Welcome Alexandra, Pauline, and Tianyu

Alexandra received both her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Food Science from ETH Zürich. During her master thesis she worked on stabilization of protein-pectin layers at liquid interfaces, including physio-chemical characterization of the material. After two years of working in the Swiss food industry, she joined SMaL, where she will focus on the influence of confinement on polymer phase separation.

Pauline obtained her bachelor's degree in Physics and a master's degree in Applied Physics from EPFL in 2018 and 2020. During her last year of master, she worked more specifically on the characterization and optimization of the polishing of diamond micromechanical pieces, as well as on the characterization ZnO thin films grown by MBE. In SMaL lab, she will work on 3D printing of photonic granular hydrogels.

Tianyu obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Polymer Materials and Engineering at Donghua University, where she had spent 3 years working on pH-responsive monomer synthesis as well as the construction of amphiphilic block copolymers using ATRP. After graduation, she moved on to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor for her Master’s degree in Macromolecular Science and Engineering. During her Master’s study, she worked with Sodano’s group and focused on the design and synthesis of 3D printing ink for self-healing and recyclable thermoset fabrication. Their work has been recently published on the front cover of Polymer Chemistry. As a new SMaL member, she will focus on the fabrication of selectively binding capsules for additive manufacturing.