Lenore Rasmussen - Smart Materials: Considerations on Earth and in Space

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The inception of this book came about from the interest of the CASIS-ISS-Ras Labs space experiment on the International Space Station. Much of this work was captured and presented to a general audience at the US Department of Energys Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) at Princeton University. Since the dawn of humanity, there has been a fascination with the sky over our heads, and with our greater understanding of the cosmos. Smart materials, also known as intelligent materials, are a relatively new and rapidly evolving field. Durable smart materials that respond to stimuli by a physical change will lead to unprecedented advances for humanity, both here on Earth and as we explore the universe.

Editors Background, excerpted in part from the Ronald E. Hatcher Science on Saturdays Series, PPPL at Princeton University, on February 3, 2018:

Moderator Andrew Zwicker, PPPL: Tell us what teachers had an influence on you.

Many teachers influenced me. My physics teacher at Pennsboro High School, Mr. Gregory Dodd, also taught Chemistry II. This was a small high school. I graduated in a class of 45 from Pennsboro High School in West Virginia. There were only three of us who wanted to take that second year of chemistry, which the high school graciously offered. Mr. Dodd made it happen. He was also the vice principal and would set the clocks in the school by his watch every morning we called it Dodd time. Mr. Timothy McCartney taught math, and even though calculus wasnt offered at the time, he let me borrow his books. At the end of the school year, he asked for written feedback on his trigonometry course. I critiqued his course and also thanked him for being like a father to us seniors in trig class. He was kind and would listen, taught us a lot of math, and prepared us for college and the world. As a freshman at Virginia Tech, the instruction style gravitated to of learning how things worked. My freshman chemistry professor, Prof. George Sanzone at Virginia Tech, would have office hours and he was there. One lecture he was talking so fast about semiconductors that I couldnt read my notes, so I went and asked him if he could explain semiconductors again. He said, But thats not going to be on the test, that was just extra. I said, Thats fine, I just cant read my notes. He responded, You want to know how it works? Yes! But its not going to be on the test. Thats okay. He then said, Dear child, sit down and he pulled books off the shelf and we went into how, really how, semiconductors work. I was a biochemistry major because of the pre-vet track, but I tacked on a chemistry double major and he was my second course advisor throughout my undergraduate career. In graduate school, I learned the discipline and rigor of working with viruses with Prof. John Johnson and through Prof. Michael Rossmanns group at Purdue University. Then I was back at Virginia Tech with Prof. James McGrath and Prof. Thomas Ward, with their encyclopedic knowledge of polymer chemistry, Prof. Garth Wilkes, with his creativity and Prof. Kathyn Uhrichs creative insights at Rutgers University [multi-university research initiative between Virginia Tech and Rutgers University to complete my PhD], who relayed their knowledge and how to think critically.

I love animals. I grew up on a farm, so all through middle school and high school, I was going to be a vet. That was part of the attraction to Virginia Tech, which has a veterinary school. By my freshman year at Virginia Tech, I fell in love with the chemistry, so was on the fence. I thought about med school and explored all three options, including a dual MD-PhD. After interviewing people, most people, even in those dual tracks, tended to pick one. I still have a lot of pets. I still take care of birds that fall out of nests. But I gravitated to science. The veterinary interest is what got me into science and science is what kept me in science. I never looked back. If I see an animal in distress, Im still very involved with animal care, but research has been my calling.

How did we get the name Synthetic Muscle? We were in the 2013 business accelerator MassChallenge in Boston. We were calling our material electroactive polymers, specifically contractile electroactive polymers (EAPs). Meanwhile, the MassChallenge folks (thank you!) were calling me the Synthetic Muscle Lady. They suggested that we call our EAPs Synthetic Muscle. My argument was that muscle only contracts, while our EAPs contract and expand. They then strongly suggested we call it Synthetic Muscle, so we did. People remember Synthetic Muscle!

I would like to thank and acknowledge Springer and their affiliates for all their help in bringing this book to fruition: Brinda Megasyamaian, Deepika Sam, Silembarasan Panneerselvam, Michael McCabe, Zoe Kennedy, Brian Halm, and many others. Many thanks to the robotics engineering chairs at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, past and present: Prof. Michel Gennert and Prof. Xiao Jing, and to so many others at WPI in the Robotics Engineering Department and across multiple departments. I would like to thank the program managers at the National Science Foundation for all their help and guidance. Many thanks to Tom Ryden, Joyce Sidopoulos, Fady Saad and others at MassRobotics. A big thank you to the many folks at the CASIS and NASA who helped get the Synthetic Muscle Experiment into space and back to Earth again. I would like to thank the US Armys Picatinny Arsenal and Natick Labs. And many thanks to the US Department of Energy, especially the folks at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, and to Princeton University. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the many investigators around the world who are diligently working in the fields of smart materials. We all are making science fiction a reality and we are all advancing humanity, here on Earth and in the cosmos.