Hazel Elaine Assender is a professor of

materials A material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties, or on their ge ...

at the

Department of Materials, University of Oxford The Department of Materials at the University of Oxford, England was founded in the 1950s as the ''Department of Metallurgy'', by William Hume-Rothery, who was a reader in Oxford's Department of Inorganic chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry. It is ...

. She is an expert in

polymer A polymer () is a chemical substance, substance or material that consists of very large molecules, or macromolecules, that are constituted by many repeat unit, repeating subunits derived from one or more species of monomers. Due to their br ...

chemistry, thin film electronics and

nanomaterials Nanomaterials describe, in principle, chemical substances or materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale). Nanomaterials research takes a materials science ...

. Assender is a

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

Linacre College, Oxford Linacre College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. The college was founded in 1962 and is named after Thomas Linacre (1460–1524), founder of the Royal College of Ph ...

Education

Assender studied the

Natural Sciences Tripos The Natural Sciences Tripos is the framework within which most of the science at the University of Cambridge is taught. The tripos includes a wide range of Natural Sciences from physics, astronomy, and geoscience, to chemistry and biology, whi ...

at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, graduating in 1990. In 1990, Assender started her PhD in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy and completed her thesis on "Magnetically induced microstructures in liquid crystalline polymers" in 1994.

Research and career

After two years as a post doctoral researcher, in 1996 Assender moved to a lectureship in the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford where she focuses on thin films and coatings of polymer materials and onto polymer substrates. During her time in Oxford, she has developed expertise in roll-to-roll deposition, gas barriers, photovoltaics, and polymer electronics (including transistors and circuits). Assender has worked 80% full-time since her second child was born. In 2001 Assender co-edited the book "Aerospace Materials" with

Brian Cantor Brian Cantor (born 11 January 1948) has been a long-serving Lists of university leaders, university leader, is a visiting professor in the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford, and a consultant at the Brunel Centre for Advanced Sol ...

and Patrick Grant. She spoke at the 2015

" Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers Company forum", a highlight of the academic UK materials science calendar, to highlight roll-to-roll vacuum processing to create multi-layer polymer electronic thin films. Assender continues to collaborate across the UK and is currently a member of the Centre for Plastic Electronics Centre for Doctoral Training (with colleagues from Oxford, Imperial, and Queen Mary University London). Assender's research is inspired by her desire to solve industrial challenges. Her recent work has considered

wearable electronics A wearable computer, also known as a body-borne computer, is a computing device worn on the body. The definition of 'wearable computer' may be narrow or broad, extending to smartphones or even ordinary wristwatches. Wearables may be for general ...

as part of the Wearable and Flexible Technologies (WAFT) consortium with colleagues at Oxford,

Southampton Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...

and

Exeter Exeter ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and the county town of Devon in South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter w ...

Universities.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Assender, Hazel Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Academics of the University of Oxford Alumni of the University of Cambridge Women materials scientists and engineers British women physicists British metallurgists Fellows of Linacre College, Oxford