Her presentation on foam, whether culinary or polymer-based, was a success. Clara Aimar is currently in her second year of a PhD at 3SR and was recently awarded first prize at the Alps final of MT180 on 9 March this year. The young researcher, who joined Grenoble INP - Phelma after a two-year preparatory course at Toulouse INP to pursue her love for materials, currently works on the polymer foams used to make soles for sports shoes.

It was during an internship at Decathlon, carried out as part of her engineering degree project, that she decided to continue her work through a PhD on the same theme: making polymer foams more resistant to repeated mechanical stress so that shoes protect sports players better and for longer. “Runners’ health is at stake, but also that of the planet,” explains Clara Aimar, who is concerned about reducing waste. “Currently, the best shoes are worn out after 1,000 kilometres of running. This figure should ideally be multiplied by two, and then ten”. To achieve this, the researcher is working on optimising the “recipes” of these foams (nothing to do with haute cuisine), by addressing the ingredients, formation processes, “cooking” temperature etc. She hopes to obtain new textures to improve the mechanical properties of the foams, which then have to be tested before the industrialization stage.