Hortense Le Ferrand

As Industry 4.0 is developing, sustainability and durability have to be established. I lead a multidisciplinary team of researchers that explore natural materials, bioinspired concepts, microstructural engineering and 3D printing to develop multifunctional durable structures. These materials can be 3D printed, are generally light weight, hard, and comprise various functionalities like stimuli responsiveness or resistance to extreme environments.

Dr. Hortense Le Ferrand holds a master and a doctorate degree in Materials Science from ETH Zürich in Switzerland and a diplôme d'Ingénieur from the Grande Ecole ESPCI Paris, France. Her doctoral thesis on magnetically-driven of bio-inspired composites was acknowledged with several prizes and awards.

After a visiting period in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University in Indiana, USA, where she focused on morphing structures, Dr. Hortense obtained funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation to study protein assemblies at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore.

In January 2019, she joined the schools of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) and Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) of NTU as an Assistant Professor and was awarded the prestigious NRF fellowship in January 2020.

Areas of expertise: composite materials, ceramics, additive manufacturing and bioinspiration

Media coverage:

Stretching the limits of composite materials (page 23), RIE News, National Research Foundation, January 2020

Prizes & awards

National Research Foundation Fellowship, Singapore, 2020
Research as art Runner Up 2019, Swansea University, UK
MRS Bulletin Postdoctoral Publication Prize 2018
ETH MaP (Materials and Processes) award 2018
3rd prize Art of Science competition from Microscopy center FACTS, NTU, 2018
Chemistry prize from Dimitri N. Chorafas foundation, 2017
ETHZ silver medal for outstanding thesis, 2017
Poster prize at MRS Boston, symposium Bio-inspired nanomaterials, 2016
Research Fellowship Early Postdoc Mobility, Swiss National Science Foundation, 2016
Mobility grant from IDEA League (twice) and Erasmus, 2011, 2012
Excellence Scholarship awarded by Michelin Company, 2011