Dorina M. Opris is an organic chemist who uses her synthetic skills to develop novel functional materials. She obtained her B.Sc. in chemistry at Babes-Bolyai University (BBU), Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in 1997. She then joined Natex S.A. as a chemist developing flavors and simultaneously did her MSc in chemistry at BBU. From 1999 to 2001 she worked with Prof. Grosu at BBU toward a PhD and then joined the group of Prof. Schlüter at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, where she finished her PhD in February 2005. After moving to Zürich in
November 2006, she joined the Laboratory of Functional Polymers, Empa, Dübendorf, Switzerland, as PostDoc and later as scientist. Since 2014 she has been the leader of Functional Dielectric Elastomers group at the Laboratory of Functional Polymers. The aim of her work is to develop dielectric elastomers with increased dielectric permittivity to be used as dielectric in devices operated at low voltages. She is married and the mother of two children.
Current Position
2023 – Adjunct Professor, ETH Zürich, Department of Materials, Switzerland
2014 – Group leader at Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology,
Laboratory for Functional Polymers, Switzerland
Previous Positions
2009 – 2013 Research Scientist, Functional Polymers Division, Empa, Switzerland
2006 – 2009 PostDoc, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology
Functional Polymers, Empa, Switzerland, Supervisor: Dr. C. Löwe.
2001 – 2004 PhD Candidate (Assistant in Chemistry) Organic Chemistry, Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany
1999 – 2001 PhD Candidate, Faculty of Chemistry, Babes-Bolyai University, Romania
1997 – 2001 Researcher (food flavor field), Natex, Cluj-Napoca (full time 1997 – 1999 and part time 1999 – 2001)
Education
1992 – 1997 Bachelor degree in Chemistry, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
1998 – 1999 Master degree in Chemistry, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Thesis supervisor: Prof. I. Grosu
2001 – 2005 PhD degree in Chemistry
Organic Chemistry, Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany
PhD Supervisors: Prof. A. D. Schlüter (presently at ETH) and Prof. H.-U. Reissig
Awards and Fellowships
2020 ERC Consolidator Grant "Synthesis of novel stimuli responsive dielectric polymers and their use in powerful
transducers", 1’999’715 €.
2019 EuroEAP Society award “For important contributions to the field of new materials for dielectric elastomer
transducers" at the Ninth international conference on Electromechanically Active Polymer (EAP)
transducers & artificial muscles, Dresden, Germany, June 5th 2019.
1992 – 1997 Romanian Government Scholarship for best students, Faculty of Chemistry, Babes-Bolyai University, Romania
2001 - 2004 Fellow of the German Science Foundation (DFG) Sfb 448 “Mesoscopically Structured Hybrid Materials”
Highlights
2023 Front page of Empa Quarterly, Focus: Accelerating research - we shape talents, July 2023.
https://www.empa.ch/documents
2018-2019 “Profile” – the annual report of the Swiss National Science Foundation
http://www.snf.ch/en/theSNSF/profile/profile/Pages/default.aspx
2018-2019 Annual report of the ETH board “Actuators instead of motors”
https://www.ethrat.ch/en/node/4938
2017 Empa news: “A rubber power plant”
2016 Advanced Science News: “An All-Organic Elastomeric Electret Composite”
https://www.advancedsciencenews.com/organic-elastomeric-electret-composite/
Teaching Activities
2018 – present ETH Zürich: Lecturer of the course “Introduction to Macromolecular Chemistry” and the polymer part of the course
“Materials Science I/II” for chemistry and materials science students, respectively
2001 – 2002 Teaching assistant in the lab course “Organic Chemistry” for bachelor students in chemistry,
FU Berlin, Germany
1999 – 2001 Teaching assistant in the lab course “Organic Chemistry” for chemistry students, Babes-Bolyai University,
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Memberships of Scientific
2014 – Member of the Swiss Chemical Society
2015 – Member of the scientific committee, Research Network “EuroEAP society”
2016 – Member of the Empa research commission (FOKO A)
Institutional responsibilities
Since 2016 Member of the Empa research commission (FOKO A)
Representing the Functional Polymers Laboratory at several meetings with industry delegations, including those from Danfos (Danmark), Dow (Switzerland), Evonik (Germany), Wacker (Germany), Abatek, IBM (Switzerland), Swiss Plastics (Switzerland), Panasonic (Japan/Belgium), Jonson Electrics (Switzerland), Sateco (Switzerland), Logitech (Switzerland).
Career Breaks
01.01.2005 – 01.11.2006 Pregnancy and maternity break
10.05.2013 – 01.10.2013 Maternity break