Dr. Lauren Niu awarded Mario Markus Prize 2025 for innovative work on geometry of knit fabrics
Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker,
October 13, 2025
Dr. Lauren Niu is awarded with the Mario Markus Prize 2025 for her innovative insights into the geometry of knit fabrics. She discovered that even simple stitches, such as knit and purl, lead to complex geometric patterns. Instead of modeling the material at the level of individual stitches, she created swatches, large-scale models, and hand-knitted fabrics. She observed that the swatches tend to roll up to generate Gaussian curvature. She proposed that knit fabrics could be modeled as thin elastic sheets that maintain their area while forming saddle points, with orientations varying between knit and purl.
Her playful approach to research reflects the criteria for which the Mario Markus Prize is awarded.
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