Team & Contact -- OLD -- not listed |

Hakam has a background in liquid crystal microfluidics and in carbon nanotube-doped liquid crystals. He is working as a post-doc with the ESMP group as well as with the LCNano group of Dr. Giusy Scalia.

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Hakam Agha
Post-doc

Manos, a materials scientist by training, earned his MSc in Applied Molecular Spectroscopy in 2007 with a thesis on the thermodynamics and phase behaviour of organosilica nanoparticles. He earned his PhD in Chemistry in 2010, at the Univ. of Crete & FORTH, in Heraklion, Greece where he investigated light-induced pattern formation in transparent polymer solutions. During his PhD, Manos spent one year in MPIP, Mainz, Germany, in the group of H.-J. Butt. Following his military service, Manos returned to MPIP as a postdoc in 2011, to explore the dynamic wetting of surfactant solutions. In 2013, Manos joined the group of D. Baigl at ENS, Paris, France where he initiated a plethora of projects concerning various optofluidic and patterning phenomena, in part thanks to an independent Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship that he was awarded.

Manos became a member of the ESMP group in July 2017, and is exploring how simultaneously occurring phenomena (e.g. hydrodynamic flows, kinetic arrest, LC structure formation) affect the structure of films formed after the evaporation of cellulose nanocrystal dispersions.

Visit his personal website at: www.anyfas.com

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Emmanouil ('Manos') Anyfantakis
Post-doc

Larry investigates liquid metal jetting, in particular during flow within polymer solutions.

Tel: 6928. Click here to send him an e-mail.

Lawrence (‘Larry’)
Honaker
Doctoral Candidate

Camila makes cellulose nanocrystals, suspended in water, and studies their lyotropic liquid crystal self-assembly and its competition with the tendency of the nanorods to get stuck in a jammed state. She is working on the FNR-funded project MISONANCE.

Tel: 6499. Click here to send her an e-mail.

Camila Honorato
Doctoral Candidate

Venkata Subba Rao Jampani graduated in Engineering Physics from the National Institute of Technology, Warangal, India in 2009 and obtained his PhD in Physics from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2013. Afterwards, he worked as a postdoc at Max-Planck-Institute for Dynamics and Self-organization Göttingen, Germany and Physicochemical soft matter research team, CEMS, RIKEN, Wako-shi, Japan. His research focuses on topological defects in liquid crystal elastomeric shells and their applications, and liquid crystal shells, droplets and their self-assembly.

Rao works mainly on liquid crystal elastomers (LCE) shells and their applications in soft-robotics using microfluidics platform. He also works on studying optical and topological defects in shells in order to exploit them as a novel components for next generation LC science. He is working on the ERC funded project "INTERACT".

Tel: 6349. Click here to send him an e-mail.

Venkata Subba Rao (‘Rao’) Jampani
Post-doc

Jan leads the Experimental Soft Matter Physics (ESMP) group. Click here or on the photo for his personal page.

Tel: 6219. Click here to send him an e-mail.

Jan Lagerwall
Professor, Group Leader

JungHyun works with microfluidics and other methods for creating liquid crystal droplets and shells and she studies their optical properties and topological defect arrangements in different phases. She is working on the FNR-funded project ULISCO.

Tel: 6710. Click here to send her an e-mail.

JungHyun Noh
Doctoral Candidate

Catherine uses electrospinning to produce responsive fibers functionalized with liquid crystals in the core, with the ultimate aim to use them in autonomous wearable technology devices. She is working on the ERC-funded project INTERACT.

Tel: 6784. Click here to send her an e-mail.

Catherine G. Reyes
Doctoral Candidate

Christina is exploring the surface modification, and self-assembly of cellulose nanocrystals. She is also investigating the competing nature between the thermotropic and lyotropic liquid crystalline phase behaviors. Her research interests are in developing a deeper understanding of the self-assembly processes with stronger insights in soft matter physics and physical chemistry.

Christina obtained her PhD in materials chemistry from Stockholm University in Sweden. Afterwards, she worked for one year as a post-doc at KU Leuven in Belgium.

Click here for access to her Linkedin.

Her research gate profile can be found here.

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Christina Schütz
Post-doc

Vanessa is the group’s secretary.

Tel: 6891. Click here to send her an e-mail.

Vanessa Schmidt-Barbé
Assistant

Before joining the ESMP group in July 2017, Anjali had worked on the characterization of thermotropic liquid crystals. Her PhD project now is to create liquid crystal shells and to use them for bio-sensing applications. She is currently working on the FNR funded project MASSENA.
Click here to send her an e-mail.

Anjali Sharma
Doctoral Candidate

Anshul Sharma earned her bachelor’s degree in science from Government P.G. College Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India, and her master’s degree in chemistry from the National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar, Punjab, India. She then worked as a project associate at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, for a period of 18 months. In 2010 she joined Dr. Torsten Hegmann’s lab as a Ph.D. student at University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. When he moved to Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, Ohio, USA, Anshul also decided to move to Kent State to continue working with him and Dr. Elda Hegmann and earned her Ph. D. in Chemical Physics in December 2015. Her Ph.D. work was focused on new types of liquid crystal (LC) host-guest systems developed for new applications in soft matter and as well as for nano- and bio- material applications.
She joined the ESMP group as a post-doctoral researcher in ERC funded project ‘INTERACT’ in January 2016. Her focus is on identifying suitable polymers, precursors, solvents and development of liquid crystal polymers precursors and liquid crystal elastomers for optimal usage in wearable technology and soft robotics by using microfluidics and electrospinning techniques.

Tel. 6480. Click here to send her an e-mail.

Anshul Sharma
Post-doc

Zory is involved in several projects of the ESMP group, her current main focus being on cellulose nanocrystal self-assembly.

Tel: 6332. Click here to send her an e-mail.

Zornitza (‘Zory’) Tosheva
Research Associate

Shameek earned his bachelor’s in polymer science from the University of Delhi and his Master’s from Tampere University of Technology in Finland. He has worked on polymer fibers and materials characterization and joined the ESMP group as a PhD student in July 2017 to work on the ERC funded project “INTERACT”. He is working on finding suitable textile-grade like polymers for further stabilizing the liquid crystal cores in the electrospun LC-fiber mats.

Click here to send him an e-mail.

Shameek Vats
Doctoral Candidate

The ESMP Team