Nature gives many examples of sophisticated solutions to typical engineering problems. Over the past centuries we, human beings, have developed our own ways of solving these same problems, which play important roles in our modern lifestyle and industrial progress. Manmade solutions are usually more energy consuming and polluting than the examples given by nature. An example of successful nature-inspired surface engineering is given with research related to ice friction and its application in Olympic winter sports.

Anne Kietzig joined McGill in 2010 as an Assistant Professor. She did her undergraduate education at Technical University Berlin, Germany and her PhD at UBC in Vancouver. During her PhD studies she worked in close collaboration with the Own The Podium initiative of the Canadian Olympic Commitee. Her work on ice friction approached from a new biomimetic angle was widely published and built the foundation of her current research laboratoy at McGill, which is focused on surface-water interactions and laser-aided surface patterning.