The 6th International Conference on Materials

University of Victoria & University of British Columbia, Canada;
Dr. Willerth is a full professor in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Victoria. She has dual appointments in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Division of Medical Sciences. She also holds an appointment with the School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of British Columbia. <br><br>She recently founded the start-up company Axolotl Biosciences, which sells high-quality bioinks for bioprinting human tissue models. She is an active member of the steering committee of the BC Regenerative Medicine Initiative and the Stem Cell Network. She also serves as a staff scientist at the Creative Destruction Lab. <br><br>Moreso, she is a Fellow of the International Society of Biomaterials Science and Engineering. <br><br>Dr. Willerth served as the acting director of UVic's Centre for Biomedical Research and the Biomedical Engineering undergraduate program from 2018–2021 and as the President of the Canadian Biomaterials Society from 2018–2019. She was elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars in 2021. Additionally, Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C. awarded her their teaching award of excellence in the same year.

Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands;
With her broad background in various disciplines (electrical, mechanical, and chemical engineering), Danqing Liu develops "human interactive materials" where the materials sense, feel, and communicate with humans or machines. A special aspect of this approach is the transfer or even amplification of the responsive (dielectric-, ferroelectric-, piezoelectric-, and/ or photo-chemical) effects of a single molecule to the macroscopic level of a device. This is realized by incorporating the functional molecules into suitable and cooperative host materials, such as liquid crystals. <br><br>Danqing Liu received her master's degree in Electrical Engineering at Delft University in the Netherlands. She joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Eindhoven University of Technology, also in the Netherlands, for her PhD research. She developed polymer responsive surfaces based on hydrogels and liquid crystal polymers. She received her PhD degree and in the same year joined the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry working as a postdoctoral student on new mechanisms of surface activation. In 2015, she was a Research Fellow at the Institute of Complex Molecular Systems in Eindhoven. In 2023, she was appointed as an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Eindhoven University of Technology. <br><br>In 2020, she received the Michi Nakata Prize for Early Career Achievements from the International Liquid Crystal Society. In 2021, she was appointed as a Visiting Professor at South China Normal University, P. R. China.