Prof. Cristina Benea-Chelmus will kick-off the group in January 2022 at EPFL. Cristina pursued a Postdoctoral position at Harvard University in the group of Federico Capasso. She finished her PhD in 2018 at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, in the group of Jérôme Faist. She has been a visiting scientist in the group of Rupert Huber at the University of Regensburg in 2018.
Aside from science, she is a vivid advocate for more women in science and teamwork.
She engages with the Quantum Science Center at EPFL, the Optical Society of America and is a visiting professor at Harvard University.
March 2019 – December 2021: Postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, USA
November 2018 – February 2019: Visiting postdoc, University of Regensburg, Germany
June 2018 – March 2019: Postdoctoral scientist ETHZ, Switzerland
October 2013 – March 2018: Dr. of Sc., Physics, ETHZ, Switzerland
October 2011 -June 2013: M. Sc. with distinction, Optics and Photonics, KIT, DE
October 2010 -June 2011: ERASMUS exchange Physics, EPFL, Switzerland
October 2007 -June 2010: B. Sc. Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, KIT, DE
Internships: Vanderbilt University (USA), IMEC (Belgium), IBM Research (Switzerland)
Expertise: Nanophotonics, ultrafast optics, time-domain quantum optics, terahertz science, light-matter interaction, high-speed modulators, metasurfaces
Nanofabrication and analysis: lithography, evaporation, etching, film deposition, microscopy techniques, focussed ion beam, atomic force microscopy
Leadership: supervised the work of several Physics and Engineering Master students as well as young PhD students, initiated and managed collaborative work with multiple research groups across Europe and the USA
Teaching: teaching assistant undergraduate courses (quantum mechanics, signals and systems, quantum optics, electronic circuits, higher mathematics) and master courses (semiconductors)
Outreach and institutional work : engages with various communities, centers and associations at ETHZ, Harvard and EPFL
PRIMA grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation, 2022-2027
Hans Eggenberger Prize and subsequent Project funding, 2019-2021
PhD thesis prize of the European Physical Society (EPS), 2019
PhD thesis prize from the Swiss Physics Society in Metrology, 2019
SNF early postdoc mobility fellowship for a stay at Harvard, 2018
3 best student paper presentations
Several early stipends: DAAD, SyBBURE, Anna Ruths, KSOP, KIT&IBM female talents, FEMTEC