MSCA AWARDS

Dinga Wonanke A.D. was born and raised in Cameroon, where he completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Chemistry before travelling to New Zealand for a PhD. During his doctoral studies, he developed a model for predicting molecules susceptible to undergo light-induced cyclization. After obtaining his PhD, he pursued two postdoctoral positions in the U.K. and Germany, where he constructed a database of thousands of curated porous materials. Now, he is dedicated to crafting predictive models for synthesising flexible porous materials essential for gas storage, which can be used in hydrogen-powered vehicles. He also enjoys web development, photography, personality development, cooking, and dancing.

Lingeswaran is presently employed as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Linköping University (LiU), Sweden. He received his PhD in Chemistry in 2020 from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research primarily focuses on increasing organic and perovskite solar cell device performance for outdoor and indoor applications. With ten years of research expertise, he hopes to continue working on sustainable energy by developing low-cost and toxin-free materials-based solar cells that can be integrated into our daily lives to make this planet greener and safer for everyone.

Nancy is an Early Stage Researcher at Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, as part of the SkinTERM Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions project. As fetal skin is able to regenerate without scars, her doctoral research focuses on the development of skin substitutes with components that mimic the fetal microenvironment.

Nancy obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Bioprocess Engineering, SLP, Mexico. Later, she was awarded the Chevening Scholarship from the British government to get her Master’s degree in Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Sheffield, UK. She has focused her projects on the development of biomaterials and cell therapy for wound healing in burn patients. She is very passionate for the Tissue Engineering field and how to translate this technology to people.

Nancy enjoys exploring dancing from different parts of the world.

Késia Decoté is a Brazilian pianist and toy pianist specialising in contemporary music and in interdisciplinary practices. Késia is interested in exploring innovative ways to present piano music, looking for creating unique experiences for her audience. Késia has performed solo concerts in Europe, Brazil and Canadá, and has recordings released by Nonclassical as well as an independent artist. Késia is also committed to promoting works by women composers. She is an ambassador for DONNE UK – Women in Music. Késia is a Marie Słodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bergen developing the project ‘music as an invitation’, which explores new forms of participation of women and girls in classical music performances.

Carolyn is an artist, researcher and facilitator whose work centres less heard voices.
She holds a PhD from London South Bank University in co-creating culture and policy, and an MA from Central Saint Martins in performance and design. Follow-on work has since focused on migration studies, exploring how art by and about migrants can disrupt marginalising practices on both a cultural and political policy level. Carolyn’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions fellowship focuses on art in the border and its potential for imagining dignity and compassion within the dehumanised landscape.

Lucía Doyle has a highly multidisciplinary background. She graduated as a Chemical Engineer at the Autónoma University of Madrid, and later conducted a MSc in Energy and Fuels for the Future (UAM) and a MSc in Design and Management of Technological Projects (UNIR). In 2022 she obtained her PhD in Civil Engineering at the Hafencity University Hamburg, where she researched and conceived alternative polymeric foams to polyurethane for district heating pipelines. Her dissertation led to 10 scientific publications. Lucía has conducted R&D work in three different countries, and both in the public and private sectors, applying circular economy principles to energy, infrastructure and aerospace applications. Her current area of research is the combination of 3D printing and physical foaming for the manufacturing of ultra-lightweight multifunctional PEEK microstructures. She is mother of two children.

Irini Furxhi is a Marie Curie Postdoc researcher with background in machine learning and toxicology. She is exploring the safe-by-design paradigm for composite nanomaterials, seeking data-driven solutions. Previously, she worked as a Postdoc researcher at Transgero Ltd in Ireland, where she contributed to EU project ASINA. Within ASINA, her responsibilities included overseeing data management and utilizing computational tools for hazard-based predictions. Irini received her Ph.D. in Machine Learning for Nanomaterial Safety from the University of Limerick, Kemmy Business School. Her master’s thesis in toxicology, delved into the assessment of health risks posed by environmental toxicants through biokinetics modelling.

As a postdoctoral researcher, I delve into the realm of functional foods, enriching them with omega-3 and harnessing bioactive peptides to optimize their health benefits. My focus extends to combating oil oxidation, ensuring product quality and shelf life. I’m driven by a passion for food science, particularly in utilizing marine resources innovatively. My work involves integrating innovative ideas from marine sources into everyday foods, seeking to enhance both nutritional value and customer satisfaction. Through meticulous experimentation, I aim to craft products that marry scientific rigor with culinary delight, shaping the future of functional food technology.

Gabriele Greco, born in 1991, received his degree in physics from the University of Ferrara and his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Trento. He is currently a researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and his interests focus on the mechanics of spiders and their silk, which he has always considered as hobbies. His passion for spiders led him to co-found the Italian Society of Arachnology – Aracnofilia, in which he serves as vice president.

Inès Hamouda is a physico chemist, holding a PhD in Material Science and Engineering. She is a passionate scientist dedicated to pioneering solutions addressing critical healthcare needs on a global scale. Across several international research work experiences, she led expertise in the development of future biomaterials applied to regenerative medicine. Her main focus is in the reproduction of in vitro models of human pathological diseases, as a reliable platform for drug testing and validation in pre-clinical studies.

As a medicinal chemist, Greta specialises in developing drug candidates. Before moving to Belgium, she finished her PhD at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. She completed two international research stays at Humboldt University and Stony Brook University, and worked for a year at the startup FiLeClo. Since April 2021, She has been working as a postdoctoral researcher in the Medicinal Chemistry Research Group (UAMC) led by Prof. Koen Augustyns. In 2022, she was awarded the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions postdoctoral fellowship for the NeuroFerro project. She aims to develop substances capable of inhibiting ferroptosis, a form of cell death recently associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. She addresses challenges related to designing and synthesizing novel chemical entities that can penetrate the blood-brain barrier and exhibit therapeutic effects in the brain.

Dr. Pranav Lanka, is a physicist from the south of India. His current research interest is in the multi-disciplinary field of Biophotonics, which uses photonics or the physics of light to study biological tissues, particularly human organs. He received his Ph.D. from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, and is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at Ireland’s Tyndall Institute, both of which were funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme. His doctoral studies were dedicated to devising non-invasive optical strategies for the continuous monitoring of complex organs, like the brain. Presently, he is engaged in developing technologies for the precise evaluation of the health and gas transport of lung in neonatal infants, continuing his commitment to advancing the field of non-invasive healthcare.

Ferran Sancho earned his Chemistry degree from the University of Barcelona in 2013, where he conducted research on lipid bilayer behavior, sparking his interest in biomodeling. Subsequently, he pursued a Master’s degree in Theoretical Chemistry and Computational Modelin. His doctoral studies were completed within the Electronic and Atomic Protein Modeling group at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. His research focused on oxidoreductase catalysis, particularly flavoproteins and laccases, with a focus on designing new variants for eco-friendly industrial applications. Currently, he serves as the Chief Scientific Officer at Zymvol, where he co-leads the software development team and manages the company’s relationships with academia and training programs.

Sarah Josefine Schaefer is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Limerick and holds a PhD in English from the University of Galway. Her main research interests are sociolinguistics, contact linguistics, and language and cultural changes in times of accelerated globalisation. Holding an MA in Journalism, she is also interested in media studies, especially in the characteristics of media language. Her recent monograph New Perspectives on Language Mobility: English on German Radio (Bloomsbury Academic) combines poststructuralist sociolinguistic theory and approaches from contact linguistics to promote methodological pluralism in the study of language mobility.

Mateusz studied physics and mathematics at the University of Warsaw, where he also obtained his PhD in physics.
His work at that time focused on estimating correlation and graph theory.
Afterwards he moved to Italy where he worked on clustering algorithms for networks.
Before starting his MSCA Fellowship he spent 3 years in Los Alamos Laboratory, where he worked mostly on learning and inference methods for dynamics on networks.
His current project focuses on using machine learning to build intelligent agents for financial markets simulation.
He has broad interests including network science, machine learning, statistical physics, epidemic modelling and financial markets.
He also has experience in working for the industry, which includes hedge funds, investment banks and fintech companies.