Tadej Emeršič was born and raised in Ptuj, Slovenia. He obtained his BS and MS degree in physics and theoretical biophysics with honors from the University of Maribor, Slovenia. At the same place, he pursued a PhD degree in physics, where he moved from theory to experiments and studied the dynamics of liquid crystals in the microfluidic environment under the supervision of Professor UrosTkalec. At the same time, he was a young researcher at the Medical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Tadej earned his PhD degree in September 2019 and in January 2020 he joined Professor Juan de Pablo’s group as a postdoctoral researcher working on experiments with liquid crystals. In his spare time, Tadej enjoys playing piano, accordion, guitar, dancing salsa, bachata, kizomba, biking, swimming, spending time in nature, and reading books about personal growth and leadership.
Tadej’s main research is focused on the experimental study of liquid crystalline systems. He is currently exploring how a combination of different external fields, like electric, acoustic, and pressure field, affect the structure and optical response of different types of liquid crystals confined in a microfluidic environment and what kind of new liquid crystalline phases may arise. The research is particularly focused on the simple nematic systems, chiral, blue phases as well as lyotropic liquid crystals. In addition, he is also designing experimental techniques to study directed self-assembly of polymerizable blue phase liquid crystals to achieve the uniform crystal plane orientation of blue phases on a substrate and obtain their improved electro-optical performance. Such organized three-dimensional nanostructures may have a huge potential for intelligent photonic devices, soft robotics, display applications, and beyond.