Nine SNSF Starting Grants awarded to EPFL researchers

Congratulations to Maria Brbic (IC), Laurent Dufour (SB), Camille Goemans (SV), Josie Hughes (STI), Alexandra Kushnir (ENAC), Mackenzie Mathis (SV), Chiara Perrina (SB), Priya Ramakrishna (ENAC), and Philippe Schwaller (SB)!

Due to Switzerland’s status in 2024 as a non-associated third country in the Horizon Europe programme, the Federal government mandated the SNSF to launch the funding scheme SNSF Starting Grant. This transitional measure integrated in the 2024 call the ERC Starting Grants and the SNSF Professorial Fellowships (formerly SNSF Eccellenza and PRIMA).

With an SNSF Starting Grant, grantees will lead an independent research project and direct a team of researchers in Switzerland.

A total of 499 researchers applied to the 2024 SNSF Starting Grant call; 61 were awarded a grant for a total of 105 million francs. The overall success rate was 12%.

Nine of these grants have been awarded to EPFL researchers:

• Maria Brbic (IC): Learning the Language of Cells with a Generative Multi-modal Foundation Model
• Laurent Dufour (SB): Connecting searches for New Physics in Charm decays
• Camille Goemans (SV): PACMAN - Phage-antibiotic combinations to mitigate antibiotic resistance
• Josie Hughes (STI): Mechanisms, Modelling and Control for Musculoskeletal Morphing Robots
• Alexandra Kushnir (ENAC): FuSE-EGS: Fracture SEaling and reactivation in Enhanced Geothermal Systems
• Mackenzie Mathis (SV): Neural latent dynamics underlying visuomotor learning
• Chiara Perrina (SB): SPACER - Redefining the Cosmic-Ray and Gamma-Ray Physics Frontier in Space with DAMPE and HERD
• Priya Ramakrishna (ENAC): cSALT: Cellular basis for salinity tolerance in plants
• Philippe Schwaller (SB): Open Large Language Model-Centered Agent Systems for Chemical Research

Full results are available here.