Lara Tomholt

• Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University

Internal cavities or channels have the potential to enhance a component’s insulation capacity, allow for fluid transport and heat exchange, and/or reduce material use without structural disadvantages. However, extrusion-based 3D-printing of built-in cavities or channels with cementitious materials has remained challenging due to several limitations...

The remarkably complex skeletal systems of the sea stars (Echinodermata, Asteroidea), consisting of hundreds to thousands of individual elements (ossicles), have intrigued investigators for more than 150 years. While the general features and structural diversity of isolated asteroid ossicles have been well documented in the literature, the task of...

Thermal regulation of buildings in climates with daily and seasonal weather changes can prove challenging and result in high building energy consumption. While adaptable façades with tunable infrared transmitting properties could modulate solar transmittance through the building envelope and, as such, increase energy efficiency, available technolog...

Congenital heart valve disease has life-threatening consequences that warrant early valve replacement; however, the development of a growth-accommodating prosthetic valve has remained elusive. Thousands of children continue to face multiple high-risk open-heart operations to replace valves that they have outgrown. Here, we demonstrate a biomimetic...

Brittle stars are known for the high flexibility of their arms, a characteristic required for locomotion, food grasping, and for holding onto a great diversity of substrates. Their high agility is facilitated by the numerous discrete skeletal elements (ossicles) running through the center of each arm and embedded in the skin. While much has been le...

Various 3D imaging techniques are routinely used to examine biological materials, the results of which are usually a stack of grayscale images. In order to quantify structural aspects of the biological materials, however, they must first be extracted from the dataset in a process called segmentation. If the individual structures to be extracted are...