Researcher Summary
Volker Nock is an Associate Professor and Rutherford Discovery Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
He received the Dipl.-Ing. degree in Microsystem Technology from the Institute for Microsystem Technology (IMTEK) at the Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg, Germany, in 2005. He wrote his diploma thesis on single-use valves and pumps for transdermal drug delivery at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2005 he moved to New Zealand and received a Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, in 2009. His dissertation focused on the control and measurement of dissolved oxygen in microfluidic bioreactors. From 2009 to his appointment as a lecturer in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2012, he was a MacDiarmid Institute and Marsden Research Fellow.
He is a Principal Investigator with the Biomolecular Interactions Centre and the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, and theme leader for UC Biosecurity Innovations. From 2017 to 2020, he co-directed of the Biomolecular Interaction Centre. In 2019 he was awarded a 5-year Rutherford Discovery Fellowship to work on the "Electrotaxis and protrusive force generation in fungal and oomycete pathogens – Pathways to new biocontrol strategies".
His research interests include micro- and nanofabrication, surface patterning and the application of microfluidics to Lab-on-a-Chip devices. Major research projects he is currently involved in investigate the use of microfluidics to improve the Bioimprint cellular replication and imaging process, measure force patterns in cells and microorganisms using elastomeric micropillars.
