Katharina Fransen

Katharina received a Bachelor's in Chemical Engineering (BChE) from the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities in 2020. She received a PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT in 2025, where her thesis focused on developing high-throughput experimentation towards understanding structure-property relationships in biodegradable polymers. As a post-doc in the Hayward group, Katharina is working on developing shape-programmable materials and exploring their behavior on both the micro and macro scale. Outside of work, Katharina enjoys reading, baking, hiking and exploring the outdoors, and traveling.