We have the pleasure to host a new postdoctoral researcher in the LIMACS team for the 6 next months, Erik Kalz. Erik obtained his phD in theoretical physics at the University of Potsdam, Germany, under the supervision of Ralf Metzler, in December 2025. He has been working on tracer transport in interacting odd-diffusive systems and on the emerging transport anomalies due to the consideration of odd (chiral) dynamics in a many-body setting. Before coming to Strasbourg, he held a visiting research fellowship at the University of Tel Aviv (in the group of Yael Roichman), and he did a follow-up postdoc to his PhD position in Potsdam. Welcome Erik !

Since the beginning of October, we are welcoming a new phD student, Albert Grass, in the LIMACS team. Albert received his bachelor’s degree in biophysics in 2024 from Columbia University. He then completed his master’s thesis in 2025 at the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, Spain, where he studied mechanical force transmission in active matter. At ISIS, with the support of the Generation Quantum EUCOR fellowship and under the supervision of Dr. Salambô Dago and Dr. Cyriaque Genet, Albert will study how internal degrees of freedom in photo-luminescent materials can be leveraged to measure and control a quantum levitated nano-particle. Welcome Albert !

A little late, due to the summer break, we are happy to introduce a new postdoctoral researcher, Luis Guilherme Tenorio Moura (aka Guilherme), who arrived in July and will stay with us for one year in the framework of our CAPES-COFECUB project. He did his PhD in physics, at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, during which he worked with structured light in the context of optical tweezers to measure chirality of single particles.
Here, under the supervision of Cyriaque Genet, Guilherme will study chirality detection at the equilibrium position of a particle in a chiral medium. He is interested in controlling the light degrees of freedom to customize optical traps for different applications. Welcome in the team !

Since one month we have welcome a new postdoctoral researcher in the team, Merin Varghese Pulikkottil, from Kerala, India. Merin completed her BSc and MSc in Chemistry and then pursued her PhD at IISER Thiruvananthapuram, under the supervision of Prof. K. George Thomas. During her PhD, she explored exciton dynamics in colloidal nanocrystals, with a focus on understanding their excited-state properties using time-resolved spectroscopic techniques, mainly transient absorption and single-particle spectroscopy. Building on this background in excited-state dynamics and spectroscopy, she is now eager to explore light–matter interactions in the strong coupling regime and understand how strong coupling can influence molecular and material properties. Welcome Merin !