Joris Sprakel appointed Professor Physical Chemistry and Soft Matter
Starting 1 March 2019, Joris Sprakel has been appointed professor Physical Chemistry and Soft Matter at Wageningen UR.
Joris Sprakel in the news:
- Article in de Volkskrant:
Chemici ontwikkelen verf die nooit aan kracht verliest – en keken daarvoor de kunst af bij pauwen, kevers en vlinders - Interview with Joris Sprakel in Resource (WUR):
In Dutch: Fysisch chemicus Joris Sprakel is altijd op ontdekkingsreis: 'Ik hou niet van saaiheid'
In English: Physical chemist Joris Sprakel is always exploring new territory: 'I can't stand monotony'
Chair group: Physical Chemistry and Soft Matter
SprakelLab
Joris Sprakel is group leader at the SprakelLab, where they work on the preparation and study of new materials based on colloidal building and conjugated polymer building blocks. Our work ranges from the molecular engineering of semiconducting polymers, development of new chemical strategies to prepare functional colloidal building blocks, to the study of concentrated polymeric and colloidal systems and the development of optical methods to do so.
One of the grand challenges in the emerging field of mechanobiology, which aims to understand how mechanical cues are detected, processed and transduced in biological systems, is to quantitatively measure mechanical patterns in living organisms. The SprakelLab develops new experimental tools to do so; the image shows a mechanical map of the cell walls in a growing plant root, obtained using a new class of mechano-responsive molecular probes, that allow optical read-out of tension states in living plants.
Pushing quantitative mechanical measurements in soft and biological materials to ever smaller length scales is a key expertise of the SprakelLab. Our Laser Speckle Imaging method, an optical method to visualize and quantify dynamical processes in materials with nanometric deformation resolution, has been used successfully to illuminate the molecular origins of a variety of complex mechanical processes such as fracture nucleation in elastomers, spontaneous self-healing in polymers and shape-shifting and actuation in active matter.
Joris Sprakel is representing Wageningen UR in the 4TU.HTM management team.
(Source: WUR (in Dutch))