“The ability to understand the wonders of Nanomaterials remains fascinating. Wouldn’t it be brilliant to be able to design our materials in the same simple (yet complex), sustainable and efficient way of Nature?”

Catarina Esteves researches polymers & colloids, surfaces & interfaces. A large part of her work deals with the synthesis of well-defined building blocks, the functionalization of surfaces and the study of physical and chemical interactions at interfaces. These aspects are particularly relevant to the design of “Smart Coatings”. Esteves has investigated self-healing and self-cleaning coatings as well as coatings with special wettability, anti-fouling or stimuli-responsive properties, for end-applications in the automotive, aerospace, marine and biomedical fields.

Esteves enjoys the truly multi- and inter-disciplinary aspects of her work, covering almost all aspects of materials design: starting from the creation of reactive molecules or building units; through their incorporation into a polymer chain, a cross-linked network or a self-assembled structure; to the further reaction or deposition onto a surface; and finally obtaining a well-defined functional material. It also requires to communicate and collaborate across scientific fields, and to establish collaborations with chemists, physicists, materials engineers and others, sometimes combining experimental and simulation (theoretical) studies, as well as working closely to industrial researchers.

Her research nicely complements her teaching, which she finds equally stimulating. She teaches in the field of Coatings Science & Technology, Nanochemistry and Nanotechnology (DBL). This allows her to transfer knowledge and most recent innovations to the future generation of researchers and engineers. This often constitutes a challenging multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary and multi-level audience. Life is certainly not boring or trivial at TU/e.

Catarina Esteves received her PhD in 2007 from University of Aveiro (Portugal). During the doctoral studies she spent research periods at Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh) and University of Manchester (Manchester). In 2006 she started at the Chemistry & Chemical Engineering Department of Eindhoven University of Technology, working as Post-Doc at the Materials & Interface Chemistry laboratory and with Philips Lighting. In 2009 she became Assistant Professor. In 2015, she moved into the Physical Chemistry laboratory, and became Associate professor. Currently, she teaches Coatings Science & Technology, Nanochemistry and Nanotechnology.She acts as Board Editor of the Progress in Organic Coatings journal, Chair of the Coatings Science International Conference (Cosi), and Scientific Board member of the NICE (Nature Inspires Chemical Engineers) Conference.