Episode 15: Talking to Prof James Pikul about metallic wood

Polymer Science Podcast

It is a week after the Closing Ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games, and it is amazing to be able to reflect on the revolutionary technology that we currently have available due to the dedicated mechanical engineers and scientists that are focusing their efforts on providing sustainable and convenient tools to improve society. In Japan, we saw the effective use of bullet trains for quick transport between stadiums, multilingual robotic guides and security guards. The Olympic medals were made of recycled laptops and other electronic devices while self-steering cars have been giving the competitors lifts to their destinations. Viewers even got to see the amazing performances of our athletes from every angle with advanced 3D video capturing technology. It is therefor only fitting that we are talking to Mechanical Engineering Professor, James Pikul, in this episode about designing metallic wood and the interesting roles that polymers play in improving technology and studies in the Mechanical Engineering field. James Pikul is an Assistant Professor and a Moore Inventor Fellow in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the lead of the Pikul Research Group and seeks to make transformative advances in energy storage, energy conversion, multifunctional materials, and robotics by understanding and exploiting nanoscale to macroscopic characteristics of electrochemistry and soft matter. He graduated at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where he worked on fabricating high power microbatteries and high strength cellular metals. He received a 2020 Moore Inventor Fellowship as well as a 2020 Toyota Programmable System Innovation Fellowship and several awards for his research. You can find out more about him by following this link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-pikul-25905a13/ Hope you enjoy!