It is our pleasure to welcome back Rijeesh Kizhakidathazhath (approx. "kee-rah-kee-dah-tah-ra-tuh") to the ESMP group!

Originally from Kerala, India, Rijeesh did his Ph.D. in Life Science at Hokkaido University in Japan before moving to Kyushu University for a postdoc. He first came to ESMP in 2018, stayed with us for five years, then moved to the group of Arri Priimägi at Tampere University in Finland. He has since returned to Luxembourg to work on many of our chemistry-heavy projects, such as BriCE, ALCEMIST, and COSAMOS, with a focus on polymerizable liquid crystals for sensing and detection purposes.

Rebienvenue, Rijeesh!

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We are delighted to share that Jan's project BriCE (Novel Concrete Bridge Spatially-Distributed Monitoring Through Chromatic Liquid Crystal Elastomers), a collaboration with Dr. Numa Bertola of the Sustainable Concrete Structures group at the University of Luxembourg, was just funded by the University of Luxembourg Institute for Advanced Studies! This four-year project will investigate further use of our mechanochromic liquid crystal elastomers to monitor the structural health of bridges, detecting cracks and failures as early as possible.

Not from BriCE, but from our recent publication with Danièle Waldmann-Schmidt's group on using mechanochromic LCEs for monitoring crack formation in concrete

Even more good news to end the year; stay tuned for further updates!
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