ABOUT CASIMIR

Casimir PhD Positions 2020 awarded to Nemo Andrea and Álvaro Gómez Iñesta

[26-07-2020]

This autumn, two alumni of the Casimir Pre-PhD track, Nemo Andrea and Álvaro Gómez Iñesta, will start a PhD project that they have composed themselves, the so-called Casimir PhD positions. On 3 July, they have successfully defended their proposals before a jury of three PIs from our research school. In the below, Nemo and Álvaro briefly introduce themselves. The Casimir Board wishes these early career researchers all the best with starting their PhD projects. 

Nemo Andrea - After obtaining my Nanobiology BSc joint degree at TU Delft and Erasmus MC, I enrolled in the Casimir pre-PhD program. After doing my two internships, I decided to write a PhD proposal that is on the verge of two research fields: in the coming four years, I would like to study microtubule dynamics by graphene liquid cell electron microscopy. I am very happy that I can start my research in the lab of Gregory Schneider at Leiden University and the lab of Marileen Dogterom at Delft University of Technology/Bionanoscience. 

Álvaro Gómez Iñesta - I studied Engineering Physics and Aerospace Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Barcelona). After a year doing research on quantum nanoplasmonics and neural networks at the MIT, I enrolled in the MSc in Applied Physics at the TU Delft. In 2019, I was one the recipients of the Hendrik Casimir Prize. Recently, I completed my master thesis on quantum cryptography in Stephanie Wehner’s group at QuTech, and after that, I started working on new functionalities for the adaptive sampling algorithm developed in the Quantum Tinkerer group in Delft. The many interdisciplinary projects that are carried out by the groups in the Casimir Research School makes it a very motivating environment for me — I am looking forward to start my PhD here, which will be on "Complex Phenomena and Data Transmission in the Quantum Internet". 

About the Casimir PhD positions and the Casimir Pre-PhD track

The first four Casimir PhD positions were funded through the NWO Graduate Programme. Between 2014 and 2020 the Casimir PhD positions were funded through the NWO-Gravitation program ‘NanoFront.’ Casimir PhD positions are awarded to outstanding students of the Casimir Pre-PhD track. Apart from Nemo and Álvaro, the following twenty alumni of the track received a Casimir PhD position: 

  1. Tim Baart (now researcher at Shell), 
  2. Julia Cramer (now postdoc in science communication at Leiden University), 
  3. Chris Smiet (now postdoc at Princeton), 
  4. Jelmer Wagenaar (now lecturer Physics at Leiden University and physics teacher at Stedelijk Gymnasium Leiden), 
  5. Henk Snijders (now quantum system engineer at Quix), 
  6. Misha Klein (now postdoc and data modeling expert at TU Delft), 
  7. Tom van der Reep, 
  8. Marios Kounalakis (now postdoc at TU Delft), 
  9. Guoji Zheng, 
  10. Joeri de Bruijckere, 
  11. Michiel Bakker (Michiel decided to accept a PhD position at MIT instead), 
  12. Eduardo Pavinato Olimpio (due to personal circumstances, Eduardo had to stop his project in the first year), 
  13. Remko Fermin, 
  14. Jingkun Guo, 
  15. Tobias de Jong,
  16. Hans Bartling, 
  17. Tjerk Benschop,
  18. Joris Carmiggelt,
  19. Damian Bouwmeester, and
  20. Stefano Polla.

The Casimir Pre-PhD track focuses on preparing MSc students for a PhD position, either at Leiden, Delft or elsewhere. You can read more about the Casimir Pre-PhD track here.

Alvaro Nemo