Ana Claudia Arias

Arias was born in Londrina, PR, Brazil.[1] She studied physics at the Federal University of Paraná in Brazil, where she earned her master's degree in 1997. Arias moved to the United Kingdom as a graduate student, where she worked in the research group of Richard Friend.[2] Her doctoral research involved investigations into phase-separation within conjugated polymer thin films used in solar cell and OLEDs.[3] Friend and Arias filed several patents on printed electronic devices and materials.[4]

Arias worked as a postdoc in the Optoelectronics group at the University of Cambridge, where she helped with the formation of the spin-off company Plastic Logic.[1][5] At Plastic Logic Arias was responsible for the semiconductor group.[1] Arias left Plastic Logic in 2003, and joined the research team at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).[6] At PARC, Arias was responsible for flexible and printed electronics.[7] She worked on the fabrication of wearable sensors, including devices capable of preventing brain injuries in the battlefield. These devices worked by wirelessly monitoring of pressure and acoustic levels.[8]

In 2011 Arias joined the University of California, Berkeley as a Professor of Flexible and Printed Electronics, where she serves as Faculty Director of the Berkeley Wireless Research Center.[9][10] At Berkeley, she started to develop sensing systems that look track a patient's vital signs, and provide instant feedback to healthcare professionals.[8] As part of these efforts, she created a wearable system for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning of babies. Conventional MRI systems make use of hard, bulky metal radio frequency coils to receive the MRI signals.[8] The coils are heavier than the babies being scanned, which means that babies must be anaesthetised to obtain clear images.[8] In an attempt to mitigate this, Arias created a flexible, lightweight radiofrequency coil that could be embedded within a swaddle blanket.[8] The flexible MRI receivers entered clinical trials in 2016.[8][11]

Arias worked with Cambridge Display Technology to develop lightweight skin-like pulse oximeters.[12] The oximeters make use of carbon-based (organic) semiconductors, which allow for the fabrication of low-cost electronic devices on flexible substrates.[12] The sensor makes use of an array of red and near-infrared OLEDs and photodetectors to detect blood-oxygen levels.[13] Beyond the measurement of blood oxygen, Arias has developed a multi-sensor platform capable of photoplethysmography and biomarker detection from human sweat. These sensing platforms allow insight into the physiological state of the human body.[14] The sweat sensors developed by Arias consist of lactate, sodium and ammonium sensors.[14] Arias has also investigated materials and devices that can harvest and store energy.[15]

• 2017 FlexTech R&D Achievement Award[16]

• Granström, M.; Petritsch, K.; Arias, A. C.; Lux, A.; Andersson, M. R.; Friend, R. H. (1998). "Laminated fabrication of polymeric photovoltaic diodes". Nature. 395 (6699): 257–260. doi:10.1038/26183. ISSN 0028-0836. S2CID 4361418.
• Arias, Ana Claudia; MacKenzie, J. Devin; McCulloch, Iain; Rivnay, Jonathan; Salleo, Alberto (2010-01-13). "Materials and Applications for Large Area Electronics: Solution-Based Approaches". Chemical Reviews. 110 (1): 3–24. doi:10.1021/cr900150b. ISSN 0009-2665. PMID 20070114.
• Khan, Yasser; Ostfeld, Aminy E.; Lochner, Claire M.; Pierre, Adrien; Arias, Ana C. (2016). "Monitoring of Vital Signs with Flexible and Wearable Medical Devices". Advanced Materials. 28 (22): 4373–4395. doi:10.1002/adma.201504366. ISSN 1521-4095. PMID 26867696. S2CID 2119933.