Postdoc.Mobility fellowships provide support for a research stay abroad (24 months), for researchers who have done a doctorate and who wish to pursue a scientific or an academic career in Switzerland. NEXT APPLICATION DEADLINE. 05.08.2025 17:00 Swiss time
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\r\nThe SNSF is organising an online event to present the Postdoc.Mobility fellowships on 12 May 2025, from 10:00 to 11:30 (Swiss time). The presentation of the funding scheme will be followed by a Q&A session. Interested persons can register now via this link.
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\r\nThe fellowship covers:\r\n
Please join us for the QSE Center Quantum Seminar with Ulf Leonhardt from the Weizmann Institute of Science who will give a talk about \"Fibre-optical analogue of the event horizon: Hawking radiation and backreaction\" on Thursday July 2nd from 12:00 to 13:30.
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\r\nPizzas will be available at 12:00. All PhDs, postdocs, students, group leaders, and PIs are welcome to join us.
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\r\nTITLE: \"Fibre-optical analogue of the event horizon: Hawking radiation and backreaction\"
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\r\nABSTRACT:
\r\nHawking radiation - the emission of quantum particles at the event horizon of a black hole - connects gravity with quantum mechanics and thermodynamics; the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy has been the benchmark for potential quantum theories of gravity. But Hawking radiation has never been observed in astronomy, only in laboratory analogues and the chances of ever observing it in space are astronomically small. The energy of Hawking radiation must come from the gravitational field around the black hole, but how field quanta generate Hawking quanta has been unknown. In this talk I report on experimental and theoretical evidence for the process that generates Hawking radiation in a fibre-optical analogue of the event horizon. There, as in gravity, it has been believed that Hawking radiation comes from a complicated, cascaded process, but we have found a simple, direct process and measured its backreaction on the field. Our findings suggest an equally direct process for other laboratory analogues and perhaps also for gravitational fields, shedding light on how black holes might radiate.
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\r\nBIO:
\r\nUlf Leonhardt joined the Weizmann Institute of Science as Professor of Physics in November 2012 after an international career. Ulf Leonhardt was born in Schlema, in former East Germany, on October 9th 1965. He studied physics at Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, at Moscow State University and at Humboldt University Berlin where he received his PhD in 1993. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Oregon Center for Optics in the US, a Habilitation Fellow at the University of Ulm in Germany and a Göran-Gustafson and Feodor-Lynen fellow at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. From 2000 to 2012, he was the Chair in Theoretical Physics at the University of St Andrews, UK. Ulf Leonhardt also had various visiting positions: in 2008 he was a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore and in 2011 at the University of Vienna; in 2012/13 he was an adjunct professor at South China Normal University, fsince 2026 he is a Global Fellow and visiting professor at Vienna Institute of Technology.
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\r\nUlf Leonhardt is the first from former East Germany to receive the Otto Hahn Award of the Max Planck Society. For his PhD thesis he received the Tiburtius Prize of the Senate of Berlin. In 2006 Scientific American listed him among the top 50 policy, business and research leaders of the world of that year. In 2008 he received a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award and in 2009 a Theo Murphy Blue Skies Award of the Royal Society. In 2012 he received a thousand-talent award of China. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Pickering emulsions (PEs) have emerged as attractive platforms for the fabrication of porous and other novel functional materials. In this talk, I will first discuss strategies that can be exploited to drive particles to the interface. Thereafter, rules for the designing Pickering emulsions and their printability will be discussed. In particular, we will focus on hetero-aggregation-driven particle adsorption to fluid interfaces, which is crucial for to ensure stability of Pickering emulsions. By controlling particle interactions through parameters such as pH and particle concentration, the microstructure and rheological properties of PEs can be tailored to achieve excellent printability and shape retention during direct ink writing. Thereafter, printable PEs are used to fabricate three-dimensional architectures that are subsequently dried and sintered to obtain hierarchically porous ceramics. The resulting porous structures are characterized in terms of their microstructure, pore size, and porosity. As a demonstration, the porous ceramics are employed as supports for gold nanoparticles and evaluated in the catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol. The proposed approach provides a simple, scalable, and versatile framework for designing 3D-printable Pickering emulsions and developing functional porous materials for diverse applications.
\r\nKEYWORDS: 3D Printing, Pickering Emulsions, Porous Materials, Catalyst Support
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Partial groups are, roughly speaking, groups in which the product of a given word of elements may not always be defined. They were introduced by Chermak to study the p-local structure of finite groups and come equipped with a \"domain,\" which consists in the set of words for which the product is defined. At first glance, given a fixed set X, it may seem possible to define infinitely many partial group structures on X by varying the domains, even while ensuring that all these structures have coherent products. For example, if G is a finite group, one might expect that there could be infinitely many different partial group structures \"contained\" in G by selectively removing sets of words from the domain.
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\r\nHowever, in a joint work with Philip Hakney, we show that finite partial groups are truly finite objects: they can be defined using only a finite set of data and, in particular, contain only finitely many \"partial subgroups.\" This follows from the fact that finite partial groups have finite dimension as symmetric sets.
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\r\nDuring the talk, we will explore both the algebraic and topological approaches to partial groups and no prior knowledge of the topic will be assumed
Many plasticity rules rely on adjusting the strength of synapses between pairs of cells based on their coincident activity. We uncovered a new mechanism for coincidence detection in the Drosophila head direction network. To maintain an accurate sense of direction, head direction neurons that signal orientation during navigation must learn to anchor to relevant external sensory cues in novel environments. Yet the synaptic mechanism for this form of unsupervised learning is unknown in any organism. In Drosophila, GABAergic visual inputs converge onto head direction neurons, and these inhibitory synapses change strength with experience to learn the relationship between visual landmarks and head direction. However, how coincident pre- and postsynaptic activity is detected across this inhibitory synapse is not understood. We discovered that neurons which release the monoamine octopamine close a feedback loop that conveys postsynaptic head direction activity onto presynaptic terminals of visual inputs. This octopamine pathway is required for anchoring the head direction network to visual cues. Furthermore, pairing structured activation of octopamine neurons with a visual cue is sufficient to drive rapid plasticity, even without postsynaptic head direction cell activity. Previous work has extensively characterized coincidence detection mechanisms at excitatory synapses; our work defines a novel mechanism for coincidence detection at an inhibitory synapse, in which postsynaptic activity is relayed via a neuromodulatory neuron onto presynaptic terminals.
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Macrocyclic peptides are promising molecules for targeting intracellular protein–protein interactions and other challenging biological targets. However, their poor membrane permeability often limits their biological and therapeutic applications. Understanding the structural factors that govern passive membrane permeation is therefore essential for the rational design of cell-permeable macrocyclic peptides.
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\r\nIn this seminar, I will present our recent efforts to understand and predict the membrane permeability of macrocyclic peptides using large-scale experimental data, conformational analysis, and machine learning. We aim to clarify how conformational flexibility, including molecular chameleonicity, influences membrane permeability.
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\r\nI will also introduce our ongoing efforts toward DNA-encoded macrocyclic N-methyl peptide libraries as a future platform for discovering functional intracellular binders.
Living systems consume energy and information to survive, grow, and reproduce. These vital dynamics occur across many scales of space and time, but the most fundamental is molecular: atoms and the bonds between them. The genetic code is written in atoms. It in turn specifies the atomic structures of proteins, biology’s energy and information processing units, which execute their functions in molecular space. Therefore, in a deep sense, atomic motion is the foundation from which life emerges. I seek to understand that motion.
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\r\nOne direct and powerful route is to film macromolecules with chemical resolution in both space (Å) and time (fs). I will describe a technology that uniquely enables us to achieve both simultaneously – the X-ray free-electron laser – and show how my team has used XFELs to watch two proteins at work.
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\r\nFirst, I will present our experiments on photolyase, an enzyme that harnesses light to repair life-threatening DNA damage. We found photolyase achieves very high repair quantum efficiency through an unexpected mechanism: by locking its photoexcited chromophore into a bent configuration. Further, photolyase achieves product/substrate specificity geometrically, using a rigid active site that matches substrate but not product. Second, I will share preliminary results on cryptochrome 4, a descendant of photolyase that has been proposed to act as an avian magnetosensor. Do birds navigate using a quantum magnetic compass? Our experimental program is investigating this provocative hypothesis.
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Le stress et l’anxiété font aujourd’hui partie intégrante du quotidien, d’autant plus dans un cadre professionnel. Pression de performance, surcharge d’informations, incertitudes et distractions digitales, nous affectent toutes et tous. Lorsqu’ils deviennent chroniques, ces états impactent la santé mentale, le sommeil, la concentration, la motivation, les relations sociales et la qualité du travail.
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\r\nComprendre ces mécanismes, apprendre à les réguler, et surtout identifier ses propres déclencheurs et ressources devient alors essentiel pour évoluer dans un cadre professionnel et promouvoir un travail stable et une qualité de vie plus saine.
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\r\nCette formation vise à renforcer votre résilience, vous permettre d’identifier vos déclencheurs personnels, et d’activer des ressources internes et externes pour retrouver calme, clarté mentale et stabilité au quotidien.
Le self-leadership est un processus qui permet à une personne d’être plus à l’aise avec qui elle est, et qui l’amène à développer son potentiel et à construire une fondation solide à partir de laquelle toute décision – tant au niveau professionnel que personnel – peut être prise sereinement. Un bon niveau de self-leadership permet de s’épanouir à la fois dans sa propre personnalité et dans ses relations avec les autres, d’atteindre ses objectifs, et finalement, d’être un meilleur leader pour les autres.
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\r\nComment cet atelier peut vous aider: Les 3 piliers du self-leadership seront approfondis : la conscience de soi, la confiance en soi et la gestion de soi. En parallèle, ce séminaire encourage un espace de réflexion et de partage, dans lequel idées et stratégies sont échangées avec d’autres participant·e·s sur comment faire face et réussir dans des situations professionnelles souvent complexes et difficiles.
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\r\nJours 1 et 2 : 9h00 - 17h30
\r\nJour 3: 9h00 - 12h30
Le Savambulant se pose mille et une questions lors de ses promenades en solitaire sur le site fascinant et en constante évolution de l’EPFL. Le mercredi 22 juillet, il vous emmène pour une balade de 2h sur le campus.
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\r\nAu travers d’expériences captivantes, il partage ses connaissances et ses dernières découvertes avec les jeunes exploratrices et explorateurs venus·es se questionner, expérimenter et tenter de répondre à toutes sortes de questions commençant par POURQUOI comme de véritables scientifiques.
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\r\nPour qui ?
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\r\nOuvert à toute personne intéressée qui n'a pas encore suivi la promenade des Pourquoi (qui est différente de celles des Comment).
\r\nAdapté pour les familles avec enfants de 6-10 ans.
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\r\nAspects pratiques
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\r\nLa promenade durera environ 2h, dont 1h de marche effective.
\r\nLes enfants sont sous la responsabilité de leurs parents ou d’un adulte accompagnant durant toute la promenade.
\r\nGratuit, pas d'inscription préalable.
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\r\nLa promenade a lieu par tous les temps. Aucune inscription requise.
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\r\nDépart : 10h30 arrêt m1 « EPFL » dans le passage sous voie
\r\nArrivée : vers 12h30 sous les arches du Rolex Learning Center - EPFL
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\r\nProgramme de J'explore ma ville