Dr David Lentink from Stanford University, USA, has been named winner of the inaugural Bioinspiration & Biomimetics Steven Vogel Young Investigator Award 2017.
The award recognises early career excellence in the journal’s field, and is open to researchers in the 10 years after completing their PhD.
Dr Lentink’s multidisciplinary laboratory at Stanford University studies biological flight as an inspiration for engineering design. His research covers fluid dynamics, from gliding and turning in swifts to the leading-edge vortices of autorotating plant seeds, while asking fundamental questions that call for development of novel experimental set-ups, such as his aerodynamic force platform used for birds and drones.
He received a BS and MS in Aerospace Engineering from Delft University of Technology and a PhD in Experimental Zoology from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. An alumnus of the Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is a recipient of the Dutch Academic Year Prize, an NSF CAREER award, and was recognized in 2013 as one of 40 scientists under 40 by the World Economic Forum.
He has more than 30 publications to his name, ranging from technical journals to the J. Exp. Biol., J. Roy. Soc. Interface, cover publications in Nature and Science, and several in Bioinspiration & Biomimetics.
The awards itself is presented in memory of Professor Steven Vogel, of Duke University, who played a fundamental role in establishing the discipline of biomechanics.
Professor Robert Full, Editor-in-Chief for Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, said: “Professor Vogel was a gifted scientist and communicator, and inspired a great many young scientists with his teaching, his science, and his published work. He was a founding board member of Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, a great supporter of the journal, and provided its guiding perspective in his many books, such as Life’s Devices and Cat’s Paws and Catapults.”
“We are therefore extremely proud to present this award in his memory, to recognise young researchers who continue to advance the field to which he contributed so much.”
Bioinspiration & Biomimetics is now inviting nominations for the 2018 Steven Vogel Young Investigator Award. More information and the nomination form can be found here