To Melbourne to expand the research network

"I will give lectures there, meet collaborators, and of course, exchange ideas with my colleagues," says Sahar Salehi-Müller. She is the first female researcher from the University of Bayreuth to receive the FEIT Visiting Fellowship for Gender Equality in Melbourne. She was awarded a $ 5,000 fellowship by the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Melbourne. "Improving the representation of women and gender diverse individuals is necessary to achieve our goal of innovation and strengthen our reputation as a world-class research center," reads the explanatory notes to the fellowship.

"Being featured in a program like this helps me personally a lot to make my research visible," says Dr. habil. Salehi-Müller. Together with her host Prof. Dr. Andrea O'Connor, Dr. habil. Salehi-Müller will be working closely on the research topic of "Controlled biomechanics and architecture for stimulated skeletal muscle tissue engineering" during her time in Melbourne. Developing and processing heterogeneous materials with high anisotropy is also the focus of Sahar Salehi-Müller's habilitation research in Bayreuth. She has been already active in this field as one of the principal investigators of the Collaborative Research Centre SFB-TRR 225 "From the basic processes of biofabrication to functional tissue models" which has been running since 2018 between the University of Bayreuth, the Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and the University of Würzburg.

"We are going to follow our shared interests in the field of biofabrication of skeletal muscle tissue and would like to move it toward clinical applications," she explains. As the University of Melbourne has clinical schools and research in partner hospitals, this collaboration is very important for Dr. habil. Sahar Salehi-Müller's research. The Melbourne Biomedical Precinct brings together leading biomedical researchers, educators, hospitals, and industry to address clinical needs. 

Out of this master's program, we also have a joint Master's student, Anna-Lena Bauknecht, a talented master student who already spent 6 months in Melbourne in 2023 and it was a great experience performing a joint project between the two continents. Preparing a joint publication on this collaborative project is also a focus during my time in Melbourne. We hope that this will strengthen our collaboration and create new joint research opportunities," says Ms Salehi-Müller.