Professor Lorna Gibson from MIT lectured on "Cellular Materials in Engineering, Nature and Medicine" at the final 2013-14 Disquisitiones Mechanicae perspective lecture. She followed distinguished lecturers Michael Sheetz, Paul Janmey, and Francoise Brochard-Wyart in the “Biomechanics & Mechanobiology”-themed series.
The abstract from Gibson’s lecture reads: Engineering honeycombs and foams, woods, plant stems and leaves, trabecular bone (a porous type of bone) and tissue engineering scaffolds all have a cellular structure that gives rise to unique properties. Nature, too, uses cellular materials to provide structural support as well as to conduct fluids. This talk illustrates the wide range of cellular materials and describes their use in engineering, nature, and medicine.
Gibson graduated in Civil Engineering from the University of Toronto and obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. She was an Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering at the University of British Columbia for two years before moving to MIT where she is currently the Matoula S. Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. Her research interests focus on the mechanics of materials with a cellular structure such as engineering honeycombs and foams, natural materials such as wood, palm and bamboo and medical materials such as trabecular bone and tissue engineering scaffolds. She is the co-author of Cellular Solids: Structure and Properties (with MF Ashby) and of Cellular Materials in Nature and Medicine (with MF Ashby and BA Harley). Recent projects include aerogels for thermal insulation; nanofibrillar cellulose foams; the mechanics of plant materials; the mechanics of porous scaffolds for tissue engineering and the mechanical interactions of biological cells in tissue engineering scaffolds. At MIT, she has served as Chair of the Committee on Women Faculty in the School of Engineering, Chair of the Faculty and Associate Provost.
Gibson’s lecture was organized by MechSE professors Elizabeth Hsiao-Wecksler and Iwona Jasiuk.