Professor Nancy Sottos, the Donald B. Willet Professor of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, delivered the fourth ICAM webinar of 2016 on polymers with biologically-inspired autonomous functions.
Professor Sottos described recent developments in self-protection to guard against environmental factors such as mechanical stress, chemical corrosion, or extreme temperatures; self-reporting capabilities to ensure that loss in performance caused by a specific event is registered and communicated; and self-healing to recover structural performance once the system has been damaged.
Professor Sottos is a co-chair of the Molecular and Electronic Nanostructures Research Theme at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Professor Sottos started her career at Illinois in 1991 after earning a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Delaware. Her research group studies the mechanics of complex, heterogeneous materials such as self-healing polymers and advanced composites, specializing in characterization of deformation and failure in these material systems.
She is a Fellow of the Society of Engineering Science and the Society for Experimental Mechanics and serves on the editorial boards for Experimental Mechanics and Composites Science and Technology.
