Collegium Helveticum
Switzerland
fellow
Moran Bercovici
2024-2025
Home institution
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
Country of origin (home institution)
Israel
Discipline(s)
Biotechnology; Engineering
Theme(s)
Future Studies
Fellowship dates
›
Biography
Moran Bercovici leads a curiosity-driven lab with core expertise in fluid mechanics and electrokinetics. He is equally interested in understanding basic phenomena associated with the physics and chemistry of fluids and in leveraging this understanding to create new tools and capabilities across a wide range of applications. Some of the group’s recent contributions are in the fields of advanced manufacturing, freeform optics, in-space manufacturing, microfluidics, and biochemical analysis.
Moran received his PhD in engineering in 2011 from Stanford University (US) and held a postdoctoral fellow position at Stanford’s School of Medicine (US). He was a Harrington Faculty Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin (US) between 2018 and 2019 and is currently a full professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Technion (IL).
Research Project
LiquiFab: Crafting with Liquids in the Absence of Gravity
This project aims to develop LiquiFab, a new method for crafting 3D objects by manipulating liquid volumes in a weightless environment. Several years ago, Moran Bercovici’s lab introduced the concept of Fluidic Shaping, a technique for fabrication of optical components by shaping liquid volumes. In the absence of gravity, the manipulation of surface tension allows to drive the liquid volume into a desired minimum energy state that corresponds to a specific optical shape of interest. In collaboration with students and colleagues, Moran will seek to expand the concept and explore the ability to use surface tension under weightlessness for the creation of unique 3D structures. Eliminating gravity is crucial for Fluidic Shaping to work, which is achieved on Earth through neutral buoyancy in a liquid tank. However, true weightlessness occurs naturally in orbital space flight, and as part of the project, Moran will also work toward demonstrating this concept aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Research Interests:
fluidic shaping; surface tension; weightlessness; microgravity; 3D fabrication; optical components; materials science; space research; International Space Station; fluid dynamics.