Tag: AMC-MERCATOR-FELLOW
Prof. Dr. Nicolas Roussel AMC-MERCATOR-FELLOW
AMC-Mercator-Fellow Prof. Dr. Nicolas Roussel is in charge of the research activities dealing with rheology and processing of construction materials at the Navier Laboratory, FRANCE. He is the founding editor of the RILEM technical letters journal, president of the RILEM association and has received in 2007 the Robert L'Hermite award for his work on rheology of fresh concrete. With a Thompson Reuters H-index of 54 and more than 8.000 citations, he is the author or co-author of more than 130 papers in scientific journals such as Cement and Concrete Research, Physical Review letters or Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics. His research focus spreads from concrete rheology and rheometry to the understanding of construction processing technologies. Thereby his work covers various technology readiness levels and includes mixing and dispersion, centrifugation and granulation, vibration and compaction, molding, spraying and coating along with automation in construction. In 2022, Nicolas Roussel was appointed as AMC-Mercator-Fellow by the TRR 277 AMC in honor of his contribution to the AMC. Within the context of its AMC cooperation, he recently contributed to a workshop on “Materials and Processes in Additive Manufacturing” at TUBS, having the opportunity to see and discuss the research results and outputs of several AMC PhD and post doc researchers. This intensive exchange has led to the planning of a number of joint and collective publications dealing with the rheology and thixotropy of cement-based materials. According to Nicolas Roussel, the cooperation with the AMC as AMC-Mercator-Fellow "offers the opportunity to directly interact with high-level PhD students also in the coming years and thus to foster the AMC's strategic topics for the European industry". As a result of the above interactions, Prof. Dirk Lowke and Prof. Nicolas Roussel are planning for the submission of Franco-German ANR/DFG research project.
Prof. Virginia San Fratello AMC-MERCATOR-FELLOW
Virginia San Fratello is an architect, artist, and educator. She is Chair of The Department of Design at San José State University in Silicon Valley. San Fratello is a winner of the United States National Design Award for Digital Design, an International Interior Design Educator of the Year Award, and is also a winner of the Metropolis Magazine Next Gen Design Competition. Her creative practice, Rael San Fratello, was named an Emerging Voice by The Architectural League of New York, and in 2021, they were awarded the Beazley Design of the Year. San Fratello is the co-author of Printing Architecture: Innovative Recipes for 3D Printing, a book that reexamines the building process from the bottom up and offers illuminating case studies for 3D printing with materials like chardonnay grape skins, salt, earth, and sawdust. She is a partner in Emerging Objects, a creatively driven, 3D Printing MAKE-tank specializing in innovations in 3D printing architecture, and a co-founder of Forust, a start-up focused on wood waste and additive manufacturing. Her work is recognized by several institutions, including The National Building Museum, the Bellevue Museum, For Freedoms, and is included in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the CSMVS Museum in Mumbai, LACMA, and the Design Museum in London. San Fratello will serve as a role model and mentor for AMC researchers and students across partner institutions and will be engaged in a collaborative exchange that aims to bring state-of-the-art mobile robotic systems together with earthen spray and traditional wattle-and-daub construction methods to explore new paradigms in earth-centered construction. Her expertise in bridging traditional material practices with digital fabrication presents a unique opportunity to position this project at the intersection of architectural innovation, sustainability, and material research.
