Postdoctoral Junior Leader “la Caixa” Fellowships

The “la Caixa” Foundation has announced and awarded fellowships for the 2021 call of their prestigious Postdoctoral Junior Leader programme. Of the forty-five fellowships awarded this year, three are for ICFO Research Fellows, and two for ICFO Group Leaders who have recently started their own group at the institute.

• ICFO Professor Dr Pelayo García de Arquer, received his PhD from ICFO in 2015 with a thesis on Plasmonic Hot-Carrier Optoelectronics, after which he went on to the University of Toronto as a postdoctoral researchers where he began working with new types of nanomaterials and expanding his research area. In 2020, Pelayo returned to ICFO to start the CO₂ Mitigation Accelerated by Photons research group, working on the development of nanomaterials that can be used, for example, for the development of clean energies, as well as to capture CO₂ from the atmosphere and transform it into fuels and other products.

• Dr Manuel Gessner , who holds a PhD in Physics from the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (DE), joined ICFO in November 2021 as a Research Fellow in the Quantum Information Theory group led by ICREA Prof Antonio Acín. His work at ICFO focuses on the study of many-body quantum systems and their application to quantum information protocols.

• Dr Allan Johnson , holds a PhD from Imperial College London, joined ICFO in 2017 as a PROBIST postdoctoral researcher in the Ultrafast Dynamics of Quantum Solids group. He is currently a Research Fellows in the Quantum Optics Theory group led by ICREA Prof Maciej Lewenstein and will be working to use a combination of advanced laser control techniques, derived from the science of quantum information, and new methods of nanoscale imaging, to make the transient states of quantum materials completely stable.

• ICFO Professor Dr Georgia Papadakis, received her PhD from California Institute of Technology in 2018 focused on light-matter interactions in nanostructures and 2D materials. She went on work as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, where much of her work focused on radiative heat transfer in the near-field for applications in renewable energies. Georgia joined ICFO in July 2021 where she has started the Thermal Photonics group, developing a program for harnessing thermal radiation via controlling light-matter interactions at infrared frequencies, for the purpose of efficient light extraction and energy conversion.

• Dr Alejandro Turpín Avilés, holds a PhD in Physics from the Universität Autònomo de Barcelona. He joined ICFO in July 2021 as a Research Fellow in the Optopelectronics group led by ICREA Prof Valerio Pruneri where he working on artificial intelligence in photonics.

Co-funded by the European Commission through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Action under Horizon 2020, Postdoctoral Junior Leader programme is intended to recruit excellent researchers of any nationality who wish to continue their research career in Spanish or Portuguese territory in the areas of health and life sciences, technology, physics, engineering and mathematics.

The program is aimed at hiring excellent researchers, of any nationality, who wish to continue their research career in Spain or Portugal. The objectives of this programme are to foster high-quality, innovative research in Spain and Portugal and to support the best scientific talent by providing them with an attractive, competitive environment in which to conduct excellent research.

Within the Junior Leader programme, fellowships are awarded to attract incoming talent, and also to retain talented researchers. Incoming fellows are offered a three-year employment contract to conduct a research project at accredited centres with the Severo Ochoa or María de Maeztu distinction of excellence. Recipients of fellowships to retain talent may carry out research at any university or research centre in Spain or Portugal.

By means of a complementary training programme, these fellowships aim to consolidate research skills and foster independent scientific careers as a career option, addressing issues such as leadership, conflict resolution or communication.

Congratulations Pelayo, Manuel, Allan, Georgia, and Alex!