Congratulations, Dharshika

Congratulations to Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI) PhD Candidate Dharshika Kongahage, who was awarded for her oral presentation entitled “Conductive Textiles for Electrothermal Heating and Actuation” given as part of the topic ‘Functional Devices and Materials’ at the 2018 International Conference on Nano Science and Technology (ICNST) in Sapporo, held in Japan in late August. This follows closely on from her 1^st place in the AIIM three minute thesis (3MT) event in July.

The end goal for Dharshika’s research is to use the actuating conductive textiles, composed of mainly coiled polymer fibres, as artificial muscles in practical applications, such as prosthetics, soft robotics and for bio medical procedures. Dharshika has fabricated an artificial heart assist device and plans to work on making this innovation available to assist heart patients who may be waiting for donors. Her research at the University of Wollongong is supervised by ACES Associate Investigator Dr Javad Foroughi and ACES Chief Investigator Prof Geoff Spinks.

Read more about Dharshika’s work here.