Asa Barber

Asa Barber is a professor of materials engineering at City, University of London and currently the head of the department of engineering. He received his doctoral degree in composite mechanicals from Imperial College London followed by a postdoctoral position exploring small scale mechanical behaviour at the Weizmann Institute of Science under the supervision of Prof. Daniel Wagner.

Prof. Barber’s research interests are in the understanding and manufacture of complex, often composite, structures that typically use fibrous building blocks. This research has led to studies on the physical properties of many nano-materials, including carbon nanotubes, graphene and nano-materials found in biological systems. Electrospun fibres align well with these research interests, being relatively easy to manipulate and fabricate at an intrinsic, material level, as well as extrinsically in terms of organization of the fibres. Significant contributions in the area of electrospun fibres include the mechanical properties of individual electrospun fibres, surface properties of electrospun fibres and the use of fibrous membranes in tissue engineering.