"Playing with materials by changing the way they behave is a fascinating game –  constant search for order in chaos."

Sandra Lucas is an assistant professor in 3D printing of concrete in the research group Concrete Structures at the TU/e department of the Built Environment (unit Structural Design). She has extensive experience in the development of innovative construction materials for new and existing buildings. Sandra’s research goal is to understand how nanoparticles change the material’s microstructure, how this influences its macromechanical behaviour and thus creates a product with a new property – self-healing, self-sensing, heat storage or self-cleaning, for example. At TU/e, her research focuses on transferring this knowledge to additive manufacturing, developing fully customisable 3D printed materials and houses. Prior to this position, she was a senior lecturer in construction materials and sustainability at the University of Greenwich. She was the PI for several projects within academia and in collaboration with industry, through the Innovate UK funding agency.

Sandra Lucas obtained a BEng in ceramic and glass engineering, an MSc in environmental management and materials and, in 2011, a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Aveiro (Portugal). She then became a Marie Curie Postdoctoral researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute UMSICHT (Oberhausen, Germany) for the SHeMat project. As part of this project, she was a visiting researcher at EPSI ParisTech (Paris, France) and at Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands). In 2014, she joined the University of Greenwich (London, UK) as a senior lecturer in construction materials and sustainability. In 2018, Sandra Lucas was appointed as assistant professor in 3D printing of concrete with the research group Concrete Structures at the department of the Built Environment of Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e, the Netherlands).