Falling Walls Falling Walls Science Summit 2023

Biodegradation: Falling Walls Breakthrough Conversation with Ting Xu

Ting Xu, Aline Luckgen

2022 Breakthrough Conversations Science Breakthrough of the Year

In this Falling Walls Breakthrough Conversation, digital participants had the chance to engage in a live conversation with Ting Xu. She talked about her role as Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering at Berkeley University, her groundbreaking work on accelerating biodegradation of plastics and her hopes for the future of the science landscape.

The interview series provided an intimate personal atmosphere, in which high-level guests, speakers and panelists of the Falling Walls Science Summit 2022 talked about their individual research, career paths and experiences.

The Falling Walls Breakthrough Conversations are supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and Springer Nature.

Ting Xu

University of California, Berkeley

Prof. Ting Xu received Ph.D in Polymer Science and Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2004 and postdoc training at the University of Pennsylvania and NIST. She jointed University of California, Berkeley in 2007 in the Department of Material Sciences and Engineering and Department of Chemistry. Her research focuses on rational design of polymer-based hybrid materials for life science, environment and energy applications.

She is a fellow of American Physical Society, American Chemical Society and serves on the Board of Directors of Materials Research Society. She is an awardee of 3M Nontenured Faculty Award; DuPont Young Professor Award; Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award; Li Ka Shing Woman Research Award; Camille-Dreyfus Scholar-Teacher Award; ACS Arthur K. Doolittle Award; Bakar Fellow and 2021 Bakar Prize. She was named as one of “Brilliant 10” by Popular Science Magazine. Her team won the grand prize of the 2021 Create the Future Design Contest.

Aline Luckgen

Springer Nature

Aline obtained her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in bioengineering at Rice University in the USA and at the EPFL in Switzerland, respectively, completing short research internships in India, France and Japan during her studies. She completed her PhD at the Technical University in Berlin, where she investigated the degradation behavior of alginate-based hydrogels. Aline joined the Biotechnology team at Nature Communications in June 2020, where she now handles manuscripts in the areas of bioengineering and biomaterials.

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