Marina Pilz da Cunha, born and raised in Brazil, moved to the Netherlands as a teenager. After high school, she completed a bachelor's and a master's degree in Chemical Engineering, both at TU/e. And she also did her PhD - which she completed cum laude - here in Eindhoven.

According to her, it was clear from a young age that she would go into science. 'It was my answer to address the curiosity I had about the world around me. However, mere explanations were not enough to satisfy my curiosity. From an early age, I wanted to create and mimic what I saw in nature, turning ideas into inventions that could benefit society,' she wrote in her motivation letter.

Marina van Damme grant 

The Marina van Damme grant is awarded each year to a female alumnus of the 4.TU (TU/e, TU Delft, University of Wageningen and University of Twente). The award - financially made possible by Dr. Ir. Marina van Damme - is intended to give female engineers a hand to further develop themselves and increase their chances on the labor market.

Real-time expiration monitoring

And that's exactly what Pilz da Cunha is planning to do now: turning one of her ideas into reality. With her start-up Useeble, she plans to develop smart product labels that use a color-changing ink technique to make monitoring shelf life easier. 'Imagine a label that dynamically displays the real-time quality of a product, providing instant visual feedback on its condition’, she wrote in her plan. ‘The smart labels not only prevent unnecessary product wastage by indicating real-time shelf-life but also safeguards consumers from using goods that are no longer fit for consumption.'

Pilz da Cunha's labels can be used enormously widely, but its primary intended application is currently the pharmaceutical sector. 'With up to 50% of vaccines wasted globally each year due to uncertainty about storage conditions, our smart labels ofer a simple yet efective quality assurance system.'

Unanimous

The jury was unanimous in its decision to declare Pilz da Cunha the winner of this year's grant. 'The jury really appreciates the intrinsic motivation of Marina and the structured way she has been developing herself. Her last step and career change shows that she is motivated to create something meaningful for the world and is willing to take risk at this stage of her life,' they wrote. 

The results were announced yesterday during the Women in Science event. Unfortunately, Pilz da Cunha was unable to attend due to work commitments abroad. However, she did send a video commenting on the good news: “From Marina to Marina, thank you very much for this opportunity!”.