Sacha Cavelier

Background

About Sacha Cavelier

My french academic program at the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Etienne not only delivered me the title of biomedical engineer, but it also led me to do two research internships in the Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Bioinspiration at McGill University, Canada. Seduced by the projects I have been working on, I decided to come back as a research assistant after my studies in France, and I then seized the opportunity to do a master and a PhD in mechanical engineering. During my master, I investigated the adhesive properties of a protein (osteopontin) that plays an important role on the mechanical properties of bone, and I developed a novel bone graft made of calcium sulfate and polymeric interfaces of collagen. These works have been concluded by two peer-reviewed publications, a conference in the United States, and a patent. During my PhD, I managed a multidisciplinary project on the optimization, fabrication and mechanical testing of a new structural bone graft inspired from the architecture of natural bone. This advanced composite biomaterial exhibited a mechanical behavior never reported before in the literature. The management of this project led me to explore many scientific fields: from mechanical engineering to statistics, from biology to orthopaedics, from numerical modeling to project management. I therefore consider myself as a mechanical engineer with a strong specialty in bone fracture mechanics, and bone tissue engineering.