Laura Alvarez

Laura has been an Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) at the University of Bordeaux since 2022 (France). She is a physico-chemical experimentalist specialising in active matter and bioinspired systems. She was awarded a joint PhD between the University of Bordeaux and KU Leuven. Later, she did her postdoc at the Department of Materials at ETH Zurich, where she performed pioneer work on the fabrication of responsive active colloidal assemblies. In her group at Bordeaux at the CRPP (Soft BioColloids), they are mainly working on the confection of artificial cells, with the goal of realizing motile and functional cell-mimetic microdevices combining living and non-living building blocks. She is a strong advocate for inclusion and equality policies in academia (and in general). She was awarded prestigious grants such as SNF Sparkgrant and the ANR JCJC and she is currently an European Space Agency consultant for Soft Matter and Biophysics.