We are pleased to announce that from 1 January 2014 professor Sybrand van der Zwaag will take up the role of Scientific Director of DPI. During the upcoming Annual Meeting he will introduce himself to the DPI Community. Sybrand van der Zwaag will be the successor of Martien Cohen Stuart, who will step down as Scientific Director of DPI because of having reached retirement age.
We are happy that Sybrand Van der Zwaag is willing to take up the responsibility for DPI's scientific standing and welcome him in our community, wishing him a lot of success.
Prof. Sybrand van der Zwaag:
Sybrand van der Zwaag (born 1955) obtained a MSc degree in metallurgy from the TU Delft (the Netherlands) and a PhD in applied physics from Cambridge University (United Kingdom) for his research on supersonic impact on ceramics. After a postdoc position related to metallic glasses he joined Akzo Nobel Corporate Research in 1982 to work on the structure-property relationships for aramid and other high performance polymeric fibres. In 1987 he joined Akzo Fibre research to work on process innovations for aramid fibres. In 1992 he was appointed as professor Microstructural Control in Metals at the Delft University of Technology where he investigated fundamental aspects of solid state phase transformations in steels and aluminium for a more solid scientific basis to industrial process models.
In 2004 he started the chair Novel Aerospace Materials, working on the design of new materials for future aircraft and spacecraft. The NovAM research portfolio covers advanced polymers, self-healing materials, new metallic systems and polymer based sensorial composites. He is fellow of the Royal Society for Sciences (KHMW) (the Netherlands) and of the Institute of Metals, Minerals and Mining (United Kingdom). He is the scientific director of the Delft Centre for Materials and the national research program on self-healing materials in both the Netherlands and co-director of the German program in this field. He has published almost 400 journal publications and has supervised 38 PhD students.
In 2012 he was awarded the honorary title of 'distinguished' professor by the Board of the TU Delft in recognition of his contribution to the interaction between academic research and industry in the field of materials in general and that of self-healing materials in particular. He remains deeply interested in the challenge of combining academic science with industrial needs and vice versa.