Dr. Zarah Korb
Research Interests
Nature-inspired materials; Responsive materials; Bio-based polymers; Exploiting molecular behaviour in macroscale materials; Peristalsis mimics; Sustainable materials design; Heritage conservation using dynamic materials
Projects
Since 02.24 Impact resistant wood fibres (Co-investigator with Dr. Guido Panzarasa, ETH Zurich). Funded by a Swiss Additive Manufacturing Community Events Exchange Grant
01.24 – 12.24 Catch Bond Mediated Peristaltic Hydrogels (Project Leader) Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation https://data.snf.ch/grants/grant/221019
Team members: Yves Erdin
2023 – 2024 Numerical modelling of catch bond interactions across length scales (Project Leader, co-supervised with Prof. Dr Inam Ul Ahad, Dublin City University).
Team members: Intizar Ali Tunio, visiting PhD student funded at DCU by Erasmus+ programme
2020 – 2024 CatchGel: Catch Bond Cross-linked Hydrogels (Project Leader) Funded by the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (MSCA Career Restart) https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/842043
Peer-Reviewed Publications (Journals, Proceedings, Book Chapters from the last 5 years)
Corresponding author*
Goossens, E., Aalling-Frederiksen, O., Tack, P., Van den Eynden, D., Walsh-Korb, Z*., Jensen, K., De Busser, K., De Roo, J. (2024) “From Gel to Crystal: Mechanism of HfO2 and ZrO2 Nanocrystal Synthesis in Benzyl Alcohol.” J. Am. Chem. Soc., 146(15) 10723-10734 https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c00678
Harandi, D., Walsh-Korb, Z*., Moradienayat, M. (2023) “CNCs and CeO2 as organic-inorganic additives to enhance HPC bio-polymer wood coatings against photochemical degradation.” ChemRXiv https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv-2023-c7xgw
Oñate Narciso, J., Walsh-Korb, Z*. (2023) “Teaching cross-disciplinarity in the natural sciences – a case for Natural Philosophy.” ETH Teaching and Learning Journal, 4(1) 79-88 https://doi.org/10.16906/lt-eth.v4i1.228
Walsh-Korb, Z*. (2023) "Designing sustainable consolidants: An evaluation of two bio-based consolidants", In: Stelzner, I., Horvand, I.C. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 15th ICOM-CC Group on Wet Organic Archaeological Materials Conference, Paris: ICOM (conference proceeding)
Muff, J.L., Sokolovski, F., Walsh-Korb, Z., Choudhury, R.A., Dunn, J.C.Y., Holland-Cunz, S.G., Vuille-dit-Bille, R.N. (2022) "Surgical treatment of Short Bowel Syndrome - The past, the present and the future, a descriptive review of the literature", Children, 9(7), 1024. https://doi.org/10.3390/children9071024
Walsh-Korb, Z.*, Stelzner, I., dos Santos Gabriel, J., Eggert, G., Avérous, L. (2022) "Morphological study of bio-based polymers in the consolidation of waterlogged wooden objects", Materials, 15(2), 681. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15020681
Walsh-Korb, Z.* (2021) "Sustainability in heritage wood conservation: Challenges and directions for future research", Forests, 13(1), 18. https://doi.org/10.3390/f13010018
Nicolas, S., Stelzner, I., Avérous, L., Walsh-Korb, Z*. (2021) "Further studies on bio-based polymers as consolidants for waterlogged archaeological wood and non-wood organics", In: Williams, E.A. (Ed.) Proceedings of the 14th ICOM-CC Group on Wet Organic Archaeological Materials Conference, Paris: ICOM (conference proceeding)
Walsh-Korb, Z.*, Avérous, L. (2020) "Wood-polymer composites and nanocomposites: Building and reconstruction materials of the future", In: Chaudhoury, M.N. (Ed.) Handbook of Polymer Nanocomposites for Industrial Applications, Chapter 23. Amsterdam: Elsevier (Book Chapter)
Walsh-Korb, Z.*, Avérous, L. (2019) "Recent developments in the conservation of materials properties of historical wood", Progress in Materials Science, 102, 167-221. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmatsci.2018.12.001
Walsh-Korb, Z.*, Janeček, E-R., Jones, M., Avérous, L., Scherman, O.A. (2019) "New consolidants for the conservation of archaeological wood", In: Nevin, A., Sawicki, M. (Eds.) Heritage Wood, pp65-77. Cham: Springer (Book Chapter)
Williams, P.E., Walsh-Korb, Z.*, Jones, S.T., Lan, Y., Scherman, O.A. (2018) "Stress dissipation in cucurbit[8]uril ternary complex small molecule adhesives", Langmuir, 34(44), 13104-13109. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.8b00894
Brief CV
Since 2020 | Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions International Fellow (Career Restart) at the University of Basel (Chemistry) and the ETH Zurich (Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering) |
2018 – 2019 | Adjunct lectureship in Technical Writing at Offenburg University of Applied Sciences (DE) |
2017 – 2020 | Career Break |
2017 | Visiting Researcher, FIT, University of Freiburg (DE) |
2015 – 2017 | Postdoctoral Researcher (2015/16) and Group leader (16/17) (funded by MSCA Co-fund PRESTIGE) within the BioTeam at the University of Strasbourg (ICPEES/ECPM) (FR) |
2014 | Visiting Researcher, Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University (CN) |
2014-2015 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Chair of Forest Biomaterials, University of Freiburg (DE) |
2012 – 2013 | Visiting researcher and Project coordinator, Milan Polytechnic University (IT) |
2010 – 2014 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis, University of Cambridge (UK) |
2008 – 2009 | Visiting Graduate Researcher and Project coordinator, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (USA) |
2006 – 2010 | Graduate Researcher, National Centre for Sensor Research and School of Chemical Sciences, Dublin City University (IRL) |
Teaching (past 5 years)
2023 | Lecturer, Department of Biomedical Engineering, S/S Nanostructural Analysis 54879-01 |
2022 | Guest Lecturer, Department of Biomedical Engineering, F/S Materials Science and Biomaterials (28421-01) Lecture 12 (Stimuli Responsive Liposomes) |
2021 | Guest Lecturer, ETH MSc Nanosciences F/S Biomolecular Nanotechnology, Lecture 8 (Bioinspired Materials and Hydrogels) |
2018-2019 | Lecturer and Course Developer, Language Centre Offenburg University of Applied Sciences (Modules: Writing for Study and Research and Current Issues in Science and Technology) |
Approved Research Projects
| Since 02.24 | Exchange grant: Swiss Additive Manufacturing Community Events (SAMCE) |
| 01.24 – 12.24 | Spark: Swiss National Science Foundation Grant No. 221019 https://data.snf.ch/grants/grant/221019 |
2020 – 2024 | MSCA-IF Career Restart Fellowship: H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions |
2016 – 2017 | MSCA PRESTIGE CoFund Postdoctoral Fellowship: FP7 People - Marie Curie Actions/Campus France (FR) |
2012 – 2013 | Project Coordinator - LaserLab Europe Project: LaserLab Europe (Max Born Institute, Berlin, DE) |
2008 – 2009 | Project Coordinator - Molecular Foundry User Project: U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (USA). https://foundry.lbl.gov/user-program/user-projects/#Organic |