Marie Skłodowska-Curie-Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowships

TUM Chair: Chair of Electrobiotechnology, Prof. Dr. Nicolas Plumeré

TUM School: TUM Campus Straubing

Project: SpinBioAnode: Nature’s spin-flipping machine: design of the semiconductor-free biophotoanode

Academic Career and Research Areas

Rafał Białek obtained his PhD in physics in 2021 (Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań, Poland) for his work in the field of fundamental and application research on primary steps of photosynthesis, mainly in purple bacteria. His go-to tools used in the research are time-resolved and steady state light absorption and emission spectroscopy, both standalone and coupled with electrochemistry. He also puts an effort in designing and manufacturing custom setups for combining multiple methods, using 3D printing. He is currently mostly interested in employing photosynthetic proteins to work as an active material in biohybrid devices for photocurrent generation. He is focusing on electron and energy transfer at the interface between biological and synthetic material.

TUM Chair: Chair of Semiconductor Quantum Nanosystems, Prof. Jonathan Finley

TUM School: TUM School of Natural Sciences

Project: Interlayer exciton interactions and their many-body physics (IXIXions)

Academic Career and Research Areas

Alain Dijkstra is a postdoctoral researcher at the Walter Schottky Institute in Munich in the group of Jonathan Finley. During his Marie Curie fellowship he will work on quantum confinement of interlayer excitons which has been quite a career switch from his Phd work. In the Netherlands, he studied applied physics at the Eindhoven University of Technology where in 2016 he graduated within the Photonics and Semiconductor Nanophysics (PSN) group. From April 2016 he started a PhD project at the Eindhoven university of technology in the group Advanced Nanomaterials and Devices (AND) focusing on infrared spectroscopy of direct band gap group-IV materials. During his PhD he published several papers on direct bandgap GeSn alloys and hexagonal SiGe alloys. He shares a first authorship in the paper ‘Direct-bandgap emission from hexagonal Ge and SiGe alloys’ which has been awarded the Physics World 2020 Breakthrough of the year.

TUM Chair:  Associate Professorship of Silicon Chemistry, Prof. Shigeyoshi Inoue

TUM School: TUM School of Natural Sciences

Project: N2OTOCARBON

Academic Career and Research Areas

Dr. Alexandre Genoux received his MSc from Université Grenoble Alpes, including research stays at UC Santa Barbara with Prof. Liming Zhang and at the University of Cambridge with Prof. Robert Phipps. He earned his PhD from the University of Zurich in 2020 under the supervision of Prof. Cristina Nevado. From 2021 to 2023, he was a postdoctoral associate with Prof. Patrick L. Holland at Yale University, supported by the Center for Hybrid Approaches in Solar Energy to Liquid Fuels (CHASE). Since June 2024, he has been a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow with Prof. Shigeyoshi Inoue at TU Munich and Prof. Kay Severin at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).

Dr. Alexandre Genoux’s research focuses on developing new reaction methodologies to upcycle nitrous oxide for synthesizing industrially relevant nitrogen-containing compounds.

TUM Chair: Chair of Bioseparation Engineering, Prof. Dr. Sonja Berensmeier

TUM School: TUM School of Engineering and Design

Project: Magnetically Tunable Chondrocyte Cell Sheet Engineering for Osteoarthritis Therapy (MACROS)

Academic Career and Research Areas

Dr. Vincent Irawan received his PhD in Material Science and Engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, in 2019. His previous research focused on developing the collagen materials as a bioactive scaffold for promoting cartilage and bone tissues. In 2021, he undertook a postdoc position in Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands, to learn about the supramolecular biomaterials and to develop such multi-modular materials for the applications of biomedical imaging and the stimuli-responsive cell culture materials. Dr. Vincent`s MSCA fellowship will focus on preparing a tissue-engineering product that mimic the cartilage tissue by developing an innovative technique that is premised on the tuning of substrate stiffness during the cell culture stage. The application is focused on the regeneration of osteoarthritic cartilage tissue.

TUM Chair: Associate Professorship of Population Genetics, Prof. Dr. Aurélien Tellier

TUM School: TUM School of Life Sciences

Project: ecO-evolUTionary dynamics in COMmunitiEs (OUTCOME)

Academic Career and Research Areas

Dr. Llopis-Belenguer studies parasite communities. She aims to understand the drivers of parasite diversity in ecosystems, and how host-parasite interactions promote ecological and evolutionary processes. During her MSCA-PF project, Cristina will decipher the coevolutionary outcomes of host-parasite communities based on theoretical models and empirical data. She will combine coevolutionary footprints in whole-genome sequences with dynamic network analysis. Her results will help to infer and predict changes in real-world host-parasite communities.

Dr. Llopis-Belenguer obtained her PhD from the University of València (Spain) and has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at ETH (Switzerland) and the University of València. Cristina also enjoys communicating science to the general public. Please feel free to contact Cristina if you believe you have common interests.

TUM Chair: Chair of Electrobiotechnology, Prof. Dr. Nicolas Plumeré

TUM School: TUM Campus Straubing

Project: Modifying Enzyme with Solid-Binding Peptide for Site-specific and Reversible Enzyme Immobilization (ReversE)

Academic Career and Research Areas

Stacy Reginald completed her doctoral degree at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), South Korea in 2021 under the supervision of Prof. Dr. In Seop Chang. She subsequently worked at the same laboratory as a postdoctoral researcher from 2021 to 2022. Her PhD research was on developing biosensing systems for dissolved carbon monoxide concentration using the enzyme, carbon monoxide dehydrogenase. She developed two types of CO biosensors, an enzyme-immobilized electrode-based biosensor and a CO biomicrosensor that combines the enzyme carbon monoxide dehydrogenase and a CO₂ microsensor.

She will join Professorship for Electrobiotechnology at TUM as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral researcher under the supervision of Prof.  Dr. Nicolas Plumeré in August 2023. The goal of her Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship project is to develop a reversible immobilization approach that can attach enzymes on an electrode surface in a defined orientation and permit their controlled release on demand upon stimulation (ReversE).

TUM Chair: Institute of Virology, Prof. Dr.  Andreas Pichlmair

TUM School: TUM School of Medicine

Project: Role of the kinase TAOK2 in the innate immune response to viral infection (TIRI)

Academic Career and Research Areas

Dr. Rheinemann earned her PhD from the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA in 2021. During her graduate work, she studied how viruses exploit cellular pathways to mediate their own release from infected cells under the supervision of Prof. Wesley I. Sundquist. She subsequently joined Prof. Pichlmair’s laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow with an EMBO postdoctoral fellowship.

Dr. Rheinemann’s research examines the interaction of viral proteins with host factors during infection. In particular, her MSCA project will focus on recognition of viral nucleic acids by the innate immune system and how the resulting signaling cascades are controlled and modulated.  This will provide new insights into the first line of defense against viral infections.

TUM Chair: Institute of Virology, Prof. Andreas Pichlmair

TUM School: TUM School of Medicine and Health

Project: Proteomics-based Analysis of RSV nucleic acid/protein InteractionS (PARIS)

Academic Career and Research Areas

Dr. Risso Ballester received her PhD in Biomedicine in 2019 from the Institute for Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio) at the University of Valencia (Spain). She then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Université Paris-Saclay (Versailles, France) in Prof. Rameix-Welti's group (2019-2023), where her research focused on the study of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) factories that host the central steps of RSV replication. Subsequently, Dr. Risso Ballester joined Prof. Pichlmair's group (Munich, Germany) and was awarded an MSCA Postdoc Fellowship (Project ID: 101107996, Acronym: PARIS).
The PARIS project combines Dr. Risso Ballester’s expertise in RSV biology and the host laboratory's extensive experience in systems biology to investigate the molecular interactions between RSV and the human host using state-of the-art-of proteomics. This research aims to provide new insights into unresolved questions in RSV biology and to identify potential therapeutic targets.

TUM Chair: Chair of Organic Chemistry I, Prof. Dr. Thorsten Bach

TUM School: TUM School of Natural Sciences

Project: Enantioselective N-α C(sp3)-H Functionalization of Amides by Trifunctional Catalytic Systems (ENCHFATCS)

Academic Career and Research Areas

Dr. Zhou incepted his PhD degree in organic chemistry in 2020 from Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry (TIPC), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Then, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden from January 2021 to April 2023. After that, Dr. Zhou joined the Chair of Organic Chemistry I in May 2022 with TUM Global Postdoc Fellowship and MSCA Postdoc Fellowship.
Dr. Zhou’s research is aimed at the development of novel and practical methodologies for the efficient construction of biologically active and synthetically useful molecules, in particular by photocatalysis. At TUM, he will work on the enantioselective photocatalytic organic transformations with Prof. Thorsten Bach.

TUM Chair: Chair of Safety, Performance and Reliability for Learning Systems, Prof. Angela Schoellig

TUM School: TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology

Project: Deployable Decision-Making: Embracing Semantics for Robotic Safety in Everyday Scenarios (SSDM)

Academic Career and Research Areas

Dr. SiQi Zhou received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2022 and her B.A.Sc. degree from the Engineering Science program at the University of Toronto in 2016. She was recognized as an MIT Rising Star in Aerospace in 2021 and a Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) Pioneer in 2022. She was also a recipient of the Vector Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2022 and the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2024. Her research lies at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, and systems control. By integrating learning techniques.

TUM Chair:  Chair of Data Science in Earth Observation , Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Xiaoxiang Zhu

TUM School: TUM School of Engineering and Design

Project: Climate-smart reforestation through the lens of remote sensing and microclimate sensors (EcoClimate Navigator)

Academic Career and Research Areas

Dr. Sara Alibakhshi is a researcher specializing in geospatial data analysis, remote sensing, and ecosystem monitoring. She holds a Ph.D. in Geoinformatics her projects focus on applying statistical and machine learning models to assess ecosystem dynamics, particularly in the context of climate change and biodiversity conservation. She collaborates with researchers and policymakers to develop data-driven solutions for environmental challenges, including deforestation and land use change. Her research aims to enhance the understanding of forest ecosystems and their resilience using advanced geospatial technologies.

TUM Chair: Associate Professorship of Population Genetics, Prof. Dr. Aurélien Tellier

TUM School: TUM School of Life Sciences

Project: The evolutionary biology of crop plant DNA methylation (mC-EVOLVE)

Academic Career and Research Areas

His primary research interest is plant evolutionary biology. He completed his PhD in plant mating system evolution at the University of Toronto, followed by postdoctoral research on host-parasite interactions and crop plant genetics at the University of Cambridge and the John Innes Centre, respectively. In 2022, he began working on plant epigenome evolution at TUM. Recognizing its potential to revolutionize modern crop breeding and agriculture, he is investigating how plant methylation evolves in crop plants and during crop breeding programs by establishing a collaboration between TUM and the University of British Columbia in Canada. His long-term goal is to make plant methylation a valuable resource for improving crop yields and stress tolerance.

MSCA IF 2014 Call

Manuela Garnico Alonso

TUM Chair: Professur für Molekulare Nanowissenschaft an Grenzflächen, Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Auwärter
TUM Department: TUM Department of Physics
Project: Beyond Graphene: Fundamental properties of 2D materials at the atomic scale (2DNano)

Zdeněk Tošner

TUM Chair: Professur für Festkörper-NMR-Spektroskopie, Prof. Dr. Bernd Reif and Prof. Glaser (co-supervisor)
TUM Department: TUM Department of Chemistry 
Project: Optimal control methods for biological solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (OPTIMAL NMR)

Pietro Falco

TUM Chair: Associate Professorship of Human-centered Assistive Robotics, Prof. Dongheui Lee
TUM Department: Fakultät für Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik
Project: LEArning-CONtrol tight interaction: a novel approach to robust execution of mobile manipulation tasks (LEACON)

MSCA IF 2015 Call

Dr. Barbara Lechner

TUM Chair: Chair of Physical Chemistry, Prof. Ueli Heiz
TUM Department: Chemistry
Project: Characterising the dynamical properties of size-selected supported metal clusters (ClusterDynamics)

Dr. Irene Bighelli

TUM Chair: Klinik und Poliklinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Prof. Stefan Leucht
TUM Department: TUM School of Medicine 
Project: Schizophrenia Psychological Interventions: Network Meta-Analysis of randomized evidence (SPIN-MA)

Dr. Javier Virto

TUM Chair: Lehrstuhl für Theoretische Elementarteilchenphysik, Prof. Martin Beneke
TUM Department: TUM Department of Physics 
Project: Non-Leptonic Three-Body B Decays: Theory and Phenomenology (NIOBE)

Dr. Madleen Busse

TUM Chair: Lehrstuhl für Angewandte Biophysik, Prof. Pfeiffer
TUM Department: TUM Department of Physics 
Project: CONtrast through metal-enriched polymer SALTs: novel contrast agents for dual-energy micro-computed tomography (CONSALT)

Dr. Siwei Bai

TUM Chair: Bioanaloge Informationsverarbeitung, Prof. Dr. Hemmert, Werner
TUM Department: Fakultät für Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik 
Project: Advanced Computational Model for the Development of Cochlear Implants (CIModelPLUS) 

Dr. Francesco Maurelli

TUM Chair: Institut für Informatik VI - Robotics and Embedded Systems, Prof. Alois Knoll
TUM Department: TUM Department of Informatics
Project: Towards Intelligent Cognitive AUVs (TIC AUV)

MSCA IF 2016 Call

Dr. Pablo Lanillos

TUM Chair: Institute for Cognitive Systems, Prof. Dr. Gordon Cheng
TUM Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering 
Project: Robotic self/other distinction for interaction under uncertainty (SELFCEPTION)

Dr. Paul D’Agostino

TUM Chair: Professorship of Biosystems Chemistry, Prof. Dr. Tobias A. M. Gulder
TUM Department: Chemistry 
Project: Direct Pathway Cloning of Neglected Bacteria in the Hunt for Novel (Bio-)Chemistry (DiPaC_MC)

Dr. Marta Tena-Solsona

TUM Chair: Chair of Supramolecular Chemistry, Prof. Dr. Job Boekhoven
TUM Department: Chemistry 
Project: Dissipative Self-Assembly: A powerful but unexplored tool to create temporary supramolecular hydrogels (DisMolGels)

Dr. David Luitz

TUM Chair: Professorship on Theoretical Solid-State Physics, Prof. Frank Pollmann
TUM Department: Physics Department
Project: Dynamical Phenomena in Quantum Many-Body Systems (QMBDyn)

Dr. Cecile Repellin

TUM Chair: Professorship on Theoretical Solid-State Physics, Prof. Frank Pollmann
TUM Department: Physics Department 
Project: From Bulk to Edge: Realization and Characterization of Fractionalized Quantum Matter (sharpEDGE)

MSCA IF 2017 Call

Dr. Gianluca Orlando

TUM Chair: Chair for Analysis, Prof. Dr. Marco Cicalese
TUM Department: Department of Mathematics
Project: From Bulk to Edge: Quasistatic Evolution Problems for Material Failure due to Fatigue (FatiguEvoPro)

Dr. Franziska Emmerling

TUM Chair: Chair for Research and Science Management, Prof. Dr. Claudia Peus
TUM Department: TUM School of Management
Project: From Bulk to Edge: Assessing positive and destructive leadership on multiple dimensions: How to better understand and improve the behaviour of the people who lead us (LEADERPROFILE)

Dr. Frej Tulin

TUM Chair: Lehrstuhl für Botanik,  Prof. Farhah Assaad
TUM Department: Department of Plant Sciences
Project: Understanding the essential function of the conserved plant- specific protein phosphatase family BSL (BSLchlamy)

Yue Zhang-Weninger, PhD

TUM Chair: Institute for Human-Machine Communication, Prof. Gerhard Rigoll
TUM Department: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project: Holistic Deep Modelling for User Recognition and Affective Social Behaviour Sensing (HOL-DEEP-SENSE)

MSCA EF 2018 Call

Dr. Alex Henning

TUM Chair: Professorship on Experimental Semiconductor Physics, Prof. Ian D. Sharp
TUM Department: Walter Schottky Institute, Physics Department
Project: Functional Electrical Contacts to Two-Dimensional Materials with Tunable Interfacial Oxides, ProTOC

MSCA EF 2019 Call

Dr. Marc Gonzalez Cuxart

TUM Chair:  Chair of Molecular Nanoscience & Chemical Physics of Interfaces, Prof. Wilhelm Auwärter
TUM Department: Physics
Project: Engineering Magnetic Properties of Hexagonal Boron nitride - based Hybrid Nanoarchitectures (WHITEMAG)

Dr. Sebastian Schwaminger

TUM Chair:  Bioseparation Engineering Group, Prof. Dr. Sonja Berensmeier
TUM Department: Mechanical Engineering
Project: Novel Electro-Responsive Protein Separation Method with Magnetic Nanoparticles (NERS)

Dr. Youssef Atoini

TUM Chair: Biogenic Functional Materials, Prof. Dr. Rubén D. Costa
TUM Department: TUM-Campus Straubing
Project: White Hybrid Light-Emitting Diodes based on Cu(I) Complexes-MOFs Hybrid Materials -- CuMOF-LED

Dr. Miriam Schwalm

TUM Chair:  Biological and Medical Imaging , Prof. Dr. Gil Westmeyer
TUM Department: Fakultät für Chemie
Project: Calcium-sensitive functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging as a breakthrough technique to follow brain-wide intracellular calcium dynamics defining multi-scale neuronal activity (BrainwideNeuroCaSens)

MSCA EF 2020 Call

Selma Musić

TUM Chair: Chair of Information-oriented Control, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Sandra Hirche
TUM Department: TUM Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project: Collaborative, Decision making, and Operational Shared-Control Framework for Human-Robot Interaction (HRI-CoDeOp)

Dr. Reginald van der Kwast

TUM Chair: Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Prof. Dr. Dr. Stefan Engelhardt
TUM Department: TUM Department of Medicine
Project: Long non-coding RNAs that regulate glial cell function in the diseased heart (GLIA-LNC)

Dr. Xie Wang

TUM Chair: Chair of Electrobiotechnology, Prof. Dr. Nicolas Plumeré
TUM Department: TUM Campus Straubing
Project: Directed Evolution of Metalloenzymes through Electrochemical Droplet Microarray – DEMED

Dr. Susanne Raum

TUM Chair:  Chair for Strategic Landscape Planning and Management, Prof. Dr. Stephan Pauleit
TUM Department: TUM School of Life Sciences, Weihenstephan
Project: Threats and solutions to urban tree pests and pathogens in a changing climate (TREEPACT)

Dr. Mattia Nieddu

TUM Chair: Chair of Biogenic Functional Materials, Prof. Dr. Rubén D. Costa
TUM Department: TUM Campus Straubing
Project: Fluorescent Protein-metal oxide NanoParticles for Bio-hybrid Light-Emitting Diodes (FPNP-BioLED)

Dr. Soumya Mukherjee

TUM Chair: Chair of Inorganic and Metal-Organic Chemistry, Prof. Roland A. Fischer
TUM Department: Department of Chemistry
Project: Hydrophobic metal-organic adsorbents to decontaminate water from Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (HECTOR)

Dr. Christoph Hirche

TUM Chair: Theory of Complex Quantum Systems , Prof. Dr. Robert T. König
TUM Department: Department of Mathematics
Project: Tracking Information in Quantum Networks (TITAN)

MSCA EF 2021 Call

Dr. Moran Balaish

TUM Chair: Associate Professorship of Solid-State Electrolyte Chemistry, Prof. Jennifer Rupp
TUM Department: TUM Department of Chemistry
Project: Novel Li-Operated Potentiometric Electrochemical Gas Sensors (LiPEGS)

Dr. Douglas R. Norberto

TUM Chair: Chair of Biotechnology, Prof. Johannes Büchner
TUM Department: Department of Bioscience
Project: Dynamics of p53 mutant reactivation and the anti-carcinogenic action of engineered resveratrol analogues (p53-REACT)

Dr. Tao Yang

TUM Chair: Chair of Vibro-Acoustics of Vehicles and Machines, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Steffen Marburg
TUM Department: TUM School of Engineering and Design
Project: Textile-based Metamaterials for Broadband Noise Absorption in Low-frequency Range (TextMetamater)

Dr. Vincent Friebe

TUM Chair: Chair of Electrobiotechnology, Prof. Dr. Nicolas Plumeré
TUM Department: TUM Campus Straubing
Project: B-FHAB

Dr. Anna Zieleniewska

TUM Chair: Chair of Biogenic Funcional Materials, Prof. Dr. habil. Rubén D. Costa
TUM Department: TUM Campus Straubing
Project: Bringing heat into the bright side in bio-hybrid LEDs (Heat-BLED)

Dr. Santosh Kumar Behera

TUM Chair: Chair of Biogenic Functional Materials, Prof. Dr. Rubén D. Costa
TUM Department: TUM Campus Straubing
Project: Engineering Phosphorescent and TADF small molecules for white Light-emitting Electrochemical Cells (PoTA-LEC)

Dr. Ben A Johnson

TUM Chair: Chair of Electrobiotechnology, Prof. Dr. Nicolas Plumeré
TUM Department: TUM Campus Straubing
Project: ReLay

Dr. Jesus Banda Vasquez

TUM Chair: Chair of Biogenic Funcional Materials, Prof. Dr. habil. Rubén D. Costa
TUM Department: TUM Campus Straubing
Project: Ancestral fluorescent proteins as Biophosphors for Light-Emitting Diodes (AnBioLED)

MSCA EF 2022 Call

Dr. Tao Zhou

TUM Chair: Chair of Electrobiotechnology, Prof. Dr. Nicolas Plumeré
TUM Department: TUM Campus Straubing
Project: Electricity-Driven Enzymatic Cascades to Transform CO2 to C2+ Chemicals   (TransCO2)

MSCA PF 2023 Call

Dr. Alicia Asin Vicente

TUM Chair: Chair of Biogenic Funcional Materials, Prof. Dr. habil. Rubén D. Costa
TUM Department: TUM Campus Straubing
Project: GLEE

Dr. Yameng Ren

TUM Chair: Chair of Electrobiotechnology, Prof. Dr. Nicolas Plumeré
TUM School: TUM Campus Straubing
Project: SUPERSET