MEiTNER Junior Research Group starts Student Exchange with the University of Auckland within TU Dresden’s Research Experience Programme

TU Dresden is one of Germany’s 11 Universities of Excellence: strong in research, offering first-rate programs in the STEM fields as well as the humanities with close ties to culture, industry, and society. As a member of DRESDEN-concept, TU Dresden benefits from a unique research alliance with higher education institutions, museums, libraries, and research institutes.

The Research Experience Program offers senior undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to gain cutting-edge research experience in a wide range of scientific fields. Students will actively participate in research projects at TU Dresden or at a DRESDEN-concept partner institution and benefit from individual supervision. The stay is accompanied by cultural activities and workshops on entrepreneurship and career development. Participants receive a monthly scholarship and a travel subsidy.

From 1st May Arne Bruns, a PhD student at Prof. Iain Anderson’s Biomimetics Lab, Auckland Bioengineering Institute, The University of Auckland, New Zealand will visit Dr. Ernst-Friedrich Markus Henke’s MEiTNER Junior Research Group. MEiTNER stands for “Multifunctional Dielectric Elastomer Electronics for next Generation Soft Robotics” which is exactly what Arne’s stay will be about. “Sensing like a Fish”, is the working title of Arne’s PhD topic. Classical pressure sensors are essential to the understanding of liquid environments and their industrial production is well established. However, their dimensions and inflexible encasings make them not ideal for small or highly flexible applications. Entirely soft dielectric elastomer robots moving in a liquid environment need to gather information about their surroundings, making effective soft data acquisition necessary. Arne will participate in a project investigating the possibilities of increasing the sensitivity of actuated dielectric elastomer sensors. 

Iain and Markus know each other since years. Their collaboration has a long-lasting history, dating back till 2015, when Markus was visiting the Biomimetcis Lab as postdoc for two years. With now decreasing travel restrictions, caused by COVID-19, the long planned student exchange is kicking-off. The plan is, to start exchanging students on a regular base in both directions.