Maria Balk - received her Diploma degree in chemistry from the Humboldt-University Berlin and received her Ph.D. in Materials in Life Sciences at the University of Potsdam (Germany) in 2016. She is currently working as postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Active Polymers of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon (Teltow, Germany). She is focusing on the design of shape-memory hydrogels, which are sensitive to a variety of stimuli and actuator materials which provide reversible shape shifts.