Last week, Lucas Maisonnette arrived in the team to start a M1 training. Lucas is a student in 3rd year at Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and will stay among us for 4 months, to work on stochastic thermodynamics experiments and simulations. Welcome to him !

We have the pleasure to have Anjali Jayachandran back in the team. Indeed Anjali was already part of the lab for a 6 months master training in 2018. Then she returned to India where she was involved in a non-profit organization. She is now among us for a short contract of laboratory technician. Welcome back to her !

Rémi Goerlich, who defended in the very end of September, finished his phD contract and after a small break, just left for a postdoctoral position in Israël. After spending close to 4 years in our lab and at IPCMS, as he started as a master 2 student, he will now work in the team of Yael Roichman in Tel Aviv University. We wish him all the best in his new life !

Rémi preraring (veggie) flammekueche (Photo Minghao Li)

Last Friday, we had our traditional end of the year group dinner, with former, actual and “about to leave” members of the lab. Indeed, it was also the occasion to say goodbye to Soh Kushida, who left one day later for Japan, where he will work at the Institute of Materials Science, Tsukuba University, but also to his fellow, Yoichi Sasaki, who will also leave us at the end of the month. On his side, Yoichi has been hired as assistant professor in the Kimizuka lab, at the Center for Molecular Systems in Kyushu University.  Both Soh and Yoichi have been friendly colleagues who were involved in the social life of the team, thus contributing to his good atmosphere, and both worked on new and demanding research projects that recently bear fruits, no doubt that they will come back to finish some experiments !

Good luck to them !

Since one week, we have the pleasure to have a new postdoctoral researcher among us, Dr Sujith Meleppatt. Sujith comes from Kerala, at the very south of India, and did his master in chemistry in Calicut. Then he continued with a phD at IISER Thiruvananthapuram, studying the chirooptical properties of molecules and nanomaterials under the supervision of Pr Georges Thomas. Welcome to him !

After the recent phD defenses, two more freshly graduated students left the lab for continuing their postdoctoral studies in the Netherlands :

– Jérôme Gautier was hired as postdoctoral researcher at AMOLF, Amsterdam, in the group of, Erik Garnett, Nanoscale Solar Cells

– Kripa Joseph, after a break in India, will start her postdoc in a few weeks in Eindhoven University of Technology, in Bert Meijer’ group.

Both of them spent more than 4 years among us, as they started as master students and were highly appreciated for their dedication in their research projects, but also for their human qualities. No doubt that they will succeed in their new positions and we wish them all the best !

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Jérôme and Kripa after their phD defense (Photos Minghao Li)

After two years in the lab, our colleague Sudipta Saha left this week-end for a new postdoctoral position in the group of Pävi Törmä, in Aalto University, Finland. If he continues like this, next one will be on Svalbard islands… More seriously, Sudipta contributed efficiently to the projects he was involved in, in particular the tricky setup of a new Mueller experiment in the UV, and we will miss his competences, but also his constant good mood and his smile. Good luck to him !