NEW ICFONIANS

Two visiting scientists, Dr. Fernando Sols & Mangaka Matoetoe, three postdocs, Dr. Mariona Moreno, Dr. Natalia Bruno, Dr. Nengjie Huo, two research engineers, Dr. Teresa Galan , & Tomeu Coll, six Ph.D. students, Jacob Swain, Marcos Lopez Garcia, Edyta Osika, Jorge Vergara, Pablo Gomez & Catalina Martinez, three visiting Ph.D. students, Malgorzata Mochol-Grzelak, Lijun Meng & Niccolo Parenti, two visiting students, Guillermo Arregui & Elisa Baeumer and two Professors, Alessandro Maccarrone & Marta Segura, joined ICFO the month of October.

Fernando Sols, Condensed Matter Physics Professor from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), joins ICFO as a visiting scientist to work with the Quantum Optics theory research group led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Maciej Lewenstein and the Nanophotonics Theory research group led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Javier García de Abajo on projects related to Quantum Theory.

Mangaka Matoetoe, who holds a Ph.D in Chemistry from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, joins ICFO as a visiting scientist to work with the Plasmon Nano-optics research group led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Romain Quidant. She is centering her research on metal organic framework nanobiosensor for determination of pharmaceuticals and personal care products.

Mariona Moreno, obtained her Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the Facultat de Física of the University of Barcelona and has started her postdoctoral research at ICFO to work with the Theoretical Quantum Nano-Photonics research group led by Prof. at ICFO Darrick Chang on many-body physics with cold atoms coupled to photonic crystals.

Natalia Bruno, who holds a Ph.D. degree in Physics from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, joins ICFO as a postdoc to work in the Quantum information with cold atoms and non-classical light research group led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Morgan Mitchell. At ICFO, she will be studying the interaction of atom-resonant quantum states of light with atoms.

Nengjie Huo obtained his Ph.D degree in Condensed Matter Physics from the Institute of Semiconductors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. He has joined ICFO as a postdoctoral fellow to work with the Functional Optoelectronic Nanomaterials research group led by Prof. at ICFO Gerasimos Konstantatos to carry out research in hybrid 2D - quantum dot photodetectors and optoelectronics.

Teresa Galan, who holds a Ph.D. degree in Nanoscience from the University of Barcelona, joins the Nano-optoelectronics research group led by Prof. at ICFO Frank Koppens as a research engineer to carry out research in graphene and QD photodetectors

Tomeu Coll received a master degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University Barcelona. He now joins ICFO as a research engineer to work with the Optoelectronics research group led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Valerio Pruneri to do benchmarking of Sixsenso readers.

Jacob Swain, who received his degree from the St John’s College, University of Oxford, will begin his PhD studies with the Nanophotonics Theory research group led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Javier García de Abajo and carry out research in Quantum optics with electron microscopes.

Marcos Lopez Garcia receive his Master in Advanced Physics from the University of Valencia. He came to ICFO as a summer fellow in 2014 to work in the Quantum Information Theory group led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Antonio Acín, and now he returns as a doctoral student to work with the Theoretical Quantum Nano-Photonics research group led by Prof. at ICFO Darrick Chang to investigate the optomechanical interactions that the motion of atoms can have with optical fields in nanophotonic systems.

Edyta Osika, holds a degree from the AGH University of Science and Technology in Cracow, Poland. She now joins the Quantum Optics theory research group led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Maciej Lewenstein to carry out her Ph.D. studies, working on the models of open systens applied to quantum information processing systems in solid state and with cold atoms.

Jorge Vergara, who received his MSc in Molecular Biology from the Faculty of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences of the University of Florence, has come to ICFO as a PhD student to carry out his doctoral studies in the Quantum NanoMechanics research group led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Adrian Bachtold and work on graphene vibrations coupled to a superconducting cavity.

Pablo Gomez<, who holds a degree in Aerospace Engineering from Technical University of Madrid joins the Advanced Fluorescence Imaging and Biophysics research group led by Prof. at ICFO Melike Lakadamyali to carry out his studies in multifocus Super-resolution microscopy.

Catalina Martinez, who obtained a MSc in Biomedical Research from the University Pompeu Fabra of Barcelona, got to know ICFO this past summer as a summer fellow working in the Single Molecule Biophotonics research group led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO María García Parajo. She now returns to the same research group to carry out her Ph.D. studies in understanding the Role of DC-SIGN and Siglec-1 receptor organization on HIV-1 capture along dendritic cell maturation.

Malgorzata Mochol-Grzelak, who holds a degree from the Uniwersytet Jagiellonski W. Krakowie, Poland, joins ICFO as a visiting student to work in the Quantum Optics Theory research group led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Maciej Lewenstein to carry out research on theoretical models of ultracold atoms and artificial gauge fields.

Lijun Meng, received his B.S. in Physics from Zhejiang University in China where his is also carrying out his PhD. He has been awarded a 2-years fellowship by the China Scholarship Council and therefore is currently visiting ICFO to work with the Nanophotonics Theory research group led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Javier García de Abajo on topics in Graphene Nanophotonics.

Niccolo Parenti, holds a MSc degree in Molecular Biology from the Faculty of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences of the University of Florence. He joins ICFO as a visiting student to work in the Advanced Fluorescence Imaging and Biophysics research group led by Prof. at ICFO Melike Lakadamyali to acquire training in Super-resolution microscopy.

Guillermo Arregui received his in Civil Engineering from the Technical University of Catalonia and is pursuing a MSc in Road, Canals and Ports Engineering. He is visiting ICFO as a student to work in the Organic Nanostructured Photovoltaics research group led by UPC Prof. at ICFO Jordi Martorell on fabrication of light emitting diode solar cells.

Elisa Baeumer, holds a MSc. In Physics from the ETH Zurich. She is visiting ICFO to work with the Quantum Information Theory group led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Antonio Acín and her main goal while at ICFO is to understand how thermodynamic effects can be translated to a microscopic scale where quantum effects become important.

Alessandro Maccarrone and Marta Segura join ICFO as members of the Educators Advisory Team assessing the Knowledge and Technology Transfer unit in matters concerning educational activities and programs.