From industry
Dr Anne Shim
Chief data officer at Focal Biosciences, Chicago, US
Dr. Anne Shim Ullmer is the Chief Data Officer of Focal Biosciences. Her work at Focal focuses on the application of AI and Machine Learning pipelines to identify biomarkers within cellular images that identify reprogramming events. Focal Biosciences is an early-stage start-up that was founded as a spin-off company from the Mechano-Genomics Lab of Prof. G.V. Shivashankar at PSI. Because Focal is an early-stage startup, Dr. Shim Ullmer is not only involved in the day-to-day research of the company, but also in the fundraising, pitching, and business development of Focal. Prior to working with Focal, Dr. Shim Ullmer was a postdoc in the Mechano-Genomics Lab from 2021-2023. There, she performed imaging-based assays and developed machine learning pipelines to evaluate cancer therapy efficacy. Dr. Shim Ullmer received a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University. Her doctoral training focused on chromatin biophysics and involved the development of cell-based assays and computational models to interrogate the structure-function relationship of chromatin.
Dr Nikunj Dudani
CEO and co-founder, AeroSpec, Lausanne, CH
Dr. Nikunj Dudani obtained his Bachelor degrees in Chemical engineering and Mechanical engineering from BITS Pilani, India in 2014. For 3 years since, he worked at different fields to familiarize himself with their structures - a research group for a year in the Max Plank for Biophysical Chemistry, Germany; a fine chemical manufacturing firm in Hyderabad, India; and a lubricant manufacturing in Kolkata, India where he also worked in branding and marketing. His interest in applied research brought him to EPFL for his PhD - where he soon planned to have a startup from his research work. After graduating in 2021, he has worked towards building and now establishing Aerospec SA, an enterprise that sells instruments for analysing chemical composition of PM.
Dr Heidi Potts
Lead application scientist, Zürich Instruments, Zurich, CH
Heidi Potts is an application scientist at Zurich Instruments. She studied Nanoscience at the University of Basel with a Master thesis project at the University of Toronto and obtained her PhD from EPFL in 2017 with a focus on semiconducting nanostructures. Heidi continued her research as a Postdoc with an SNSF Early PostDoc.Mobility Fellowship at Lund University investigating spin states in quantum dots. In 2021, she moved back to Switzerland and joined Zurich Instruments where she is now leading the team of application scientists for test & measurement in EMEA.
From academia
Dr Ricardo J. Fernandez-Teran, SNF Ambizione and Group Leader
University of Geneva, Geneva, CH
Ricardo was born in Venezuela in 1993. He started his studies at the Simón Bolivar University in Caracas (Venezuela) in 2010, and in 2014 moved to Uppsala University (Sweden), where he received his B.Sc. in Chemistry (2015) under the supervision of Dr. Anders Thapper and Prof. Sascha Ott. He continued his master studies there, where he specialized in ultrafast spectroscopy to study excited-state proton transfer and energy transfer processes, supervised by Dr. Burkhard Zietz and Prof. Leif Hammarström, and receiving his M.Sc. diploma in 2016. He also received the Swedish Chemical Society Award for the Best Master Thesis on the same year.
He then moved on to the University of Zurich (Switzerland), where he pursued doctoral studies under the supervision of Prof. Peter Hamm. There, he specialized in ultrafast time-resolved vibrational spectroscopy in one (TRIR) and two dimensions (2D-IR), and other ultrafast spectroscopic methods. After completing his Ph.D. in 2021, he moved to the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) as a Swiss National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow in the group of Prof. Julia A. Weinstein. There, he studied the mechanisms for vibrational/IR control of electron transfer in Pt and Ir complexes, developed 2D-IR spectroelectrochemistry and applied it to the study of one- and two-electron redox species of transition metal complexes, and further developed his research interests in the design, synthesis and study of organometallic complexes.
In February 2023, he joined the group of Prof. Eric Vauthey (University of Geneva, CH) as a postdoctoral fellow. The same year, he was awarded an SNSF Ambizione grant to begin his independent research, hosted by the Vauthey group.
He is specialized in ultrafast spectroscopic methods and their application to coordination complexes, and is interested in novel techniques and strategies such as IR control, and the study of proton-coupled electron transfer reactions using multidimensional spectroscopies. He is passionate about both synthesis and spectroscopy, and is particularly interested in transition metal hydride complexes as key models for the study of proton-coupled electron transfer reactions. He has co-authored over 22 publications and a book chapter in various areas of multidimensional spectroscopy, photochemistry, inorganic (photo)chemistry, and chemical education.
Dr Laura Clark
University of York, GB
Dr Laura Clark is a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the School of Physics, Engineering and Technology at the University of York, UK, having previously held a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship (2020-2022) at the University of Leeds, UK. Her research focuses on technique development to improve the imaging capabilities of electron microscopes, including wavefront shaping, phase-contrast methods and 4D-STEM.
She completed her PhD in 2016 in the Electron Microscopy group at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, before taking up a postdoc position at Monash University, Australia. She then returned to the UK via a couple of short-term positions (including working with the Nellist and Kirkland groups at Oxford Materials), until taking up her fellowships. She is the current vice-chair of the Institute of Physics Electron Microscopy and Analysis Group (IOP-EMAG).
Dr Camilla Coletti
Center for Nanotechnology Innovation, Pisa, IT
Camilla Coletti is a tenured Senior Scientist of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) and principal investigator of the research line 2D Materials Engineering. She is the coordinator of the Center for Nanotechnology Innovation (CNI@NEST) of Pisa and of the Graphene Labs. She is in IIT since 2011 after being an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research of Stuttgart (Germany). She received her PhD degree from the University of South Florida in 2007 and her MS degree from the University of Perugia in 2004 (with honors, both in Electrical Engineering). She is expert in the synthesis of highly-crystalline 2D materials via chemical vapour deposition (CVD) and in the investigation of their electronic, chemical and structural properties. Her research is focused on: (i) synthesis and integration of scalable 2D materials for photonics, electronics and quantum technology; (ii) engineering the interface and properties of 2D heterostructures. In her work she applies her background of surface scientist to impact science and technology of 2D materials. She has received funding for over 7 M€ from competitive grants and industrial contracts. Since 2020 she is Faculty Board Member for the PhD in Nanoscience at the Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS) of Pisa and throughout the years she has been a university lecturer for several courses at the Master’s and PhD level (University of Pisa, University of Genova, SNS). Overall, she is author of more than 180 peer-reviewed publications, edited 1 book, contributed to several book chapters, filed several international patents (holds 5) and delivered more than 70 invited talks at international conferences.
