This year, 19 young research talents has received grants throughout Denmark as part of the VILLUM Young Investigator-programme. At Aarhus University, four talents receive a Young Investigator grant.

The grants are each for five years, and each recipient has managed to show a clearly defined goal with their research. At the same time, it is a requirement that the project must have a scope that is so large that the execution requires the establishment of a research group. At the Faculty of Technical Sciences, there are two recipients:

Assistant professor Shweta Agarwala, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, receives 5,9 mio DKK for the project Printed Bio-inspired Hydrogel based Substrate with Adhesiveness & Electrical Conductivity for Sustainable Electronics.

Accumulation of electronic waste on earth is a growing concern. The project will develop new biodegradable materials to enable sustainable electronics for the future. In particular, the project will exploit polymer building blocks and their interactions to design tunable electronic materials with entirely new functionalities; to build a robust platform for studying and developing biodegradable devices. The grant will fund one PhD student, one postdoc and equipment. More about the project here.

Assistant professor Kasper Vita Kristensen, Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering receives: 5,9 mio DKK for the project Indoor Chemistry and Air Quality.

Humans spend 90 % of their time indoors; consequently, human exposure to most air pollutants is dominated by indoor rather than outdoor conditions. Despite this, scientific understanding of indoor chemistry and its relation to indoor air quality is lacking. This project will elucidate the sources and processes that influence the chemical composition of indoor air and will aid in the development of healthy indoor environments. The grant will fund the recipient, one PhD student and one postdoc. Read about the project here.