New ICFOnians

One visiting professor, Prof. Efrain Solarte; one postdoctoral researcher, Dr Klaas-Jan Tielrooij; two visiting scientists, Mr. Paolo Dallocchio and Mr. Saeed Ghavami; three PhD students, Mr. Enrique Sanchez, Ms. Claudia Valdés, and Mr. Esteban Bermudez; four students, Ms. Candan Aydin, Mr. Michal Kotowski, Mr. Marcin Kotowski, and Ms. Ariadna Martinez; and a member of the Documentation&Media Unit, Mr. Sergio Simon have joined ICFO.

Prof. Efrain Solarte visits ICFO from the quantum optics group of Universidad del Valle at Cali, Colombia. He joins the medical optics group led by Prof. Turgut Durduran for year-long sabbatical leave. Prof. Solarte will be working laser speckle methods for blood flow imaging and monitoring.

Dr Klaas-Jan Tielrooij obtained an MSc degree in Applied Physics from Delft University (the Netherlands) and another in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship from Chalmers University, Sweden. He then obtained his PhD in Physics at AMOLF, the Netherlands. He joins ICFO as a postdoctoral researcher at the groups led by Prof. Niek Van Hulst and Prof. Frank Koppens to work on quantum plasmonics and ultrafast control of confined optical fields.

Mr. Paolo Dallocchio is a visitng PhD student from the University of Pavia, Italy. He is visiting ICFO as part of a collaborative FP7 European project, MIRSURG, focused on the development of high-energy mid-infrared OPOs for applications in medical surgery. He joins the group led by Prof. Majid Ebrahim-Zadeh.

Mr. Saeed Ghavami is a visiting PhD student from the University of Isfahan, Iran. He joins the OPO group led by Prof. Majid Ebrahim-Zadeh to work in the development of continuous-wave near- to mid-infrared OPOs for applications in high-resolution spectroscopy, trace gas sensing, and environmental pollution monitoring.

Mr. Enrique Sanchez graduated in Physics from Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He joins ICFO as a PhD student in the OPOs group led by Prof. Majid Ebrahim Zadeh. His research will focus on the development of ultrafast femtosecond and picosecond OPOs for the visible to mid-infrared and THz spectral range for applications time-domain spectroscopy, optical microscopy, biophotonics, and imaging.

Ms. Claudia Valdés obtained her MSc in Physics from Universidad del Valle, Colombia. She is an Erasmus PhD student in a joint project with Dr Anabela da Silva from the Fresnel Institute at Marseille (France) and the medical optics group at ICFO led by Prof. Turgut Durduran. She will be working on advanced tomographic methods for small tissue imaging in rodents.

Mr. Esteban Bermudez graduated in Physics from the University of Costa Rica and obtained a master in Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies from the universities of Chalmers (Sweden) and Delft (The Netherlands). Esteban joins ICFO at the plasmon nano-optics group led by Prof. Romain Quidant to start a PhD on plasmon nano-optics applied to quantum optics.

Ms. Candan Aydin is a student in Physics at the Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey. She joins ICFO as a student in the medical optics group led by Prof. Turgut Durduran. She will be working on time resolved spectroscopy of human brain and the development of tissue simulating phantoms.

Mr. Michal Kotowski is a MSc student in Physics at Warsaw University. He will spend a month at ICFO working on problems of quantum information theory in the quantum optics group led by Prof. Maciej Lewenstein.

Mr. Marcin Kotowski is a MSc student in Physics at Warsaw University. He will spend a month at ICFO working on problems of quantum information theory in the quantum optics group led by Prof. Maciej Lewenstein.

Ms. Ariadna Martinez is a MSc student at the Institut d'Optique Graduate School in Palaiseau, France. She joins ICFO as a student at the group led by Prof. Romain Quidant for an internship within the frame of the master in optics and photonics at the Institut d'Optique in Paris. She will be working on the design of advanced plasmon nano-optical sensors with enhanced sensitivity.

Mr. Sergio Simon graduated in industrial and graphic design from Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain, and obtained a master in design and communication from ELISAVA school at Barcelona. Sergio will join us at the Documentation & Multimedia Unit as a graphic & multimedia designer.