Mert O. Astam is a materials scientist and engineering with an MEng from Imperial College London. He is interested in turning liquid crystal materials into electrically driven devices, seeking to extract the benefits to society of this technology. He has recently shown the intelligence of soft robots in his latest paper “Self-regulating electrical rhythms with liquid crystal oligomer networks in hybrid circuitry”. His project is a part of the STORM-BOTs initiative and he is collaborating with colleagues in Spain, Finland, Italy, Germany and the UK. A fun fact about Mert is that he used to work at a chocolate factory!