Junior Professor Dr Eva Blasco has been honoured by the German Chemical Society (GDCh) for her innovative research work in the field of functional materials for 3D and 4D printing at the microand nanoscale. She has received a Dr Hermann Schnell Scholarship for outstanding young researchers, worth 3,000 euros. Eva Blasco carries out her research at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and the Institute for Molecular Systems Engineering and Advanced Materials of Heidelberg University. The scholarship of the GDCh was awarded her on 12 September 2022 in the context of the society’s conference for Macromolecular Chemistry in Aachen.
Prof. Blasco’s work is at the interface of organic and macromolecular chemistry and materials sciences. Her projects focus on developing intelligent functional materials for 3D and 4D printing. Taking inspiration from nature, one of her main goals is the incorporation of "life-like" behaviour into synthetic materials by combining stimuli-responsive polymers and 3D printing technologies at the microscale. This method is called 4D microprinting, and the additional fourth dimension refers to the ability of a three-dimensionally printed object to change its properties over time. In its rationale for granting the scholarship, the GDCh underlines that Prof. Blasco’s research activities have the potential to revolutionise research fields such as microrobotics.
Eva Blasco studied chemistry at the University of Zaragoza (Spain), where she completed her doctoral studies in 2013. She then moved to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), where she worked first as an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship-holder and later as a group leader at the Institute of Nanotechnology. She has been a junior professor at Ruperto Carola since October 2020. Prof. Blasco is also a principal investigator in the Excellence Cluster "3D Matter Made to Order" (3DMM2O), a collaboration of Heidelberg University and the KIT. She recently received the Outstanding Young Researcher in Polymers Award 2022 of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry.
With Dr Hermann Schnell Scholarships, the eponymous foundation based in the German Chemical Society supports young scientists in the field of macromolecular chemistry, its physical-chemical foundations and its analysis.
