Juliane Borchert
Short Biography
Dr Juliane Borchert is the head of the junior research group “Optoelectronic Thin Film Materials” at the University of Freiburg as well as the head of the research group “Novel Solar Cell Concepts” at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems. She studied physics in Berlin, Groningen, and Halle (Saale). Her PhD research was conducted at the University of Oxford where she focused on co-evaporated perovskites for solar cells. She continued this research as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge and AMOLF research institute in Amsterdam. Now she leads a team of researchers and technicians who are on a mission to develop the next generation of solar cells combining novel metal-halide perovskite semiconductors and established silicon technology into highly efficient tandem solar cells.
Research Topics
The research of my junior research group focuses on metal halide perovskites and their utilisation in solar cells. They are a promising material group for the development of a next generation of highly efficient, bendable, and affordable solar cells. We develop these materials to make an important contribution to the green, climate neutral energy future. Reliable fabrication of uniform thin-films is crucial to be able to build efficient optoelectronic devices. We study the growth mechanisms during vacuum deposition to be able to understand and control them.
Publications
Céline Calvino
Short Biography
Céline obtained her PhD degree at Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg, Switzerland working on the development of bioinspired and stimuli-responsive polymer materials, with a particular emphasis on mechanochromic materials relying on supramolecular interactions. With a SNFS Mobility Fellowship, Céline moved to the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, at the University of Chicago, where she undertook research on the engineering of sustainable cellulose-based nanocomposite materials. Early 2021, she joined livMatS as a Junior Group Leader and Principal Investigator. Her research focus on the development of photo-responsive systems towards recyclable adaptive materials.
Research Topics
Light-responsive materials, sustainable polymers, bioinspired materials, photo-chemistry
Publications
Isabella Fiorello
Short Biography
Isabella Fiorello is a Junior Group Leader and Principal Investigator of the Bioinspired Plant-hybrid Materials group at the Cluster of Excellence Living, Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems (livMatS) of the University of Freiburg (Germany). She received a Master’s Degree in Industrial Biotechnology (with honors) from the University of Turin (Italy) in 2017 and a PhD in Biorobotics (with honors) from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa, Italy) in 2021. From 2021 to 2023, she worked as Postdoc in the Bioinspired Soft Robotics Laboratory of Italian Institute of Technology (Genoa, Italy). During her scientific career, she received prestigious grants and awards, such as Young Researcher of the Year – ENI Award 2022, Early Career National Geographic Grant and Fulbright Grant. Her research aims at the development of biologically-inspired microfabricated living materials able to precisely interact with complex unstructured surfaces for applications in precision agriculture, smart fabrics, space and soft robotics.
Research Topics
Bioinspired Materials, Biohybrid Materials, Microfabrication, Two-Photon Lithography, Plant Biomechanics, Environmental Conservation, Soft Robotics
Publications
Charalampos (Babis) Pappas
Short Biography
Charalampos (Babis) Pappas received his M.Sc. Degree in 2012 from the University of Ioannina, where he worked on the cis/trans isomerisation of proline on model peptides. In 2016, he received his Ph.D. degree entitled ”Supramolecular Systems Chemistry using Peptides” from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow working in the group of Prof. Rein Ulijn. After a short 6-month postdoctoral stay at the Advanced Science Research Centre (ASRC), at the City University of New York, in 2017 he received a Marie Curie Fellowship and moved to the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands, where he worked with Prof. Sijbren Otto on dynamic folded macromolecules. Babis joined as a group leader the Cluster of Excellence Living, Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems (livMatS) in October 2020, investigating the use of a systems chemistry approach towards the discovery of fully synthetic chemical systems with life-like behavior.
Research Topics
Systems Chemistry, Adaptive and Active Materials, Non-equilibrium assemblies, Macromolecular Chemistry
Publications
Viacheslav Slesarenko
Short Biography
Viacheslav Slesarenko received his PhD degree from the Saint Petersburg State University, where he developed a new approach enabling modification of the microstructure in shape memory alloys. Viacheslav then moved to Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Israel to pursue his scientific interests in emerging areas of 3D printing and mechanical metamaterials. In 2019, he received a Marie Curie Fellowship from Freiburg Research Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) to study reconfigurable mechanical metamaterials. After a one-year stay in FRIAS, Viacheslav joined as a group leader the Cluster of Excellence Living, Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems (livMatS). His research focuses on metamaterials capable of changing their architecture after fabrication to deliver an optimal performance that depends on external conditions.
Research Topics
Mechanical Metamaterials, Acoustic Metamaterials, Soft Composites, Stimuli-responsive materials, Machine Learning
Publications
Severin Vierrath
Short Biography
Severin Vierrath studied Industrial Engineering at RWTH Aachen University. After working in the field of polymer membrane electrolysis and solar hydrogen at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, he pursued a Ph.D at the University of Freiburg studying the microstructure of fuel cell electrodes. Since January 2018 he is leading the Junior Research Group „Electrochemical Energy Systems“, which is dedicated to integrating latest material developments into state-of-the-art electrochemical energy devices.
Research Topics
Polymer-based electrochemical energy devices such as fuel cells, electrolyzers, redox-flow batteries or CO2-reduction, microstructural anaylsis, nanotomographies
Publications
Assistant Professor Edoardo Milana
Short Biography
Edoardo Milana studied mechanical engineering and nanotechnology at Sapienza University of Rome. In 2020 he obtained his Ph.D. in engineering science at KU Leuven, with his research on artificial cilia and soft robotics. In 2019, he was a visiting researcher at the University of Milan, working on electroactive polymers. He then worked as postdoctoral researcher at the DLR – German Aerospace Center and the University of Freiburg. Currently, he is Assistant Professor in Soft Machines at the Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) of the University of Freiburg.
Research Topics
His research focusses on the design and manufacturing of bioinspired soft robotic systems that can intelligently interact with the environment at different scales thanks to their mechanical properties. This Embodied Intelligence is implemented via multifunctional materials and structures with distributed actuation, sensing, control and energy.