University of Delaware’s Laure Kayser named 2023 Beckman Young Investigator

Laure Kayser, assistant professor in the College of Engineering’s Department of Materials Science & Engineering and the College of Arts & Sciences’ Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, has been named as a member of the 2023 class of Beckman Young Investigator Awardees.

This award recognizes researchers who exemplify the Arnold & Mabel Beckman Foundation’s mission of supporting the most promising young faculty members in the early stages of their academic careers in the chemical and life sciences. 

“The Materials Science and Engineering Department is extremely proud of Prof. Kayser and her research,” said Joshua Zide, professor and chair of Materials Science and Engineering. “Her creative, outstanding, and transformative research make her an outstanding example of the type of early-stage academic leader that the Beckman Foundation seeks to recognize.” 

This year’s 11 awardees will each receive $600,000 in funding over four years for cutting-edge research. Kayser was selected from a pool of nearly 200 applicants after a three-part review led by a panel of scientific experts. 

“Throughout the next four years, our 2023 class of Beckman Young Investigators will be tackling a broad range of problems, from exploring the use of Earth-abundant main group elements to fabricating small devices that can produce touch sensation in assistive robots and displays,” said Anne Hultgren, Executive Director of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation.

With the funding from this award, Kayser will be working on the touch sensation devices project mentioned by Hultgren. Touch sensation is currently difficult to recreate in electronic devices because the technology that’s currently available is too large to activate the fine touch receptors in our skin, creating only bulk, non-realistic, sensations.

To address this challenge, the Kayser lab will use innovative chemistry to make materials and small devices that can be worn on the skin to stimulate the sense of touch. These materials would quickly change their mechanical properties when activated by electricity to instantly generate differences (such as hard versus soft) that can be felt by the wearer. And because they can be dissolved in liquid and printed on a variety of surfaces, this research can pave the way for future affordable, lightweight wearables that more accurately mimic touch sensation.