Esther Amstad

Esther Amstad studied material science at ETH in Zurich. She also carried out her PhD thesis at the same University under the supervision of Prof. Marcus Textor; for her thesis, she worked on the surface modification and steric stabilization of oxide nanoparticles. As a postdoctoral fellow, she joined the experimental condensed soft matter group of David A. Weitz at Harvard University where she used droplet based microfluidics to assemble different types of functional micro- and nanomaterials. In addition, she developped new microfluidic devices that enable the production of very small, airborne drops as well as devices that produce highly monodisperse emulsion drops at a very high throughput. In June 2014, Esther joined the material science department (IMX) of EPFL where she is leading the Soft Materials Laboratory (SMAL). Professionals experiences PhD student 2007–2011 ETH ZurichPostdoctoral fellow 2011–2014 Harvard UniversityTenure Track Assistant Professor 2014–2014 EPFL Teaching & PhD PhD Students Reece Carolann Whatmore, Marc Elies Grädel, François Raphaël Rivat, Rocio Garcia Montero, Robin Michel Studer, Brian David Ridenour, Harsha Koganti, Zoubeir Saraw, Louisa Rinaldi, Greta Cocchi, Gaia Dupont Past EPFL PhD Students Antoine Claude Jean Vian, Huachuan Du, Gianluca Etienne, Mathias Steinacher, Efe Armagan, Alvaro Lino Boris Charlet, Michael David Kessler, Aysu Ceren Okur, Matteo Hirsch, Chuen-Ru Li, Pauline Camille Charlotte Pradal, Gaia De Angelis, Ran Zhao, Alexandra Thoma, Lorenzo Lucherini, Tianyu Yuan, Francesca Bono, Eva Jeanne Baur Courses Seminar series on advances in materials (autumn) MSE-470(a) Seminar series on advances in materials (spring) MSE-470(b) Soft matter MSE-425 The first part of the course is devoted to the self-assembly of molecules. In the second part we discuss basic physical chemical principles of polymers in solutions, at interfaces, and in bulk. Finally, we look at colloids and emulsions.