LUCA School of Arts + Ghent University

Projects 2023

Wavecheck

Lotte Beernaert, Heidrun Claeys, Lin Liu, Lisa Hermans, Joris Van Hese, Ben Van Son, Stéphanie Plas

The team proposes creating a biosensor to be worn by surfers as a means to measure the size and toxicity of algal blooms in the ocean. Worn as a sleeve, the sensor uses bacteria, bioplastics, and hydrogels.

Fabienne Beernaert is co-coordinator of the Design for Impact programme and the source of energy of the Design for Impact team: her enthusiasm is absolutely contagious, she brings people together, she is never out of ideas. As a teacher and researcher at LUCA School of Arts, she has really found her niche. She guides students in a personal way in an attitude of lifelong and collaborative learning. This is how she contributes to innovation in this rapidly changing society. Her basic attitude is one of equality, a genuine belief in the student's potential. Impact, purpose, creative activism, design thinking, research, soft skills. This melting pot of content areas fascinates her. She fully believes in the cross-fertilisation of disciplines, in empowering the student, in co-creation, in the cross-over between education, the professional field and research. That cross-over is also the bath in which she teaches the ins and outs of design research and design thinking. Fabienne has a background in economics and theatre science and then worked for several years in a business context followed by jobs in performing arts.

Ingwio D'Hespeel is co-coordinator of the Design for Impact programme and will help guide the Impact Design Student Teams. Although Wio's teaching in recent years has mainly focused on ui/ux, design thinking and idea generation, he does not see himself as an expert in a specific design branch. “My specialisation is not specialising,” you can often hear him say. “My favourite spot is at the crossroads where different disciplines meet.” Wio has a background as an engineer-architect, was a long time teacher in an IT-programme, is fascinated by physics, likes to immerse himself in intangible heritage, looks back on a modest - ahem - 'quarter century musical career', is preparing a research project on 'creativity in lucid dreams', has an unquenchable passion for educational innovation, etc... So, plenty of intersections!

Matthijs De Block (LUCA School of Arts) explores the intersections of science, art and technology. His focus is on the mediation between fundamental scientific research and a general audience.

Marjan De Mey obtained a PhD in Bioscience Engineering at Ghent University. She was visiting researcher at TU Delft (The Netherlands) and MIT (USA) and since 2011 she holds a position as professor in Metabolic Engineering at the faculty Bioscience Engineering of Ghent University where she leads the Metabolic Engineering group at the Centre for Synthetic Biology.