DI Dr. Carole Planchette

Dr. Carole Planchette
		INSTITUT Research Center Pharmaceutical Engineering GmbH ADRESSE Inffeldgasse 21a/II, 8010 Graz T +43 (0)316 | 873 - 9755 F +43 (0)316 | 873 - 109755 carole.planchette@tugraz.at

As a French pupil, I prepared the competitive exam entrance for the French „Grandes Ecoles“ and joined the ESPCI. The excellent reputation of this school is not only due to the 5 associated Nobel prize winners as Pierre Gilles de Gennes, the former school director but also to its highly innovative and multidisciplinary spirit. Researchers publish on average one article per day in leading peerreviewed international scientific journals and file an average of one patent a week. Being immersed in this outstanding environment I decided to do research. As I am interested in other cultures, I had the chance to make an industrial internship of half a year in Japan and learned a lot about non western culture. After my engineer degree in physics and chemistry (2006), I obtained a master degree in the field of physics of liquids and soft matter (2007), studying the confinement of nanoparticles in surfactant films and achieving the deposition of such films. I graduated investigating in asymmetric drop collisions.

During the three and a half years of my PhD studies, I worked both in Paris with Elise Lorenceau, who supervised my research in the laboratory of Michele Adler (LPMDI) focusing on water interfaces coated by non colloidal hydrophobic glass beads and in Graz at the ISW of the TU Graz with Prof Brenn where I studied immiscible liquids drop collisions. I also had the chance to study capillary wave propagation in Lyon with Anne-Laure Biance. Based on my experimental results, we could bring in new models for drop collisions and coated interfaces leading to several publications (8) in peer review journals and several communications in international congresses as the ICMF 2010, where we obtained the best paper prize.

In July 2011, I joined the RCPE where I work on very interesting problems involving complex fluids with polymers and particules. More precisely, my goal is to understand the properties of such pastes and how their processing influences the structure and properties of the layers they produce, once screen printed and cured. Beside my interest for physicochemical challenges of today‘s, I also give importance to certain personal aspects of my life. I‘m actually the mother of a 2-year old girl and I am very glad that within 3.5 years I could not only make a PhD with fruitfull scientific outcomes but also become a mother. I am more than happy to currently carry out research in a very stimulating environment without sacrificing my family. For all those who understand French, parents or not, I recommend to read „ les leçons de Marie Curie“. This short book presents the elementary lectures of Physics Marie Curie was giving to some colleagues´ children and to her own daughter Irene Joliot Curie, Nobel prize winner as her mother...