A SCULPTURE CLASS GAVE BUSE AKTAŞ what her first year engineering education could not: early access to saws, drills, materials, and the freedom to build. She started in engineering because it seemed practical, a path toward the “real job” she thought she needed. But soon after starting her undergraduate studies, she realized there were a number of introductory math and physics classes she had to take before reaching the mechanical engineering courses she desired. “I was impatient,” Aktaş said. “I wanted access to a workshop as quickly as possible so I could start building things. And then I saw an intro to sculpture class.” The visual arts department, where she later completed a minor, became her creative sanctuary: a place she could touch materials, test ideas, and work physically. It opened new doors and made her realize she wanted art to be a part of her career. “We had exceptional faculty members who showed me how art often incorporates research methods in its processes,” she said. “In fact, my artistic research after college brought me back to engineering. Now my main home is in engineering sciences, and my team is mostly engineers. But I continue to employ artistic methods and work with artists.”
Material Instincts and Artsy Experiments
Aktaş leads the Robotic Composites and Compositions Group at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany, where her team works on materials, robot structures, and mechanisms that can adapt without giving up strength or precision.
“A lot of our work is about designing materials or mechanisms that can be both adaptable and high-performing, since those qualities are usually at odds,” she said.
Different material systems lend themselves to different uses, she explained. For example, magnetically actuated systems can be controlled remotely and wirelessly, which makes them promising for biomedical microrobotics and small, hard-to-reach environments such as inside the body, in cell cultures, or in pipes.
In some of her prior research, she focused on systems designed to switch between softness and rigidity depending on the task. The adaptability could be utilized when a machine needed to be gentle in handling delicate objects, but more rigid and precise when performing controlled movements.
“Previously, we primarily explored robotic applications,” she said. “Now we’re trying to translate some of that adaptability to applications such as architecture and civil engineering.” In this context, adaptability would be more about a structure’s life cycle: whether it can be reconfigured, reused, or even biodegradable, and how such adaptable materials might support circular design.
Aktaş enjoys making random discoveries at weekend flea markets, especially finding strange old tools whose original purpose is no longer obvious. Living in Germany, she appreciates being in a culture where people can take off work or leave early without the need to overjustify themselves, she said. It was a happy culture shock after her many years in the U.S.
“You can do a little bit more subversive things in academia. You have more freedom. If we find an interesting research direction, we can pursue it. Even when it doesn’t fit a specific goal yet, it might fit a goal in the future.”
—Buse Aktaş, Research Group Leader, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
Photo: Silvia Steinbach
And the artistic side of her research is still very much present. In one instance, she took the materials that could stiffen and soften and turned them into an art installation. She worked with collaborators, including a faculty expert in the psychology of haptics to study how people react when the object they are touching changes its properties.
In the end, the main scientific contribution ended up being in psychology. That, to her, shows the value of interdisciplinarity. It can make research gaps visible that would not appear if everyone stayed inside their own field.
“I think we need more of those open-ended cross-disciplinary cooperations. For example, I’m working on setting up a longer term collaboration with a local arts residency program,” she said. “Through cultivating these types of exchanges, we can create the possibility for such things to occur.”
The Space Between
Aktaş tries to create that kind of thinking within her own team. Her group is international and technically strong, but she has noticed that making creative connections is something engineers do not always get enough practice doing. So every week, her team does a small associative-thinking exercise, making connections between seemingly unrelated things.
“It’s both good team building and helps develop these muscles to make connections that we wouldn’t normally make,” she said.
So many technical innovations can stay trapped in narrow niches, even when they could help elsewhere, she said. A three-year stint in industry clarified that for her. It was instructive for understanding an entire product pipeline, but it also confirmed that she was less interested in working toward product-oriented goals (or ‘getting riled up in capitalism,’ for that matter) than in following open-ended questions wherever they led.
“You can do a little bit more subversive things in academia," she said. “You have more freedom. If we find an interesting research direction, we can pursue it. Even when it doesn’t fit a specific goal yet, it might fit a goal in the future.”
Her own work keeps resisting one niche, and not being able to pinpoint where she is seems to be the point. A mentor who also works between disciplines advised her early on to get comfortable with that feeling, because it’s not going away.
“My mentor said, ‘Buse, I'm in my sixties and I still don’t know where I belong. You will never find out, especially if you’re in this fluid space,’” Aktaş said. “If you’re curious about things that are not within your discipline, I think this is a given.”
Sarah Alburakeh is strategic content editor.
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