Canan Dagdeviren studied physics engineering at the Hacettepe University in Ankara, graduating in 2007. She obtained a Master of Science degree from Sabancı University in Istanbul, and won a Fulbright scholarship for study in the United States. With this scholarship, she chose to conduct research in materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, where she focused on exploring patterning techniques and creating piezoelectric biomedical systems. Here, one of the projects that she developed was a conformable, piezoelectric, energy harvester that converts mechanical energy from internal organ movements into electric energy to power medical devices. It is soft and flexible and conforms to the heart as well as other soft tissues. This technology could extend the battery life of implanted electronics or eliminate the need for battery replacement, sparing patients from repeated operations and the risk of surgical complications. In August 2014, she received her PhD degree. Her advisor was John A. Rogers, and the title of her PhD thesis was Ferroelectric/Piezoelectric Materials Flexible/Stretchable/Wearable/Implantable Sensors, Actuators, Mechanical Energy Harvesters, Transducers, Microfabrication.
