Dr. Joost Brancart obtained his PhD in 2017 on the topic of stimuli-responsive materials for self-healing applications at the Physical Chemistry and Polymer Science (FYSC) research group of the Materials and Chemistry (MACH) department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). He received the Solvay Award for both his master and PhD thesis work. Since 2017, he is a postdoctoral researcher with a junior postdoc grant from FWO, positioned at FYSC and closely collaborating with the Robotics & Multibody Mechanics (R&MM) research group of VUB. This close collaboration led to 2 EU-funded projects being granted: FET Open RIA project SHERO and MSCA ITN SMART, on the development of smart materials for soft robotic applications with embedded intelligence. He is co-coordinating these projects together with prof. Bram Vanderborght. In relation to his postdoctoral grant and these EU projects, he did a scientific stay at Empa in Switzerland, to expand his knowledge of electrically conductive and magnetic polymer composites and their use in sensing and actuation and has planned a scientific stay at PCCL in Austria, to learn more about light-assisted processing and light-stimulated material responsiveness. He is leading the "Self-Healing Materials" subgroup at FYSC, focused on dynamic covalent polymer networks, with close collaborations and affiliations in other research groups at VUB and other universities. He specializes in the development and study of stimuli-responsive polymer networks for various applications.