“My job is to give students confidence in their abilities”

Giulia Tagliabue has been fascinated by the workings of the universe since her teenage years, when she could often be found gazing up at the stars or devouring a popular science book. Her father, an electrical engineer and great lover of scientific literature, kept an extensive library at the family home in Treviso, northern Italy.

For someone with an insatiable curiosity about the world and who grew up just a few miles from Padua – the city where Galileo lived for 18 years and made many of his major discoveries – studying physics and engineering was an obvious choice.

Tagliabue went on to also study chemistry, materials science and, critically, nanotechnology – a field she first discovered as an Erasmus student at EPFL in 2009 and which now forms the basis of her research into new energy conversion methods. Currently the head of EPFL’s Laboratory of Nanoscience for Energy Technologies (LNET), Tagliabue believes that science should make an impact – preferably a positive one. She applies this same principle to her teaching, with the goal of sharpening her students’ thinking skills and continuously expanding their knowledge. Her efforts have been rewarded with this year’s EPFL Award for Best Teaching.

Small acts make a big difference

“My job is to give students confidence in their ability to learn and understand complex subjects and to help them find the resources they need to progress,” says Tagliabue. “I’m sometimes surprised at how small acts on my part, even just a word of encouragement, can make a big difference.” Tagliabue describes the first lecture she gave at EPFL as a “scary” experience. That was in 2019, when she found herself in front of around 200 bachelor’s students taking her heat and mass transfer class, which she developed from the ground up. “It was nerve-wracking because I didn’t really have any hands-on experience,” she recalls. “I quickly saw that it’s one thing to know your subject but quite another to teach it. It’s amazing how something can be so clear in your own head yet, when you try to explain it, you realize it’s far from easy to understand. Teaching forces you to structure your thoughts.”

A blend of methods

Guided by her thirst for learning, Tagliabue has honed her bachelor’s class over the years by putting herself “in students’ shoes” and employing a blend of methods where concepts are approached from different angles. Determined to make her classroom a caring and interactive space, she pushes students to confront difficulties, challenge themselves and learn through trial and error. As well as giving her students practical exercises to work on (often through Jupyter Notebooks) and holding Q&A sessions using a clicker response system, she also likes to teach theory the traditional way. “When I’m explaining equations, for example, I prefer to use the blackboard,” she says. “Writing things out by hand gives my lectures the right kind of pace. In my view, theory and rigor in your thoughts are extremely important for developing critical and logical thinking skills.”

I quickly saw that it’s one thing to know your subject but quite another to teach it. It’s amazing how something can be so clear in your own head yet, when you try to explain it, you realize it’s far from easy to understand. Teaching forces you to structure your thoughts.

Students taking Tagliabue’s master’s class, which she also developed from scratch, are asked to complete two projects: one focused on theory and the other on research. For the research-focused project, students come into her lab to take measurements using both hydrovoltaic devices – nanoscale structures that generate electricity from the evaporation of water – and nanophotonic structures. Tagliabue’s research group spends a lot of time studying light, but they don’t peer at the sky through a telescope. Instead, they use custom-designed devices to observe its absorption.

“I love conducting experimental research and making observations, and get excited about the prospect of learning new things,” she says. “It can be incredibly frustrating at times. But the feeling you get when you finally grasp something is incredible.” Tagliabue, an avid climber since childhood, tries to instill this same curiosity in her students. Because in science, as in climbing, while the route to the top can be challenging, reaching the summit gives an enormous sense of achievement.