Two School of Engineering Professors win SNSF Eccellenza Grants
© 2018 EPFL - Maartje Bastings and Romain Fleury won each an SNSF Eccellenza Grant
Maartje Bastings, an assistant professor with the Programmable Biomaterials Laboratory and Romain Fleury, an assistant professor with the Laboratory of Wave Engineering, have been awarded an Eccellenza Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation.
The Swiss National Foundation’s Eccellenza Professorial Fellowships and SNSF Eccellenza Grants are given each year to “highly qualified young researchers who aspire to a permanent professorship.” The goal is to support these scientists in leading generously funded research projects with their own team at a Swiss higher education institution.
The Eccellenza Grantsaim at “researchers in all disciplines who have recently been appointed as tenure-track assistant professors at a Swiss higher education institution. ”The Grants offer project funds up to 1,500,000 Swiss francs over five years.
The Eccellenza Professorial Fellowshipsare aimed “at outstanding researchers in all disciplines who have a doctorate or equivalent qualification and are pursuing an academic career, but who have not yet obtained an assistant professorship.” Along with salaries, the Fellowhsips fund projects up to 1,000,000 Swiss francs over five years.
Maartje Bastings (School of Engineering). Project: Quantifying complex multivalency through precision engineering
“We aim to develop super-specific materials using DNA as precision polymer. By controlling the patterns of different binding molecules, we can systematically and quantitatively analyze the importance of spatial-organization on binding performance. Our precision materials will provide novel insights in multivalent binding which is crucial to improve the design of diagnostics and allows for the development of smart therapeutic nanoparticles.”
Romain Fleury (School of Engineering). Project: Ultra-compact wave devices based on deep subwavelength spatially dispersive effects.
“We will work on a new class of extraordinarily small devices that can manipulate waves with extremely long wavelengths. This will lead to disruptive advances in processing the information and energy carried by waves such as light and sound, and reach out to several important technological applications, including new, ultra-small and ultra-light telecommunication devices, ultra-compact noise control solutions, or even safe and non-invasive medical imaging systems with unprecedented resolution.”