Since nearly two weeks, we have the pleasure to welcome a new post-doctoral researcher in our team, Dimitry Boriskovsky. He received both his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Physics from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. His Master’s research, conducted under the supervision of Prof. Doron Cohen, focused on
theoretical modeling, where he developed minimal models exhibiting negative mobility and sliding-transition phenomena. He completed his Ph.D. in Physics at Tel Aviv University under the supervision of Prof. Yael Roichman. His doctoral work centered on experimental soft and active matter physics, including optical trapping and manipulation of colloidal suspensions, the synthesis of active Janus particles, and studies of macroscopic systems of self-propelled robot swarms. Through the latter, we explored
thermodynamic analogies that extend to inherently athermal, non-equilibrium environments.
In his postdoctoral research, he is excited to investigate the stochastic thermodynamics of nano- and microscale systems, with a particular interest in modern nonequilibrium thermodynamic theorems and relations.

Welcome Dima !

Our latest postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Tara Clayton, arrived a week ago, between a week-end and a holiday. Tara comes from Montana, USA, and got her Bachelor’s in Chemistry at Reed College. She then went on to get her PhD in chemistry from the University of Oregon under the supervision of Professor Ramesh Jasti. She focused on the synthesis of highly strained aromatic macrocycles known as cycloparaphenylenes, CPPs, or carbon nanohoops. She developed synthetic methods aimed at late-stage transformations of CPPs decorated with versatile functional groups, affording efficient synthesis of a variety of CPP derivatives. She explored the reactivity of fluorinated and alkyne-containing CPPs to make novel extended structures including metalated CPPs, redox-active CPPs, novel guest-host CPP-fullerene complexes, and trimeric CPPs. She defended in March 2025 and will now start to explore the vibrational strong coupling. Welcome Tara !

On September 1st, we welcomed a new phD candidate, Audrey Pollien.  Audrey is a student from ENS Paris-Saclay. She already spent one year abroad in 2023/2024 as a predoctoral training, in Heidelberg, in the group of Pr Petra Tegeder. There she studied the optical properties of some molecules (3rd order generation and circular dichroism by two photons absorption). Then she completed her master 2, called CHIPS (Inorganic, Physical and of Solid Chemistry) during which she did another training in PPSM laboratory (Paris-Saclay) on chiroptical properties of 3D chiroplasmonic assemblies. She is now starting her phD under the supervision of Cyriaque Genet on the topic of chiral matter-chiral cavities coupling. Welcome Audrey !

Last Thursday the annual football tournament of Strasbourg chemistry faculty took place and one team defended the colors of our labs (Nanostructures and LIMACS) : The Vibrators. Thanks to their intensive training (they played once together the day before), they reached the quarter finals. So maybe next year, with two more trainings, one can hope for a place in final ! Congratulations to them all for the participation !