Researching in Times of Covid-19

In this episode of Researching in Times of Covid-19, host Barry Fitzgerald (Science Communications Officer at TU Eindhoven) speaks to Leyla Özkan, Assistant Professor at the department of Electrical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e).

Education at TU/e has changed in the current Covid-19 situation. While traditional lessons have made the transition from the classroom to online platforms, it is more difficult to facilitate such a change when it comes to the delivery of practical lessons in the laboratory.

Remote Labs is an initiative from the Control Systems group at the department of Electrical Engineering that seeks to alleviate this issue by providing students with 24/7 access to test setups using remote login.

In this episode, Leyla talks about Remote Labs, how it has been used thus far, how it will be used in quartile 4 at TU/e, and what might be in store for Remote Labs in the future.

You can also read more about Remote Labs in this TU/e Cursor article.

Stay safe and stay healthy.

In this episode of Researching in Times of Covid-19, host Barry Fitzgerald (Science Communications Officer at TU Eindhoven) speaks to Liza Boormans, a 1st year masters student in medical engineering, and René van Donkelaar, Associate Professor at the department of Biomedical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e).

Together, they are working on a project or challenge entitled “Safe Aerosol Treatment System for Children”. The aim of the challenge is to develop a safe aerosol treatment system for children in hospitals. Such approaches are used to administer liquid medication in the form of an aerosol to patients with breathing issues.

With the current Covid-19 situation, it is even more important to ensure that this medical treatment can be carried out in safe and reliable manner so that it does not endanger the patient or anyone in the surrounding environment.

In the episode, Liza and René talk about the establishment of the platform “TU/e against Covid-19” at the TU/e Innovation Space. This platform is used to host challenges such as the safe aerosol treatment challenge. They also discuss the process of putting together a student team, problems that need to be solved for this challenge, and the possibility of implementing innovations from the challenge in a clinical setting.

Stay safe and stay healthy.

In episode 4 of Researching in Times of Covid-19, host Barry Fitzgerald (Science Communication Officer at TU Eindhoven) spoke to Suzanne Koch, a PhD candidate in the department of Biomedical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e).

Suzanne is from Utrecht. Before her position at TU/e, Suzanne completed a Bachelors in Biomedical Sciences and Masters in Cardiovascular Research at VU University, Amsterdam. In addition, she spent 8 months in Berlin as part of her graduation project. At TU/e, Suzanne is based in the Soft Tissue Engineering and Mechanobiology group.

In early March, Suzanne and some work colleagues went to Germany for a research visit. However, when they returned to Eindhoven, they came back to a completely different campus as you’ll find out in this episode.

Stay safe, stay positive, and stay healthy.

In the third episode of Researching in Times of Covid-19, host Barry Fitzgerald (Science Communication Officer at TU Eindhoven) spoke to Oded Raz, Associate Professor in the department of Electrical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e).

Oded is from Israel and he completed his PhD in Tel Aviv. He has been based at TU/e for more than 13 years. His research focuses on photonic integrated devices and teaching is a passion for Oded.

Prior to the quarantine lockdown, Oded was in the middle of teaching a course for more than 200 students. However, the lockdown situation has forced him to shift to online education. In this episode Oded discusses the change to online education and the lessons that he has learned from the process.

Stay safe and stay healthy.

In the second episode of Researching in Times of Covid-19, host Barry Fitzgerald (Science Communication Officer at TU Eindhoven) spoke to Evan Milacic, a PhD candidate in the department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e).

Evan is from the Netherlands and his work is focused on the plastic industry. He is working on improving the production of polyolefin using both experiments and computer simulations.

And that’s where things get interesting for Evan. Although he can’t do any more experiments for the moment, his safety net is his work on simulations. However, that also comes with some concerns as you’ll find out in this podcast episode.

Stay safe and stay healthy.

In the first episode of Researching in Times of Covid-19, host Barry Fitzgerald (Science Communication Officer at TU Eindhoven) spoke to Maria Pastrama, a postdoctoral researcher in the department of Biomedical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e).

Maria is originally from Romania, and completed her PhD in Vienna before working as a postdoctoral researcher in Leuven, Belgium. She then moved to her current position at TU/e in November 2018. Her research focuses on cartilage and as of January 1st 2020, she has been working on a 2-year EU funded EuroTech project on cartilage tissue engineering.

In the first half of March 2020 Maria was preparing for a research visit to EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. However, things did not go as planned as you’ll find out in this podcast episode.

You can read more about the effect of Covid-19 on Maria’s work in a short article on Sparrho.

Stay safe and stay healthy.