EU funding for excellent young researchers in physics

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz welcomes three postdocs funded by individual fellowships provided by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions

23.02.2016

The Institute of Physics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) succeeded in attracting an impressive total of three postdocs who will use their individual fellowships funded by the European Union to continue their research at Mainz. The young researchers are supported through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions and will together receive a total of about EUR 500,000 for 24 months.

Dr. Lykourgos Bougas will join the group of Professor Dmitry Budker to continue his research on the application of quantum sensors. These optical sensors based on color defect centers in diamond crystals can be used to detect smallest amounts of specific biomolecules, such as proteins, at room temperature. Bougas, born in 1983 in Greece, studied physics at the University of Crete, where he also earned his Ph.D. He was involved in research projects in Amsterdam and at the University of California, Berkeley, where he already cooperated with Professor Dmitry Budker.

Giulia Ferrini is a physicist in theoretical quantum optics and quantum information. In the work group headed by Professor Peter van Loock she will investigate whether and how quantum computers could outperform classical devices for information processing. Thus, she will study new theoretical models of sub-universal quantum computers. Ferrini was born in 1984 in Genoa in Italy. She received her Ph.D. from the Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble in France and worked as a post-doc at Laboratoire Kastler Brossel in Paris before joining the Laboratoire Matériaux et Phénomènes Quantiques at Université Paris Diderot in September 2014.

Kyujoon Lee is a physicist in condensed matter physics working in Professor Mathias Kläui's group. He will investigate the origins of spin orbit torques and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, which generates particularly stable chiral spin structures. This research is also closely related to the new Collaborative Research Center (CRC) on "Spin+X: Spin in its collective environment" of Mainz University and TU Kaiserslautern. Kyujoon was born in Seoul, Korea, in 1982 and received his Ph.D. in physics at Sogang University in Seoul.

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions program, named after the double Nobel Prize winning Polish-French scientist famed for her work on radioactivity, supports researchers at all stages of their careers, irrespective of their field of research or nationality. Individual fellowships are granted to researchers who want to gain experience abroad. In addition to generous research funding, the EU program provides its fellows with the ideal environment for further research and supports the mobility of researchers within and beyond Europe.