Congratulations Professor Sharon Kao Walter!
- Post by: Christian Johansson
- 21st May 2015
- No Comment
Sharon Kao Walter has recently been appointed Professor in Mechanical Engineering.
Below follows a short interview with Sharon about her research and future focus in her research.
Who are you and what’s your background?
– I have been grown up in Shanghai and got my Bachelor in Engineering Mechanics from Shanghai Jiao-Tong University (one of the best University in China). After doing teaching and researching in Electrical Power Institute in Shanghai, I started at Lund Institute of Technology as guest researcher and later PhD student. 1991, I joined Tetra Pak as development engineer after I got my Licentiate degree in Solid mechanics from LTH. After 8 years, I moved to beautiful Blekinge with my family after we got two children and continued my Tetra Pak research project as a part of my PhD work and at the same time I worked as part time teacher at BTH. I got my PhD 2005 after our third child was born in Karlskrona and become docent 2011. Finally I become professor recently after worked intensively with education and research.
Describe what your research topic is about?
– Applied mechanics and fracture mechanics in packaging material has been my research topic together with my PhD students and post Doc. we are trying to use the fracture mechanics theories and principles to test, simulate and analyze the crack propagation behavior of the layered packaging material. The results of this will help the industries to reduce the unexpected fractures and increase the open ability of the packages.
What are the key research questions for you in the coming years?
– Application of healthcare technology to increase the life quality of people with different abilities will be the key research questions of the coming years. By combining the mechanical engineering with the different so called “Internet of the thing” solutions and innovation process, I believe a plenty of new useful products can be created for different users especially for elderly and slightly disability people. To reach this, most of the priority fields at BTH such as sustainability development, IT technologies, innovative decision supported simulation technologies and healthcare knowledge need to be applied. Therefore, I expect more research cooperation within and outside BTH.
An important task for a university is the education of students, how do you want to develop the undergraduate education?
– Build the bridge between education, research, and industrial development will be the main purpose that I would like to contribution to the education in different levels. One of the visions is to get the development questions from the industries in order to work out the academic research project. After reaching the academic solutions, we shall introduce them to the courses and further implement the solution directly through the student project. Another task is encourage the student exchange between BTH and different international universities and companies where I can give the good contribution with the contacts that I established through my research and educational cooperation.
We congratulate Sharon on her new title and hope for continued hard work from Professor Sharon Kao-Walter!