings/conferences, and establish your own network.
More information
info about a PhD at the KU Leuven
Interested?
For more information please contact Prof. dr. Arn Mignon, tel.: +32 16 32 21 10, mail: [email protected].
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