S.J. Garcia (Santiago)

Biography

Santiago Garcia is associate Professor, Research Unit leader of Surfaces and Dynamic Materials, and acting chairholder at the Novel Aerospace Materials group at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering of the TUDelft.

His research has a marked multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary character involving materials chemistry, physics, mechanics and electrochemistry. With the spirit of the so called ‘Pasteur quadrant’ to seek fundamental understanding while maintaining the potential use for the society in mind, Garcia’s research equally receives economic support from the Dutch Government (NWO,TTW), the EU (e.g. Surfice) and bilateral agreements with industry (e.g. Airbus, BASF, Croda). The research interests of Dr Garcia can be subdivided in three main areas:

(i) coatings (e.g. self-healing, novel concepts for corrosion protection, anti-icing surfaces);

(ii) dynamic polymeric materials (e.g. damage control by self-healing coatings, adhesives, composites);

(iii) biological and bioinspired materials (e.g. surface protection with microbes).

Of particular scientific interest is the study of structure-property relationships, interfacial phenomena in similar and dissimilar materials and the establishment of guidelines for materials design. Garcia’s team also contributes to the establishment of characterization tools and protocols in the fields of self-healing polymers and coatings (e.g. hyphenated electrochemistry with image correlation). An overview of his scientific output can be found in Google Scholar or at the TUDelft Library Repository.

Besides research, Santiago is involved  in BSc and MSc education programs at the TUDelft and the National Dutch Research School on Polymer Technology (RPK), direct supervision of BSc and MSc student projects, (co-)organization of conferences, participation in various management and commissions of trust at Faculty and international level (e.g. International Steering Committee Self-Healing Materials), and as international reviewer. Santiago is also member of the Editorial Board of the journal Surface and Coatings Technology and scientific advisor at Correlimage, a start-up dedicated to the development and commercialization of techniques based on image recognition software to assess the degradation in coatings and other surface treatments.

Research Team

Current members

Jingjing Zhao, PhD candidate, diatom exoskeletons for corrosion control

Tinashe Darikwa, PhD candidate, corrosion control through polymer architecture design

Miisa Tavaststjerna, PhD candidate, antiicing surfaces

Marlon Mopon, PhD candidate, aerospace corrosion control

Sera Zalman, MSc candidate, diatoms for metal protection (in collaboration with Prof Corina Brussaard, NIOZ)

Mark Ablonczy, MSc candidate, fungi for metal protection (in collaboration with Prof Han Wosten, U. Utrecht)

Apurva Venkatesh, MSc candidate, dynamic membranes (in collaboration with Dr Hanieh Bazyar)

Riccardo Biella, MSc candidate

Dong-Hyuk Na, MSc candidate

Serena Pipolo, visiting MSc candidate, polymer dynamics

Upcoming PhD candidate, waterborne coatings

Upcoming PhD candidate, waterborne protective coatings

Past PhD thesis supervised

Dr Vincenzo Montano, Structure and Dynamics of Self-Healing Polyurethanes. PhD 2020

Dr Paul Denissen, In-situ Visual Quantification of Corrosion and Corrosion Protection. PhD 2020

Dr Nan Zhong, Self-healing thermal interface materials.PhD 2020

Dr Arijana Susa, Self-Healing polyimides. PhD 2019

Dr Wouter Post, Self-healing polymer composites. PhD 2017

Dr Mina AbdolahZadeh, Self-Healing Corrosion Protective Sol-Gel Coatings. PhD 2016

Dr Emmanuel Ferrer, Zeolites for corrosion control, The University of the Philippines. PhD 2013

Recent MSc thesis supervised

An overview of recent MSc thesis supervised can be found at the TUDelft library repository

Past post-doc co-workers

Dr Marianella Hernandez, now Senior scientist at ICTP/CSIC, Spain.

Dr Antonio Grande, now assistant professor at Politecnico de Milano, Italy.

Dr Ranjita Bose, now assistant professor RUG, NL.

Dr Amor Abdelkader, now associate professor at Bournemouth University, UK.

Dr Marek Prajer, now Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Czech Republic.

Dr Jesus Vega, now R&D scientist at Centro Tecnológico CIDETEC, Spain.

Education

Responsible instructor

BSc Materials and Structures for Aircraft and Spacecraft (AE1108-I). 3 ECTS (2020-until date)

MSc Functional Coatings (AE4ASM103). 3 ECTS (2014-until date)

MSc Design of Self-Healing Materials. (AE4ASM508). 3 ECTS (2010-until date)

Instructor

National Dutch Research School on Polymer Technology (PTN), Module RPK-B, Polymer Physics (2018-until date)

MSc Designing Materials with Aerospace Specific Properties (AE4ASM002). 3 ECTS. (2009-until date)

MSc course Materials Characterization (AE4ASM515). 3 ECTS. (2014-2018)

BSc course Materials and Structures for Aircraft and Spacecraft (AE1108-I). 3 ECTS. (2010-2017)

MSc course Modern Materials for Aerospace Applications-part A & B (AE3X01 / X02). 3 ECTS. (2009-2011)

Tutor/supervisor

MSc Literature Study (AE4020). 12 ECTS. (Supervisor: 2010-till date)

MSc Thesis. 42 ECTS. (Supervisor: 2010-till date)

BSc Design Synthesis Exercise (AE3200). 14 ECTS. (coach: 2010, tutor: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019)

Awards

Personal grants and awards

2018 – Scholarship Research Stays for University Academics and Scientists, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)

2009 - VENI grant by the Dutch Science Council (NWO)

2008 - PhD Extraordinary Prize

2006-2007 by the Polytechnic University of Valencia.

Awards to the team members

2018 - Creativity Award at the Coatings Science International. Vincenzo Montano.

2018 - Surfair Conference Award. Paul Denissen.

2017 - NVVT young Scientist Award by the Dutch Paint Association (NVVT). Paul Denissen.

2016 - Creativity Award at the Coatings Science International. Paul Denissen.

2014 - Young Scientist Best Presentation Award at FATIPEC/ETCC. Mina AbdolahZadeh.

2014 - NVVT young Scientist Award by the Dutch Paint Association (NVVT). Mina AbdolahZadeh.

2012 - First poster prize at Materials Science & Engineering conference. Dr. Marek Prajer.

2012 - Second poster prize at Junior Euromat Conference. Christian Mathis.

2011 - Second poster prize at the 3rd International Conference on Self-Healing Materials, Bath, UK. Dr. Santiago Garcia.