Polimi welcomes 17 young researchers granted with a MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship
This year, 17 outstanding PhD researchers, winners of the prestigious MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship, have chosen the Politecnico di Milano as host institution for their research projects. They come from Argentina, Bolivia, China, Cyprus, France, India, Iran, Pakistan and Spain, but there are also Italians who are coming home after working abroad to continue their research at Polimi; all of them will receive training and supervision to enhance their skills and boost their careers through advanced research, international, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral mobility.
Candidates choosing Polimi as their research destination stood out with a success rate of 26.5% - well above the European success rate of 16.6%. Moreover, 16 Seals of Excellence were awarded to candidates who achieved the quality threshold for funding eligibility but could not be financed due to budget limitations of the call.
As an additional opportunity, the 5 best European MSCA Postdoctoral Fellows hosted at Politecnico di Milano, not funded by the European Commission but awarded a 'Seal of Excellence', have been offered a post-doctoral position for 2 years with a salary of €40,000 a year (gross) and a €20,000 start-up fund for research, training and networking.
Victor Alcolea-Rodriguez (Spain)
The project “Label-Free Raman Approaches for Patient-Specific Biochemical Tumor Mapping to Monitor Personalized Anticancer Resistance Simulation” (RAMPART) is designed to apply label-free Raman spectroscopy to identify spectral biomarkers of resistance in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC). By leveraging biochemical tumor imaging, the project aims to develop a rapid method for predicting therapy response to radiotherapy and immunotherapy, enabling more effective, personalized cancer treatments.
Rahime Atashgah (Iran)
The project focuses on the advancement of nanomedicine approaches for cancer therapy, leveraging a novel cancer modeling approach on a chip. This endeavor will contribute to a deeper understanding of cancer mechanisms while also facilitating the development and refinement of nanoparticles intended for cancer treatment.
Tommaso Bianconi (Italy)
The project, “DEF-TUBES”, focuses on understanding the unique energy flow inside s-SWCNTs to improve how we use light energy in technology. These carbon nanotubes are tiny, cylindrical structures — about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair— yet they have extraordinary properties. When light hits them, they absorb energy and transfer it along their length at incredible speed, much faster than in conventional materials. Scientists still don’t fully understand how this process works or how to control it for practical applications like solar panels and electronic devices.
Viviana Jacqueline Castro Quispe (Bolivia)
The construction industry is a major source of waste and pollution. Concrete contributes significantly to this problem. The MaDeCyBeam project seeks to make concrete more sustainable by using recycled materials from construction and demolition waste. The research focuses on how to incorporate these recycled aggregates into concrete mixtures while ensuring that the resulting material is strong and reliable for use in buildings and infrastructure. This approach not only helps reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills but also conserves natural resources used in traditional concrete production. MaDeCyBeam aims to make construction more environmentally friendly and contribute to a circular economy model.
Duo Zhang (China)
The rising speed of freight trains brings increased motion resistances, resulting in more energy consumption and derailment risk. The proposed project builds and validates a wind-vehicle-track coupled model. Based on numerical simulation results, the energy efficiency and running safety are enhanced by optimizing train’s structural parameters and control strategy. If widely applied within the EU, research outcomes could save €1.3 billion and reduce carbon emissions by 0.3 million metric tons annually.
Twinkle George (India)
Halide perovskites with structural formula ABX3 are excellent materials for optoelectronics. However, they exhibit structural and operational instability. Thus, by altering the A-site cation in ABX3 new dimensional perovskites with tailored properties could be developed. The aim of HALLOW-PeLEDs project is to synthesize novel cations with the help of halogen bonds, that can be used to prepare lower dimensional perovskites with excellent luminescent properties for constructing LEDs.
Davide Landi (Italy)
Homeless youth and empty buildings are spiralling out of control across Europe. Both issues seem to answer one another. Instead, European rules still prioritise those making profits than youths needing a roof over their heads. Thus, the proposed research aims to understand and address youth homelessness in Europe and their challenges for future urban living by exploring innovative adaptive reuse of empty buildings.
Marios Maimaris (Cyprus)
As global warming intensifies, the need for renewable energy grows. Solar power stands out as a key solution, with organic-based solar cells gaining attention for their flexibility, affordability, and eco-friendliness. However, their efficiencies remain limited, and the SPERAPHOUS project aims to address this by employing laser beams generating photocurrent to capture how light-to-electricity conversion occurs in timescales as short as 0.000000000000001s, crucial to improving their efficiency.
Alfonso Nardi (Italy)
Large language models (e.g., ChatGPT) have popularized artificial intelligence, yet their energy consumption doubles every two months, an unsustainable trend driven by their highly interconnected electronic hardware. Photonics has the potential to provide a faster, energy-efficient alternative to electronic computers. The Marie Curie project aims to develop an innovative nanophotonic structure to enable scalable, powerful, and efficient photonic neural networks.
Luca Reali (Italy)
Many of the devices that we so incessantly use contain tiny, so called micro electromechanical systems, or MEMS, from the accelerometer in our phones to advanced sensors for drones and aviation. The research project will be focused on exploiting advanced materials simulations to predict the residual life of MEMS in ordinary applications and to push the boundaries of their safe deployment to extreme temperatures or environments such as space or deep underground.
Maxime Robic (France)
TANGO project (Task-based visual Autonomous Navigation and Guidance in close-proximity uncooperative Operations) aims to couple a traditional video camera with an asynchronous vision sensor called Event camera, that captures discrete pixel changes in the scene with an unprecedented acquisition speed, to allow satellites sensing rapidly and precisely their environment. Such reactive navigation will drive the design of visual guidance laws for tackling complex orbital missions autonomously.”
Maria Teresa Politi (Argentina)
The project explores how aortic grafts contribute to dissection and aneurysm risks in non-grafted areas after thoracic aortic graft surgery, a complication particularly frequent in genetic conditions. Using advanced cardiovascular imaging and computational simulations, this research aims to improve personalized graft design tailored to individual patient biomechanics, potentially enhancing safety and surgical outcomes.
Sounak Sarkar (India)
Spintronics is a key component to the advancement of quantum computation. Till now, spintronics are explored in inorganic solids which suffer from high density and limited chemical tunability. The aim of the MSCA project SpinQc, is to develop new design principles based on a quantitative superexchange model. SpinQc will aid in selecting the right combination of ligands and metals, to design disruptive spintronics based on coordination networks with desired magnetic properties.
Marion Taconné (France)
INSIGHT-LV project aims to discover new ways to predict heart disease risks by analyzing how well the heart's left ventricle functions. Advanced techniques will be used, combining computer models and artificial intelligence, to find and integrate new biomarkers. This will provide help to doctors managing diseases better and personalize care for patients with conditions like heart failure, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and COVID-19-related heart issues.
Saad Waqar (Pakistan)
Steel structures are a fundamental component of modern infrastructure, yet conventional fabrication and joining methods can influence their lifespan, leading to economic and environmental challenges. The project proposes the use of additively manufactured geometric and/or material-based functionally graded steel components as an innovative approach to extending the life span and performance of steel structures.
Xi Li (China)
Multi-stable composite structures are promising candidates to create adaptive/morphing structures and decrease fuel consumption for aerospace sectors. However, repetitive stable-mode switches can cause fatigue damage onset. DEFORM will advance state-of-art of against-fatigue design, modelling and testing for multi-stable aerospace structures, supporting European Green Deal for the EU’s ambition of climate neutral by 2050.
The final project is related to severe railway slab track failure inducted by intensified extreme heat waves in a warming climate. This project will tackle this issue by developing a digital twin-based approach to improve resilience of slab tracks, making slab tracks safer, more environmentally-friendly and more economical in a warming climate.