Nancy R. Sottos

Nancy Sottos holds the Maybelle Leland Swanlund Endowed Chair and is Head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. She is leader of the Autonomous Materials Systems group at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and director of the University of Illinois spoke of the BP International Center for Advanced Materials. Sottos is also a co-founder of Autonomous Materials Inc.

The aim of the Sottos Research Group is understanding the mechanical behavior of a variety of complex, heterogeneous materials through meso, micro and nanoscale characterization of deformation and failure mechanisms. Inspired by autonomous function in biological systems, the group develops polymers and composites capable of self-healing and regeneration, self-reporting, and self-protection to improve reliability and extend material lifetime.

Sottos’s awards include the ONR Young Investigator Award, Scientific American's SciAm 50 Award, the Hetényi Best Paper Award in Experimental Mechanics, the M.M. Frocht and B.J. Lazan Awards from the Society for Experimental Mechanics, and the Society of Engineering Science Medal.