Topic of Invited talk

Hair-thin dielectric elastomer fiber actuators

Biography

Anne Ladegaard Skov is a professor specializing in silicone elastomers at the Danish Polymer Centre, Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark (DTU). She held a Carlsberg research fellowship at Cambridge University, UK, before taking up a position as assistant professor at DTU. In 2015, she became the leader of the Danish Polymer Centre, and in 2017, she was promoted to full professor. In 2023, she has been appointed as member of the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences (ATV). She has received multiple prizes for her work on elastomers, such as Grundfosprisen, Elastyrenprisen and the Statoil Award. Functionalisation and formulation of silicone elastomers with focus on silicone elastomers used and optimised for dielectric elastomers and more recently for flexible electronics and drug delivery are the core of her research. She has published 177 publications and holds multiple patents on elastomers that are currently developed commercially by international and national companies. She has established 3 spinout companies based on her research. Currently, she is the principal investigator on a 7 mio EURO project funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation to make soft wearables in collaboration with Professors Herbert Shea (EPFL) and Neel Joshi (Northeastern University), and the presented work in this lecture is a result of this.