Helen Willcock is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Materials at Loughborough University. Her groups research focuses on tuning the properties of polymers by controlling their architecture and morphology, with a particular focus on stimuli responsive materials. She can be found on Twitter @helen_willcock.
Read Helen’s Emerging Investigator article “Designing responsive dressings for inflammatory skin disorders; encapsulating antioxidant nanoparticles into biocompatible electrospun fibres” and check out all of the 2021 Soft Matter Emerging Investigator articles here.
How do you feel about Soft Matter as a place to publish research on this topic?
Soft Matter is the perfect place to publish work such as this that focuses on the fundamentals of synthesis and properties of novel systems.
What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?
I am very excited about the interdisciplinary aspects of my research, allowing our group to focus on the synthesis and characterisation of novel responsive systems, whilst applying these to real world problems by collaborating with experts outside of our field. The challenge in this lies in finding the balance between fundamental research, ensuring that the materials made are fully characterised and understood, whilst still allowing the applications to be studied whilst maintaining a coherent and concise story for publication.
In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?
In the area of stimuli responsive materials, we really need to understand better the relationships between morphology and properties, and relate this understanding to their applications. Making sure we are moving towards more sustainable options for both existing and novel systems is key.
Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?
My career advice would be to try.
