Meet the Presenters: Dr. Blaise L. Tardy and Dr. Caio G. Otoni

Dr. Blaise L. Tardy is an Assistant Professor who joined Khalifa University in January 2022. After graduating from EPFL (2009, Switzerland), Dr. Blaise Tardy obtained his Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the University of Melbourne (2015, Australia) and was thereafter a research fellow at Aalto University (2016-2022, Finland). His main aim is to connect fundamental and applied sciences in order to facilitate the widespread implementation of sustainable materials and processes. This includes the processing of natural building blocks as obtained from biotechnological means as well as by-products from aquacultural, agricultural, and food-associated streams – with the efforts targeting optimized biomass production and management.

Dr. Caio G. Otoni has been an Assistant Professor of Materials Engineering/Polymer Science at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) since 2020, from where he received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering (2017) in a dual affiliation with Embrapa Instrumentation.

Food Engineer by training, Dr. Otoni was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Chemistry of the University of Campinas (Unicamp) from 2017 to 2020 and a visiting scholar at the Department of Bioproducts and Bioprocesses of Aalto University (2019), both dealing with the Physical Chemistry of Biocolloids. Dr. Otoni has been with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA; 2010–2011) and currently serves as Visiting Professor at the University of Bologna (2023). His research is centered on biobased multifunctional materials, nanocomposites and nanohybrids, and other biopolymeric colloids that are assembled into materials for food, biomedical, and agricultural applications.