You can now vote for one of the seven female scientists of the University of Twente who have been nominated for the VIVA400. This is an annual list of 400 successful and inspiring women put together by the magazine Viva. All women are divided into eight categories. In the 'Brainiacs' and 'Ecological' categories, the following seven female UT scientists have been nominated: Angele Reinders, Anne Leferink, Heidi Witteveen, Kitty Nijmeijer, Marieke Martens, Renske van Wijk and Sophie van Baalen.
Vote!
You can vote for the UT scientists here until 2 November, and win an amazing prize: driving a Renault Twingo for free for one year. For each category, you can cast one vote for the woman you find the most successful, passionate or inspiring. You can do this by logging in with your Facebook, LinkedIn or Viva account. The nominees who obtained the most votes will be in the top five, from which the jury will select a winner for each category. The winner, hopefully one of our UT scientists, will be announced during the VIVA400 event on 18 November.
VIVA400
The VIVA400 is an annual list of 400 inspiring women who stood out last year, for example because they were not afraid to work on a better world, won an important prize or discovered a gap in the market. You can vote for your favourite VIVA400 woman until 2 November. Once the votes have been counted and each category has a top five, the professional jury will select the winners. On 18 November 2014, the winners will be announced during the VIVA400 event, during which they will also receive the coveted VIVA400 award.
UT scientists
Prof. Angèle Reinders built a new solar energy system in the Indonesian island of Papua. Here, increasing prosperity resulted in a rising demand for electricity, which could not be met by the existing energy network. The new system currently supplies around 50,000 kWh per year, which means an annual saving of five thousand litres of diesel and 11,000 kilos of coal for generators. This also meant a gigantic CO2 emission reduction. Due to this project, more solar energy systems will be built in Indonesia.
In July, Anne Leferink (29) obtained her doctoral degree by making a remarkable discovery: a new method to create bone tissue and cartilage tissue. By sequencing microscopic pieces of tissue in a controlled manner, it is possible to create a larger piece of tissue than was possible with current techniques. Anne and her team are currently working on further developing the method, whereby the material that forms the basis of the microscopic pieces of tissue is made injectable. This new method allows for the future treatment of patients suffering from, for example, arthrosis or osteoporosis with a single injection."
Together with other researchers, Heidi Witteveen (30) developed an ultramodern forearm prosthesis for people missing a hand due to an amputation or congenital defect. The prosthesis is controlled by the remaining arm muscles and provide the user with information about the movement and/or amount of force applied, which allows the user to grasp items intuitively. The prosthesis gives back sensation in the arm, as it were, which used to be impossible with the aids available so far.
In April, it was announced that the intake of the number of chemistry students increased by twenty percent over the past five years. This is partly due to the efforts made by Kitty Nijmeijer (42), professor of membrane technology. She told an inspiring story about the importance of chemistry for a sustainable society. She was a guest in the talk show De Wereld Draait Door and she will give online lectures for the ‘University of the Netherlands’ about her research in the field of Blue Energy: generating energy by mixing sea water with river water. Partly based on her research, the first Blue-Energy Power Plant in the world is being built on the Afsluitdijk (a causeway separating the IJssel Lake from the Wadden Sea).
Will we all be driving autonomous cars soon and will this make traffic actually safer or perhaps even less safe? According to prof. Marieke Martens (42), the step towards autonomous cars is no longer a big step. But its success and safety largely depend on how people deal with this and whether they still understand when they have to interfere. Marieke Martens conducts ground-breaking research into how people use clever in-vehicle technology that warns you in case of any danger or even takes over part of the driving, such as parking, steering or keeping a distance from the vehicle in front of you.
Renske van Wijk (31) conducted research into the effectiveness of helmet therapy in babies with skull deformation and obtained her doctoral degree with a thesis on this topic. No-one knew if helmets actually help to prevent skull deformation, and yet 4000 helmets of € 1200 each were prescribed each year. Conclusion of her research: there is no evidence that a helmet is better than waiting for natural recovery in babies with moderate to severe skull deformation. Her doctoral research was published in national and international media such as EenVandaag, major Dutch newspapers, The New York Times and the BBC.
Sophie van Baalen (26) received this year's TGS Research Honours PhD Award. This is a prize that is awarded by the University of Twente to top Twente talent. With two Master's degrees - in Technical Medicine and Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society - Sophie wants to improve the work of doctors by assessing how they can improve cooperation with technical researchers. For these groups know little of each other's daily practices and often think in an entirely different way. Sophie wants to improve the work of doctors by applying philosophy of science.
