French R&D Group Welcomes N. A. Academic Experts in Nanocellulose
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Thanks to the support France's Tec21 "Laboratory of Excellence", the high-tech academic R&D group from the country, "LGP2", was honored to host two North American professors with expertise in nanocellulose materials. Late this past week the group announced the addition of Emily Cranston (May 24-26 and all of June) and E. Johan Foster (June 1- July 1) to their laboratory's collaboration and achievement history.
Emily Cranston is a Professor at McMaster University (Canada). Having obtained a PhD in materials chemistry at McGill University in 2008, she completed a two-year post-doctorate in Stockholm (Sweden).
The research she performs within the Cranston Research Group is geared towards the design of high-performance biobased materials, to replace those based on fossil resources. Her biocomponent of choice is nanocellulose. Emily's scientific activities include the characterisation and modification of the interfacial properties of nanocomposite components and encompass a wide array of disciplines (polymers, surface chemistry, nanotribology, pulp and paper science, etc.).
Her work also focuses on the fundamental and mechanical properties of crystalline nanocellulose and their interactions, to enable their use in the creation of new nanomaterials: composites, coatings, gels, foams, etc.
E. Johan Foster has been a Professor at Virginia Tech (United States) since 2014. Having obtained a PhD at Simon Fraser University (Canada) in 2007, followed by a post-doctorate at the Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands), he spent four years (2010-2014) at the Adolphe Merkle Institute (Switzerland) leading a team of researchers that studied cellulose nanocrystals, smart materials, nanocomposites, functionalization and biomedical implants.
Now principal investigator of the Advanced Materials Group, his current focus is on advanced functional and supramolecular bio(nano)materials: design and engineering of bioinspired functional biopolymers, supramolecular materials and nanocomposites; stimulus-sensitive materials; biomedical materials; combinations of covalent and non-covalent interactions to create structured smart materials.
He also co-presided Nano 2016, TAPPI's international conference on nanocellulose and nanotechnology for renewable materials, which took place June 13-16 2016 at Grenoble's World Trade Center.
During their stay, the two teacher-researchers gave classes to Grenoble INP-Pagora's second year student engineers and contributed to the work of the Multiscale biobased materials team headed by Julien Bras, notably by leading a number of seminars. They also gave conferences to Grenoble's scientific community on the following topics: Cross-linked cellulose nanocrystal aerogels as universal 3D substrates for functional nanoparticles (E. Cranston) and Recent advances in engineering materials/implants using cellulose nanocrystals (E. Johan Foster).
