Rate My Professor Michael Lerch

Michael Lerch is a Tenure Track Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Groningen, affiliated with the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry in the Molecular Active Systems group. He earned his BSc and MSc degrees in Interdisciplinary Sciences from ETH Zurich in 2014, including research stays at the University of Cambridge with Prof. Steven V. Ley and at the California Institute of Technology with Prof. Robert H. Grubbs. His Master's thesis focused on regioselectivity in Wacker-type oxidations under the supervision of Profs. Grubbs and Erick M. Carreira. Lerch completed his PhD cum laude at the University of Groningen in 2018 under Prof. Ben L. Feringa, investigating photopharmacology and photoswitching mechanisms of donor-acceptor Stenhouse adducts (DASAs). His doctoral thesis, titled Donor-Acceptor Stenhouse Adducts, earned him the Wierenga-Rengerink Prize for the best PhD thesis at the University of Groningen in 2018 and the Backer-KNCV Prize for the best organic chemistry PhD thesis in the Netherlands that year.

Following his PhD, Lerch conducted postdoctoral research as an NWO Rubicon fellow with Prof. Joanna Aizenberg at Harvard University's John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute, developing bio-inspired elastomers with chemical self-regulation capabilities. In his current role, his research focuses on self-regulated materials, supramolecular chemistry, photoswitches, dynamic chemical systems, reaction networks, liquid crystalline elastomers, hydrogels, and soft robotics. Leading the Lerch Lab, he designs autonomous soft materials that self-regulate, coordinate actions, and communicate chemically, drawing inspiration from biological systems for applications in robotics and functional coatings. Major awards include the NWO VENI Grant in 2020, Comenius Teaching Fellow grant in 2024, ERC Starting Grant of €1.5 million in 2025 for the TactoChem project developing chemical mechanosensors for soft robots, and the Best Practice in Teaching & Learning Award in 2026. Key publications feature Programming liquid crystal elastomers for multistep ambidirectional deformability (Science, 2024), Unusual Swelling Behavior of Hydrogels Modified with Spiropyran as Appendage or Crosslinker (Advanced Functional Materials, 2026), and Structure-aided chemical signal propagation in hydrogel metastructures (Matter, 2026). Lerch is a member of the Dutch (KNCV), Swiss (SCS), and American (ACS) Chemical Societies and reviews for scientific journals and grant proposals.