On this website you can find information about my research in the field of material design and soft matter – solid interactions at the nanoscale. I work on the fundamental understanding of self-assembly techniques for surface nanopatterning and create surfaces with tailored chemical and topographical properties with highly ordered features. These surfaces then act as templates for the guided surface interaction with colloids and biomaterials. This interdisciplinary research acts at the interface between physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering and biotechnology.
Find information about my research projects on surface patterning by nanosphere lithography, block copolymer lithography and soft lithography. You can also find info on collaborations in which we used nanopatterned surfaces in bionanotechnology, e.g. for the creation of protein coatings or DNA origami arrangements, and in opto-electronics as structured electrodes for switchable liquid crystal gratings.
Find out more about who I am and what I do in the categories ‚Publications‘, ‚CV‘ and ‚News‘ or follow @KBrassat
Most recent news:
2020-09-16
#fürdasWissen DFG campaign video
This year, the German research foundation DFG is pursuing a campaign under the spirit of #researchmatters #fortheKnowledge in order to underline the fundamental importance of scientific research for our world. Researchers from all fields were asked to contribute stating why they think that research, knowledge and innovation are the keys to enable an open and informed society living in a sustainable world.
I also contributed with a statement which you can find as a video here.
„Without research – no technologies, no innovation, no future – and none of this without education!“
2020-06-02
Scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) paper published
My first SoTL paper is finally out and available online!
I evaluated the ‚Student acceptance and perception of relevance of a discipline specific workshop on ‚Scientific oral presentations in physics“. I reported earlier about these communication skill workshops I create and give in collaboration with Anna Bauer from physics didactics.
Basically, we asked students about their willingness to attend such events and analyzed the effect of such a workshop on the students performance. Have a look at the paper for details!
2020-04-27
Online workshops on science communication skills
During this time of new appreciation e-learning tools are giving us, I transferred some of my workshops on communication skills for scientists in natural sciences from presence-centered events to an e-learning experience.
I created an e-workshop on giving scientific oral presentations and one on scientific literature search and efficient reading of journal papers.
Both these workshops are created using the didactic approach of cognitive apprenticeship, i.e. I do not only show how to communicate in science but also explain why one should do so and make thoughts and decision making transparent.
The workshops consist of videos, pdfs and tasks.
The oral presentation workshop consist of three parts. The first part is a video on the preparation of a talk including story telling and content. Several tasks within this video allow the workshop attendee to work simultaneously on a future presentation.
The second part gives advice on slide design, to present data and to help to transport the presentation key message non-verbally. The third part reports about personal experiences and advice on presentation skills, including body language, Q&A session, does & don’ts and avoiding stage fright. These two parts are available as pdf files and include some interesting references.
The workshop on literature search is split into two parts, both available as videos with accompanying tasks. The first workshop part deals with the actual search – search questions, sources, judgment on source quality, search strategies, … An additional pdf gives in introduction to the literature management system Citavi. The second video deals with the structure of journal papers on natural sciences and engineering. It aims to improve the efficiency in reading papers.
All workshop material was created for academic teaching purposes only!
If you are interested in attending one of these online-workshops, please contact me and I will provide you the access link!
2020-04-06
Effects of the Corona virus
Due to the spreading of the Corona virus our university is closed now already since 3 weeks – time in home office to write manuscripts and read the pile of papers that was never time for.
However, unfortunately, both of my next exciting work trips, the EMRS Spring Meeting 2020 where I had an invited talk and co-organized a Young Scientist Forum, and the 70th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting 2020 for which I was selected to join, are cancelled. Or postponed to next year. This is for sure the only responsible decision to make, but still I am disappointed as I was very much looking forward to these events!
Also, teaching duties for this summer term need to be rearranged. I am currently working on creating learning videos, extra task sheets and chat/feedback/etc possibilities on digital learning platforms. In particular, I continue my workshop series on scientific communication skills with a new (now digital) workshop on literature search and efficient reading of scientific papers.
And of cause, students who just started working on a thesis now need modified, new topics which are not based on experiments, but on literature, experiment design, …
… and use some spare time to sew face masks for people around me.
So, many changes in these strange times…
Stay save and healthy!
2020-03-03
70th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting 2020
I was selected to participate in the 70th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting this year! Great news and a real distinction! I am especially curious about this as the meeting topic is interdisciplinarity which is of cause of personal importance to me. Interdisciplinary work enables bringing diversity into STEM, which imo the academic field lacks…
