TUM Global Postdoc Fellowship Holders
In 2021, the Technical University of Munich introduced the TUM Global Postdoc Fellowship. This new two-year fellowship-program offers excellent researchers who have recently completed their doctorate the chance to continue their academic career at TUM. TUM Global Postdoc Fellows receive a 24-months fellowship to conduct a project of their choice in collaboration with a TUM host professor. In this way, the TUM Global Postdoc Fellows have the freedom to sharpen their academic profile while providing the opportunity to initiate new research projects with TUM researchers. The fellowships are partly financed by the TUM University Foundation.
The TUM Global Postdoc Fellowship replaces the previous TUM University Foundation Fellowship.
These are the TUM Global Postdoc Fellows who are currently working at TUM or starting their research stay in the near future:
Current Fellows
TUM Chair: Semiconductor Quantum Nanosystems, Prof. Dr. Jonathan Finley
TUM Department: Physics
Academic Career and Research Areas:
Alex Delhomme received a PhD degree in Physics in 2022 from Université Grenoble Alpes (Grenoble, France). At the Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Intense, the French continuous high magnetic field facility, he investigated the optical and magnetic properties of Van der Waals lamellar systems. His research focused on the recombination of interlayer excitons in transition metal dichalcogenide heterobilayers. Prior to completing his PhD, he received a M.Sc in Nanophysics and holds a B.Sc. in Physics from the same university.
Delhomme research interests lie in the experimental characterization of low dimensional quantum structures as well as the physics of systems in extreme environment. At TUM, his efforts are directed at investigating novel quantum phases created by a strain tunable moiré potential in two-dimensional quantum materials.
TUM Chair: Biogenic Functional Materials, Prof. Dr. Rubén D. Costa
TUM Department: TUM Campus Straubing
Academic Career and Research Areas:
Dr. Nesibe A. Dogan completed her PhD degree with full scholarship at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 2019. Her research focused on synthesis of nanoporous polymers for capture of CO2 gas from industrial flue gas mixtures and precious metal capture from wastewaters. She developed nanoporous covalent organic polymers which were chemically tuned to have an affinity for the desired material in a liquid or gaseous mixture.
During her postdoctoral work at CNRS in collaboration with Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (Paris, France), she worked in a Horizon2020 project and developed nanocellulose-metal organic framework composite thin films and built an adsorption chamber to operate tests on the artefacts.
Currently as a postdoctoral researcher in Aalto University (Finland), she is involved with synthesis and characterization of nanocellulose gels and cyanobacterial growth for photosynthetic cell factories with FET Open Horizon2020 project.
During her fellowship at TUM, she will combine nanocellulose derivatives and fluorescent proteins to develop color filters for bioLEDs. Hybrid optoelectronics is a newly emerging field which promises to incorporate biological materials to advance Green Photonics concept.
TUM Chair: Phytopathology, Prof. Dr. Ralph Hückelhoven
TUM Department: TUM School of Life Sciences
Academic Career and Research Areas:
Dr. Anik Dutta has received his doctoral degree in 2021 from ETH Zurich, funded by Federal Office for Agriculture in Switzerland. His PhD research focused on understanding the principles of agricultural pathogen adaptation to biotic and abiotic environments. Using high throughput phenotypic and whole genome sequence data, he investigated mechanisms that maintain genetic diversity in pathogen life-history traits. He also conducted the large-scale genome wide association mapping to uncover sources of complex trait genetic variation. Prior to his PhD, he completed M.Sc. in Crop Sciences from the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart.
His research activities at the Chair of Phytopathology at TUM in collaboration with Dr. Remco Stam are directed at studying the diversity and evolution of plant-pathogen interactions under variable climatic conditions. He will use precise phenotypic and genomic data to identify resistance and susceptibility genes in wild tomato plants to different pathogen. The knowledge derived from this research will be valuable for plant breeders to develop crop varieties with durable resistance to plant pathogens.
TUM Chair: Process Systems Engineering, Prof. Dr. Heiko Briesen
TUM Department: TUM School of Life Sciences
Academic Career and Research Areas:
Dr. Graziano Frungieri is a Chemical Engineer, graduated from Politecnico di Torino, Italy, in 2014. He obtained his PhD from Politecnico di Torino in 2018, with a thesis dealing with the numerical simulation of aggregation and breakup phenomena in sheared colloidal suspensions. During his PhD, he spent one year as a guest researcher at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
After his PhD, within the H2020 project VIMMP, he worked on the development of multiscale simulation strategies coupling CFD and DEM simulations to address industrially relevant modelling challenges.
At TUM, Dr. Graziano Frungieri will work on the development of novel computational techniques to study the production of Janus colloidal particles via Pickering emulsion and their exploitation as building blocks for supra-colloidal structures.
TUM Chair: Building Technology and Climate Responsive Design, Prof. Thomas Auer
TUM Department: TUM School of Engineering and Design
Academic Career and Research Areas:
Muhammad Hegazy is an architect and researcher with strong research interests in sustainability, building simulation, and interactive immersive environments. His doctoral research in Architectural Engineering (Osaka University, Japan) focused on the assessment and spatial mapping of daylight perception in architectural spaces using virtual reality, as well as the relationship between such perceptions and physically based daylight metrics.
At TUM, he will pursue a research project on physiological and psychological reactions to daylighting in virtual built environments. This research will contribute to a better understanding of the interdependencies between perception, wellbeing, and daylighting attributes in the built environment.
TUM Chair: Food Chemistry and Molecular Sensory Science, Prof. Dr. Corinna Dawid
TUM Department: TUM School of Life Sciences
Academic Career and Research Areas:
Dr. Maryam Hemmati graduated with a PhD in Applied/Analytical Chemistry from University of Semnan (Iran) in March 2019. In 2018, she got a nationally competitive fellowship to pursue more research opportunities on doctoral level at Granada University (Spain). Her research works have dealt with developing sample preparation techniques compatible with different samples followed by LC-DAD and LC-MS/MS analyses. In 2019, she awarded a grant to undertake postdoctoral research at the University of Liege (Belgium) on “LC‐MS for metabolomics in the context of fluxomics analysis”. She conducted an exercise-induced targeted metabolomics study on low-volumes of whole blood, which were collected by using microsampling techniques.
At TUM, she will develop an integrated Metabo-Lipid-Prote-omics approach to study the inflammation dependent and independent cancer models in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Corinna Dawid.
TUM Chair: Chemistry of Biogenic Resources, Prof. Dr. Volker Sieber
TUM Department: TUM Campus Straubing
Academic Career and Research Areas:
Dr. Sara Arana Peña has completed her PhD under the direction of Prof. Dr. Roberto Fernández Lafuente in Optimization of Enzymatic Biocatalysts and Bioprocess group at the ICP-CSIC (Spain). Previously she has obtained her B.Sc. in Biology and a M.Sc. in Industrial and Environmental Biotechnology from the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain).
Dr. Arana Peña’s research is focused on the field of enzyme immobilization. The use of different immobilization strategies, the development and modification of supports and the characterization of biocatalysts were the main points to highlight out of it. At TUM, she will lead a project at Prof. Dr. Volker Sieber’s group to develop co-immobilization strategies for enzymes involved in cascades reactions for their application in sustainable chemistry processes. The preparation of optimal co-immobilized cascades will allow to reduce the cost of processes and improve reaction yields, providing a promising green alternative to the traditional chemical industry.
TUM Chair: Applied Topology and Geometry, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Bauer
TUM Department: Mathematics
Academic Career and Research Areas:
Dr. Alexander Rolle completed his PhD in Mathematics at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, in 2019. There, he studied applications of topological methods to algebraic geometry, and motivic cohomology in particular. From 2019 to 2021, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at TU Graz, Austria, focusing on topological data analysis.
Dr. Rolle’s research is aimed at the development of novel methods in data analysis and statistics that build on well-understood mathematical tools, and especially the tools of algebraic topology. At TUM, he will work on multi-parameter persistent homology and statistics.
TUM Chair: Inorganic and Metal-Organic Chemistry, Prof. Dr. Roland A. Fischer
TUM Department: Chemistry
Academic Career and Research Areas:
Sophie Thomas graduated with a Master of Chemistry at Cardiff University (UK) in 2017 before gaining a place on the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Catalysis programme. In 2018, Sophie obtained a Master of Research in Catalysis and then began her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Angela Casini at Cardiff University. Her doctoral research focuses on the use of gold complexes as therapeutic agents, with a focus on achieving catalysis in living cells.
At TUM, she will focus on the use of water-soluble gold nanoparticles stabilized by N-heterocyclic carbenes for applications in catalysis and biomedicine, with potential to combine both applications for catalysis in cells for therapy.
Future Fellows
TUM Chair: Transportation Systems Engineering, Prof. Dr. Constantinos Antoniou
TUM Department: TUM School of Engineering and Design
Academic Career and Research Areas:
Dr. Liang was a postdoctoral researcher in Traffic Information and Control Engineering at Tongji University, Shanghai, China, from 2019 to 2021, where he also pursued his doctoral degree between 2014 and 2019. From 2016 to 2018, he was a visiting Ph.D. student at University of Washington. His research focuses on data-driven optimization and control of transportation systems with connected autonomous vehicles, and machine learning. He is particularly interested in developing machine learning models, control models, optimization models and game theory to tackle research challenges.
At TUM, he will conduct research on “Personalized Cooperative Automated Platooning using Safe Reinforcement Learning”. In this research, he will develop a simulation platform which is capable of simulating human driving behaviours in a realistic traffic and vehicle-to-vehicle communication environment. Further, using safe reinforcement learning theory, he will develop a methodology for describing human driving styles in making decisions on platoon formation, platoon maintenance and platoon dissolution as well as in planning the corresponding trajectory, and a methodology for personalized decision making and trajectory planning for human-machine-collaboration-driven vehicles.