This seminar entitled 'Interfacial interactions: Self-adhesion of PAEK and effect of nanoparticles on mechanical properties of polymeric materials' will give an overview of projects in these areas: welding of polyaryletherketones, the fatigue and friction behavior of nanocomposites and the development of materials with high thermal conductivity based on boron nitride.

France Chabert obtained a PhD degree in Materials and Chemical Engineering in 2004 at the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, France, in the field of polymeric membranes processing for fuel cells. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow successively at the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Melbourne, Australia and at ESPCI Paristech, France. She is now an associate professor at the University of Toulouse, France, and a member of the Interfaces and Functional Materials group at Ecole Nationale d’Ingénieurs de Tarbes (www.enit.fr) since 2010. Her research activities focus on mass transfer and interactions across interfaces in polymeric materials applied to thermoplastics and composites assembling processes, and the elaboration of nano/micro-functional composites. These materials are used in demanding applications, mainly aerospace and power electronics.