#WOMENINWOODSCIENCE AND STUDENT PROFILE: BALKIS BAKAR, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY, USA

Happy International Women’s Day! Today, we want you to meet: Balkis Bakar, a Ph.D. candidate in Wood Science, College of Forestry at Oregon State University, USA. She obtained her master’s degree in Bio-composite Technology from Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia where she studied oil palm stem – a potential agricultural waste in Malaysia. From bachelor to Ph.D. study, her research has used agricultural residues where she studied on the fundamental properties and technical feasibility of the materials to be used in composite applications.

Her Ph.D. research mainly focuses on the characterization of grape cane fibers, a by-product from vineyards. Oregon is one of the main growers for the winery industry in the USA. For the first part of her study, she investigated the basic properties of the cane since there is a limited database of this material. This includes fiber morphology, chemical composition, crystallinity, tensile properties, etc. She also integrated digital image correlation (DIC) method in the tensile test for better displacement measurement. The second part is to fabricate composites using different types of polymers to determine which one will produce a better composite.

At the end of this study, she hopes to contribute to broadening the knowledge of this fiber and its potential applications. Also, she hopes the results may provide awareness to the grape growers and researchers to study other possible uses for this fiber.