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ABOUT THE ROLE

Many insects feed on plants. A key part of this interaction is mechanical: insects use sharp mouthparts to fracture plant tissue. Much like human teeth and blades, insect mouthparts wear as a result of this interaction, with presumably major knock-on consequences. How can plants maximise mouthpart wear, and how do insects seek to minimise it?
To understand more about the biomechanics of mandible wear, you will conduct nanowear characterisation of mandible cutting edges, using a state-of-the-art nanoindenter. You will also test the hypothesis that some insect mandibles may work as vibratome, ie that they impose a small-amplitude vibration during cutting to reduce effort or or potentially wear. To test this hypothesis, you will build a novel device around a piezo-element, to then implement a mandible wear assay.
The Research Associate position is funded through an ERC Starting Grant which aims to unravel the biomechanical determinants of insect herbivore performance and behaviour. You will join the ERC team comprised of Dr David Labonte (PI), and PhD students from different disciplines, working on different aspects of this project at the Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London. David’s multi-disciplinary group addresses biological questions with a quantitative mechanics framework, including how climbing animals can rapidly control the stickiness of the adhesive organs on their feet, how biological ceramics combine strength and toughness, and the biomechanical determinants of plant feeding in insects. More details can be found on the group’s website at evo-biomech.ic.ac.uk.

WHAT YOU WOULD BE DOING

In this role, you will:

• use a state-of-the-art nanoindenter to characterise the material properties and wear resistance of insect mandibles in different conditions;
• implement a novel method to characterise mandible wear for vibrating vs non-vibrating mandibles.

You will also have the opportunity to supervise MEng/MSc students. Where desired, experiences in other teaching roles, including lecturing, will be enabled as part of the broad range of career development opportunities that Imperial makes available to its postdoctoral research staff. There are several opportunities to visit laboratories across the world for collaborative work.