University of Bologna
Andrea Fermi earned his PhD in Chemistry in 2013 through a joint program between the University of Bologna and Aix-Marseille Université, under the supervision of Prof. Paola Ceroni and Prof. Marc Gingras. He subsequently carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Namur, Cardiff University, and the University of Bologna. He is currently assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Bologna. His research interests focus on the luminescent properties of molecular materials, photoinduced processes in supramolecular assemblies and nanomaterials, and photoredox catalysis.
Freie Universität Berlin
Beate Paulus is a professor of theoretical chemistry at the Freie Universität Berlin and is working in the field of quantum chemistry, performing calculations at different level of accuracies, both for molecular and periodic systems. In her research special emphasis is set to the modeling of surface reactions, heterogeneous catalysis and low-dimensional materials. Depending on the system size, the applied methods cover the whole range from semi-empirical methods like DFTB over various DFT approaches to wavefunction-based correlation methods. She has in total about 230 publications in various field reaching from physical science, method development up to applied material science in strong collaboration with experimental groups. Newer projects include the modelling of amorphous systems like polymers and their interaction with molecules. Her group consists in the moment of 4 postdocs on their way into an independent scientific career, 5 PhD students and several master students for their thesis work or research internships.
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Chantal Valeriani studied Physics at the Universita’ La Sapienza in Rome, with a Master thesis with Prof.Sciortino on Silica glasses. In 2007 she obtained her PhD in Chemistry with Prof.Frenkel at the University of Amsterdam, working on crystal and bubble nucleation. After a short postdoc in Prof.Dijkstra’s group (University of Utrecht) working on charged colloids, she moved to the University of Edinburgh in 2008 as a Marie Curie Fellow with Prof.Cates. At the School of Physics, she worked on active matter and colloidal glasses, the latter together with Prof.Pusey and Poon. In 2011 she was awarded a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral fellowship to work on ice nucleation and metastable water with Prof.Vega and Abascal at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. In 2015 she started her own group as a Ramon y Cajal Assistant Professor in Physics. Since 2020, she is an Associate Professor in the same department, focusing her research on active and soft matter, advanced numerical techniques, always trying to establish collaborations with experiments.
University of Bologna
Chiara Gualandi is Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry “G. Ciamician” of the University of Bologna (Italy), within the Polymer Science and Biomaterials Group. Her expertise focuses on structure–property relationships in polymers, copolymers, and polymer blends. Her research spans polymers for biomedical applications as well as stimuli-responsive and functional materials, including photothermal systems, mechano-responsive materials, and shape-memory polymers. She is the co-author of over 100 papers in peer-reviewed international journals, six book chapters, and ten patents.
University of Bologna
Daniele Fazzi is associate professor in physical-chemistry at the Department of Chemistry “Giacomo Ciamician”, Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna. He was Group Leader (2018-2021) at the Institute of Physical-Chemistry of the University of Cologne (Germany), and post-doc in international institutes, such as the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung (Germany, 2013-2017), and the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) (Italy, 2010-2013). His research activities involve the modelling of soft and hybrid functional materials, with focus on structure-property relations, photo-induced processes, charge and energy transport mechanisms.
Daniele received the Alexander von Humboldt post-doctoral fellowship (2014-2016), and in 2019 he was awarded by the RSC Journal of Materials Chemistry C as Emerging Investigator. He is a member of the Global Faculty Programme of the University of Cologne, and coordinator of national and international research projects.
University of Leiden
Emanuel Teixeira is a physicist working in soft and active matter. He received his Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD degrees in Physics from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil, where he studied tissue self-organization, cell segregation, and collective aggregation using theoretical and computational approaches. His research focuses on how local interactions between particles or cells give rise to collective behavior and macroscopic organization. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University, the Netherlands, where heinvestigates synthetic active materials, including deformable active systems inspired by biological tissues.
ETH, Zürich
Farhad Zeighami is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering, University of Bologna, Italy, and the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, ETH Zürich, Switzerland. He received his B.Sc. in Civil Engineering and M.Sc. in Structural Engineering, and obtained his Ph.D. in Structural and Environmental Health Monitoring and Management from the University of Bologna in 2021. Following his doctoral studies, he held positions as Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Junior Assistant Professor at the same institution. His research lies at the intersection of civil engineering, applied physics, structural dynamics, and solid mechanics, with a focus on the analysis, design, and fabrication of phononic crystals and locally resonant metamaterials for the control of wave propagation across different scales. His work combines analytical, numerical, and experimental approaches, with applications in vibration mitigation, surface wave control, and structural health monitoring. He has been involved in several nationally and internationally funded research projects as principal investigator and collaborator. He has supervised Master’s students and has served as a reviewer for international journals in the field of metamaterials and structural mechanics. His research output includes publications in leading journals and presentations at major international conferences.
Universidad Complutense Madrid
Fernando Martínez-Pedrero is a Spanish physicist and physical chemist specializing in soft matter, colloidal science, and active and actuated materials. He is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Chemistry at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where he works within the Complex Systems research group focused on colloids, polymers, and interfaces.
He studied Physics at the University of Granada, where he completed his PhD in Natural Sciences in 2008 with research on magnetic colloids and field-induced aggregation phenomena. Following his doctorate, Martínez-Pedrero carried out several postdoctoral research stages in Spain and abroad. Between 2009 and 2011, he worked at ESPCI Paris in the Laboratoire de Colloïdes et Matériaux Divisés, collaborating on colloidal and industrial soft-matter systems, including projects linked to Michelin. He later joined Universidad Complutense de Madrid as a postdoctoral researcher and developed research collaborations with the University of Barcelona in the field of driven colloidal systems and magnetic microrobotics.
His research combines experiments, theory, and numerical modeling to understand self-assembly, transport, and collective behavior in systems driven far from equilibrium. His recent work explores dynamic self-organization of magnetic nanoflowers and active colloidal materials controlled by external fields.
In addition to his scientific research, he is actively involved in mentoring students, organizing international scientific activities in colloid and interface science, and promoting technology transfer and entrepreneurship through the QUIMIO pre-incubator at UCM.
University of Bologna
Gioia Fusaro is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Bologna, Industrial Engineering Department, Applied Physics Research Group. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK). In 2022, she received a PhD from the University of Sheffield (UK) and A*STAR Institute (SG). She specialises in building acoustics, metamaterials, multi-domain analysis, psychoacoustics, ergonomics, sustainability, and sustainable industrial design. Her core activities aim at industrialising metamaterial systems for built environments and HVAC applications. She is currently involved in activities to promote acoustics among young students and early-career researchers, actively participating in associations such as AIA Giovani, the EAA Young Acousticians Network (YAN), and Young Researchers in Acoustic Metamaterials (YRAM).
IMDEA, Madrid
Johannes Gierschner received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at the Univ. Tübingen, Germany, in 2000. After stays at Univ. Tübingen, at the Univ. of Mons (Belgium), and at Georgia Tech, Atlanta (USA), he joined the Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies - IMDEA Nanoscience - in 2008 as a Senior Research Professor (Ramón y Cajal fellow 2008-13). In 2014, he habilitated at Tübingen and holds an Adjunct Prof. position ('Privatdozent') there since then.
JG is regular visiting researcher at Univ. Valencia (since 2014), and at Seoul National University (SNU; since 2008), and held Visiting Professor positions at SNU and Univ. Mons (2014/15). His 160 papers integrate optical spectroscopy and computational chemistry to elucidate structure-property and -process relationships in conjugated organic materials for optoelectronics and energy conversion.
JG is further dedicated to consolidate the community knowledge through regular educative reviews, and international lecture series in 'Photophysics of Conjugated Organic Materials'. Moreover, during the last years, he is increasingly committed to 'Scientific Integrity' issues "below the tip of the iceberg", providing seminars and courses for junior and senior researchers.
University College Dublin
Dr. Muhammad Gulzari is an Assistant Professor at School of Civil Engineering, University College Dublin. His research explores the intersection of engineering mechanics, structural dynamics, applied physics, applied mathematics and wave propagation in artificially engineered structured materials—known as phononic crystals and metamaterials. He has published more than 40 research articles on topics such as seismic metamaterials, metastructures for low frequency noise and vibration control, topological metamaterials and machine learning and deep learning in design optimization of metamaterials. Dr. Gulzari is Associate Editor of the Journal of Vibration Engineering and Technology. He also remained an Irish Research Council-Research Fellow and received the Seal of Excellence Award from EU-Horizon MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2021.
University College Dublin
Nadia Elghobashi-Meinhardt completed her BSc at Stanford University in 1999 with a degree in Chemistry and then moved to Berlin to complete her Masters (2001) and PhD (2005) in Theoretical Chemistry at the Free University Berlin, where she developed few-cycle femtosecond laser pulses to drive bond-selective dissociation in small molecules. She completed postdoctoral fellowships in Theoretical Chemistry (Fritz-Haber-Institute of the Max-Planck-Society in Berlin) and computational biophysics (University of Heidelberg), combining quantum mechanics and molecular mechanics to investigate optical properties of retinal proteins. In 2011, with a grant from the Volkswagen Foundation, she returned to the Free University Berlin as a junior group leader. In 2019, Nadia joined the Technical University Berlin where she worked within Berlin's Excellence Cluster, “Unifying Systems in Catalysis”, to study catalysis in metalloenyzmes. In 2023, Nadia was appointed Assistant Prof. in the School of Chemistry at UCD.
University of Helsinki
Robert Luxenhofer studied Chemistry and completed his PhD in 2007 at the TU München in polymer chemistry developing a novel polymer functionalization approach since developed further by Serina Therapeutics to introduce the first-in-human poly(2-oxazoline)-drug conjugates. As a postdoc with Alexander V. Kabanov at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, he discovered ultra-high loaded drug formulations, which are currently developed further by DelAQUA Pharmaceuticals, and investigated structure dependent endocytosis of polymer amphiphiles. Returning to Germany in 2009, he started to investigate polysarcosine and polypeptoids as biomaterials at the TU Dresden. In 2012, he joined the Julius-Maximilians Universität as an Associate Professor, where he continued working on polypeptoids and ultra-high drug formulations, but also started investigating biofabrication and 3D printing using melt electrowriting. In 2019, he joined the University of Helsinki as a Full Professor and continues to develop with his team ultra-high loaded drug formulations, improved bioprinting solutions and novel biomaterials for gene delivery. He has co-authored 126 peer-reviewed scientific publications and is listed as (co)inventor on 13 patents and 10 patent applications, and is co-founder of two spin-outs focusing on developing novel functional polymers for medical applications and sustainable packaging solutions.
University of Bologna
Stefano Corrà received his M.Sc. in Industrial Chemistry (cum laude) in 2012 from the University of Padova under the joint supervision of Prof. Paolo Scrimin and Prof. Leonard Prins. His thesis work dealt with the identification of a transesterification catalyst from a dynamic library of hydrazones through a self-selection approach.
At the end of 2012 he joined the group of Prof. Helma Wennemers (ETH Zürich) for his doctoral studies on the use of peptides for the controlled formation of supramolecular nanostructures. He was awarded the title of Doctor of Science (Dr. sc. ETH Zurich) in 2018.
He then moved the group of Prof. Alberto Credi at the Center for Light Activated Nanostructures, (CLAN, University of Bologna and CNR) as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. There he developed photoactivated systems capable of moving away from thermodynamic equilibrium.
Since January 2022 he is a tenure-track assistant professor at the department of Industrial Chemistry of the University of Bologna (CHIMIND). His research is focused on the integration of photoresponsive systems into supramolecular bioinspired materials.
University of Helsinki
Yinyin Bao is an Associate Professor of Polymer Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at University of Helsinki, starting from January 2025. Dr. Bao received his PhD degree in Polymer Chemistry (2012) from University of Science and Technology of China. From 2012 to 2014 he completed a postdoctoral research at KU Leuven, and then became a Marie Curie IntraEurapean Fellow in CNRS at University of Paris Sud. Dr. Bao joined ETH Zürich in 2016, and he was promoted to a senior scientist position as a group leader at the end of 2018. Dr. Bao is recognized as 2025 Americal Chemistry Society “Rising Stars in Polymer Science” by the journal ACS Polymers Au and 2025 Royal Society of Chemistry “Outstanding Reviewers” by the journal Polymer Chemistry. His research interest remains the application of polymer chemistry in biomedicine and optoelectronics, in particular 3D printed medical devices and polymer OLEDs.
University College Dublin
Zarah Walsh-Korb is Associate Professor for Sustainable Functional Materials in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at University College Dublin. She also holds a joint affiliation as Group Leader in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Basel. She is a chemist by training with a long-standing fascination about how the smallest interactions in a material influence its macroscale properties and how dependent this feature is on environmental cues.
A major focus of her research is the development of animal-free stimuli-responsive biomaterials for 3D culture of in vitro models and biofabrication using recombinant proteins and biomass-derived polymers. Her research group uses biophysical and computational approaches to investigate how the molecular behaviour of recombinantly produced stimuli-responsive proteins and peptides can be rationally engineered into adaptable macroscale systems for in vitro model culture, as well as disease modelling and tissue regeneration. With the help of interdisciplinary collaborations ranging from fluid mechanics to medicine, her research aims to reduce reliance on animal-derived materials in biomedical research, while simultaneously advancing the functionality and tuneability of biomaterials to create more physiologically relevant in vitro models, particularly for the intestines and liver.