Supervisor: Prof. dr. Beatriz Noheda (ZIAM)

Beatriz Noheda received her PhD in Physics in 1996 from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), working on ferroelectrics. During that time, she received a DAAD Fellowship to do work at the University of Saarlandes (Germany). Afterwards, she became visiting scientist at the Clarendon Laboratory in Oxford (UK) in the group of Prof. M. A. Glazer. During 1998-2002, she was Assistant Physicist (tenure track) at Brookhaven National Lab in New York and local contact at the powder diffraction beamline of the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS). In 2002 she moved back to Europe, first to the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, and in 2003, she was awarded a Rosalind Franklin Fellowship by the University of Groningen, where she is now Full Professor. Noheda is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and has served as member of various committees and editorial boards. She is author of 100 publications, has given 3 plenary talks and receives more than 10 invitations per year to speak in international conferences. Noheda’s research focuses on the fundamental understanding of piezoelectricity, the synthesis of thin films of ferroelectric and multiferroic materials with atomic control (using pulsed laser deposition), the control of nano-domains that self-assemble by strain engineering, as well as the characterization of the distinct properties of domain walls. Her main scientific contributions so far have been the dicovery of low symetry (monoclinic) phases in high piezoelectric materials (PZT and MPB piezoelectrics) and the observation of domain walls as "vertical interfaces" with distinct functionalities.