News

Holiday Party 2024

By Kevin Golovin | December 20, 2024

Another year in the books for the DREAM Lab. 2024 had quite a few milestones. Mohammad and Sadaf both successfully defended their PhDs, Yalda and Amanuel joined the lab, we were visiting by Isaac Gresham, Takuya Matsumoto and (briefly) Glen McHale, and several good studies were published. The annual MIE holiday party is always a… Read more »

Autophobicity? What’s that and what’s it got to do with PDMS brushes !New Paper Alert!

By Kevin Golovin | December 15, 2024

For years the DREAM Lab has investigated PDMS brushes and their ultra-low contact angle hysteresis (CAH) properties. One attribute leading to low CAH is smoothness down to the molecular level. So imagine our surprise when we stuck PDMS brushes under an AFM and saw large clusters on their surface! Weird, right? Behrooz did some digging… Read more »

Mohammad –> Dr. Soltani

By Kevin Golovin | December 5, 2024

Mohammad successfully defended his PhD today! We were lucky enough for Prof. Glen McHale to pop over from the UK and join us as the external examiner. It was a fantastic defence and we wish Dr. Soltani all the best as he moves on to a postdoctoral fellow position with Prof. Aimy Bazylak down the… Read more »

Mohammad’s talk wins at NISE 2024

By Kevin Golovin | November 22, 2024

Mohammad Soltani’s talk on triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) just won a “Best Presentation Award” at the 3rd International Conference on Nature Inspired Surfaces in 2024. Great job representing the DREAM Lab Mohammad!

New paper uncovering the structure of PDMS brushes!

By Kevin Golovin | November 20, 2024

One of the major themes currently in the DREAM Lab is developing replacement technologies for PFAS. PDMS brushes are one promising candidate, but little is known about their nanoscale structure. That’s why I challenged Behrooz to figure it out as part of his PhD. And now, he’s done just that. Some very interesting findings from… Read more »

Mehdi wins “Student’s Choice Award” for his presentation!

By Kevin Golovin | September 15, 2024

Mehdi’s oral presentation at the 2024 MIE Research Symposium has been awarded the “Student’s Choice Award”. Mehdi is investigating how protein-laden droplets interact with surfaces. Keep up the great work Mehdi!

Samuel’s poster for the win!

By Kevin Golovin | September 14, 2024

Samuel’s poster was awarded first place in the Advanced Manufacturing and Materials category of the MIE Research Symposium. Excellent work Samuel!! Not bad for your first year of research 🙂  

Adel and Fariba score the “student’s choice awards” for their posters

By Kevin Golovin | September 13, 2024

Adel and Fariba have both been awarded ‘Student’s Choice Awards’ at the 2024 MIE Research Symposium for their posters. Adel is looking intro triboelectricity and Fariba is investigating anti-corrosion surfaces. Both must have impressed, great job you two!

Goodbye BBQ for Isaac 🙂

By Kevin Golovin | July 21, 2024

The DREAM Lab hosted Dr. Isaac Gresham from the Neto Group at the University of Sydney, as part of our on-going collaboration to make more slippery surfaces. Isaac leaves us tomorrow but not without a lovely goodbye barbecue!

DREAM Lab trainees are awarded their own grant!

By Kevin Golovin | July 5, 2024

A huge congratulations to DREAM Lab members Sonia and Anu, who spearheaded a grant from the Acceleration Consortium focusing on “Advancing EDI in Research: Addressing Bias in Data Collection and Promoting Inclusive Sustainability”. Their team will be hosting two workshops during 2024-25 to understand how bias in big data can be accounted for and dealt… Read more »