Totally 128 publications in 2011 - Doctoral School - EPFL

Doctoral Program of Chemistry 

& Chemical Engineering (EDCH), EPFL 

The UN General Assembly has declared 2011 as the 

International Year of Chemistry. 

Image Created by PhD student 

Liz Brunk 

EPFL Doctoral Award 2011 

2 


& Chemical Engineering (EDCH), EPFL 

10.06.11 - Bruce Yoder, a former member of EPFL’s Molecular Physical 

Chemistry Laboratory (PhD advisor Prof Rainer Beck), has won an award 

for his doctoral research. 

The EPFL Doctoral Award recognizes PhD work of exceptional quality 

and aims to encourage careers in research. 

Mission PhD accomplished with this chemist.

The Doctoral Program of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering 

provides its Ph.D. students with the highest standards of education to 

help them become leaders in the engineering and chemistry sectors, 

and in molecular sciences. The program offers a wide choice of 

postgraduate courses that can be followed either at the EPFL or offcampus. 

All modern aspects of this science can be studied. 

Our school enjoys international renown for its research. Chemists 

and biochemists find in this doctoral program the up-to-date tools 

and methods to develop their expertise in the design and production 

of sophisticated substances and materials. Molecular science 

knowledge can also be gained through theory and calculations. Our 

Ph.D. students generate new knowledge the world needs now — and 

will need tomorrow. 

Our doctoral program benefits from collaboration with the 

neighbouring Universities of Geneva and Lausanne. It enjoys a 

special partnership with the Ecole Polytechnique of Palaiseau near 

Paris, with the Universities of Paris 6, Paris 11, Bordeaux in France, 

and Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium. 

http://www.linkedin.com/in/edchprogram 

3 


& Chemical Engineering 

Contributions towards the cost of conference participation at an international 

conference in the chemical sciences will be awarded to selected 

PhD students. Selections will bemade based on scientific accomplishments 

and on the conference abstract. 

Basile Curchod, 

PhD advisor Prof U. Roethlisberger 

‘Trajectory-based Solution of the Nonadiabatic Quantum 

Dynamica Equations: an On-the-fly Approach for 

Molecular Dynamics Simulations’ 

9th Triennial Congress of the World Association of 

theoretical and computational Chemists, Santiago de 

Compostela, E 

4 



SCNAT/SCS Chemistry Travel Award 2011 

Daniel Merki, 

PhD advisor Prof X.Hu 

‘Amorphous Molybdenum Sulfide as Catalyst for 

Electrochemical Hydrogen Production in Water’ 

Elecnano4, Paris, F

Computational Chemistry 

5 



Swiss Chemical Society Meeting /Best poster 

1st Prize Marius Wehrle, PhD advisor Prof J. Vanicek 

Accelerating calculations of ultrafast time-resolved electronic 

spectra with various high order split-operator algorithm 

Organic Chemistry A 

1st Prize Filippo De Simone, PhD advisor Prof J. Waser 

Prof Indole Alkaloids Synthesis via a Selective Cyclization 

of Aminocyclopropanes 

Inorganic and Coordination Chemistry 

2nd Prize Aleksander Tskhovrebov, 

PhD advisor Prof K.Severin 

Nitrous Oxide Activation by Dinuclear Ru Complexes 

Computational Chemistry 1st Prize Basile Curchod 


Trajectory-based solution of the nonadiabatic quantum 

dynamics equation : an on-the-fly approach for molecular 

dynamics simulations 

Inorganic and coordination Chemistry 

2nd Prize Erin Sheepwash 

PhD advisor Prof K. Severin 

Swiss Chemical Society Meeting /Best presentations 

Best Poster awards 2011 

F. Segawa 

Goethe-BMRZ Poster Prize" at the conference EURO- 

MAR 2011,Frankfurt 

PhD advisor Prof G. Bodenhausen 

Mohammad Reza Pourhaghighi 

Orthogonalité of two-dimensional separation systems 

based on conditional entropy , EPFL Chemistry Day 2011 

PhD advisor Prof H. Girault 

Jérémy Touati 

Enzymatic cyclisation of peptides with a transglutaminase 

PhD advisor Prof Ch. Heinis 

Xiaohang Zhang 

6 



Spectra of Cold Molecular Ions from Hot Helium 

Nanodroplets 

Dr MER M. Drabbels 

Takuya Segawa 

‘Pulse Trains with Variable Nutation Angles for 

Homonuclear Decoupling’ 

EUROMAR 2011, Frankfurt am Main D 

Prof G. Bodenhausen

Best Poster awards 2011 

Stefano Nicolai 

Loic Arm 

7 



‘Intramolecular Aminoalkynylation of Olefins 

as an Entry to Pyrrolizidine and Indolizidine 

Heterocycles’,ESOC 2011, Crete GR 

PhD advisor Prof J. Waser 

Best poster award for Master work 2010-2011 

Victoria Vita 

SN1-type reactions in the presence of Water: Indium(III) 

Promoted Highly Enantioselective Organocatalytic propargylation 

of Aldehydes , 

PhD advisor Prof J Waser 

Sergii Buth 

Crystal structure of the R2 pyocin receptor-binding fiber 

22nd Phage/Virus Assembly conference, Texas UA 

PhD advisor Prof P. Leiman 

Prizes for Teaching Activities 

8 



10 PhD students were rewarded for being particularly involved 

in their teaching duties such courses, exercises and project supervision. 

Julien Haber, Dmitrz Momotenko, Luca Fornelli, Romain Wzss, Julie 

Risse, Solenne Passemard, Nicolai Stefano, Veronika Viththum, 

Cesare Mollica, Maurin Cornuz *absent

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Teaching Committee 

Françoise Borcard 

Basile Curchod 

Jean-Baptiste Gualtierotti 



Doctoral Program of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering 

Committee 

Graduates of 2011 

Dr Sebastien Basso 

PhD advisor Dr. MER M. Schiltz 

Thesis no 5138 

Dr Hisham Ben Hamidane 

PhD advisor Prof Y. Tsybin 


Dr Ilaria Biondi 

PhD advisor Prof P. Dyson 


Dr Matthias Brun 

PhD advisor Prof K. Johnsson 


Dr Nikola Castillo 

PhD advisor Prof C. Pulgarin 

/Dr A. Heel 


Dr Enrico Condemi 

PhD advisor Prof H. Vogel 


10 



(EDCH), EPFL 

NOW Lonza,VS 

Switzerland 

NOW Civil 

Service


Dr Micaela Crespo 

PhD advisor Prof L. Kiwi 


Dr Anne Laure Dessimoz 

PhD advisor Prof L. Kiwi 


Dr Ryan Dykeman 

PhD advisor Prof P. Dyson 


Dr Davinia Fernandez Gonzalez 



Dr Anne-Laure Gassner 



Dr Hugues Jaccard 

PhD advisor Prof L. Helm 


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NOW Postoc, 

EPFL, CH 

NOW Postoc, 

UNI GVA, CH 

NOW Postdoc, 

University of 


Dr Maria Kolympadi 

Prof P. Vogel 


Dr Florian 

Le Formal 

Prof M. Graetzel 

Dr Ulrich Lorentz 

Prof T. Rizzo 


Dr Manuel Mendez 

Prof H. Girault 


Dr Pascal Miéville 

Prof G. Bodenhausen/ 

Dr S. Gerber 


Dr So-Jin Moon 



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NOW Postdoc Uni 

Neuchatel, CH 

NOW Postdoc 

Imperial 

NOW Postdoc - 

Calefornia Institute 

Of Technology, USA 

NOW Postdoc Uni 

North Carolina, USA 

NOW Scientific 

collaborator, EPFL


Dr Natalia Nagornova 

Dr MER. O. Boyarkine 


Dr Aristide Ouedraogo 

Dr MER. T. Meyer 


Dr Brice Perruche 



Dr Mahou Redouan 

Dr MER Ch. Wandrey 


Dr C. Schütz 

Dr MER Ch. Wandrey 


Dr Pietro Tanasini 

Prof C. Comninellis 

/Dr Van Herle 


13 



NOW Postdoc 

EPFL 

NOW 

Securetude, 

Aigle, CH 

NOW Postdoc 

Uni Neuchâtel, CH 

NOW Postdoc 

EPFL 

NOW Postdoc 

CHUV, CH 

NOW Huntsman, 

Monthey, CH 


Dr Stefano Vanni 

Prof U. Roethlisberger 


SNCF 

Dr Oleg Vechorkin 

Prof X. Hu 


Dr Jean-Yves Wach 

Prof K. Gademann 


14 



« Tout va bien ici pour moi. Mis à part les tremblements de terre et les 

tempêtes tropicales… 

Mon projet me plait beaucoup, et la vie est très agréable ici a Boston. 

A venir c'est le marché du travail en Europe dans mon domaine »…J.– Y. 

Dr Michael Werner 

Prof H. Vogel 


NOW Postdoc 

CNRS, France 

NOW Postdoc 

MIT, USA 

NOW Postdoc 

Uni.Boston, USA 

NOW Postdoc, 

Uni Basel, CH

Flashback Graduated 2010 



« Canada is good, It is a different experience from Europe. 

Here is my experience after graduation: ». 

April. 2010-February 2011: Post-doctoral Fellow in DNA 

and Protein Biosensors, The University of Western Ontario, 

Supervisor: Prof. Heinz-Bernie Kraatz. February 2011- 

Now: Post-doctoral Fellow in Corrosion Science and Engineering, The 

University of Western Ontario, Supervisor: Prof. David W.Shoesmith. 

Rahleh Partovi Nia, Postdoc, The University of Western Ontario 

The equipment and running of the lab and building is not as good as in 

Lausanne ...But: My supervisor is really nice and easy going as are most of 

the lecturers here. They also have a good connection to undergraduate 

students. Everybody in the labs and the building is very friendly. The environment 

is quite international with people coming from all over the world 

(Asia, Europe, America). Funnily, we are quite some "Lausannois" over 

here. About 5 former PhD students from 

EPFL. We are all enjoying the atmosphere 

over here in Australia. The science 

at the School of Chemistry at The University 

of Sydney is really diverse and 

spreads from organic chemistry via medicinal 

chemistry and polymer science to 

applied catalysis, spectroscopic methods 

to computational chemistry. Many of the 

academics have connections to the industry. I have a lot of freedom to 

work and still learn a lot. Also, Sydney is a very interesting city with loads 

of things to do at the weekend: ocean beaches and national parks surrounding 

it where activities range from sun burning ;-), surfing, snorkelling, 

diving, etc. to hiking, climbing, river rafting, caving, etc. Overall, I am very 

happy to have come here. 

Claudia Exner, Postdoc, University of Sydney 

15 

New Research Groups, 2011 

Prof Elena 

Dubikovskaya 

Prof Kevin Sivula 

Prof Cesar 

Pulgarin 

16 



Laboratory of Bioorganic 

chemistry and molecular 

imaging 

Laboratory for Molecular 

Engineering of OptoelectronicNanomaterials 

Nominated Professor

Groups by Research Area 

17 

Prof S. Arey 

Environmental Chemistry 

Modeling Laboratory 

Prof R. Beck 

Laboratory of Molecular 

Physical Chemistry 

Dr MER O. Boyarkine 



Dr MER A.-S. Chauvin 

Laboratory of Photonics and 

Interfaces 



Prof Ch. Ballif 

Photovoltaics and thin film 

electronics Laboratory 

Prof G. Bodenhausen 

Laboratory of Biomolecular 

Magnetic Resonance 

Prof F. Carbone 

Laboratory for ultrafast microscopy 

and electron scattering 

Prof M. Chergui 

Laboratory of Ultrafast Spectroscopy 

Groups by Research Area 

18 

Prof C.Corminboeuf 

Fondation Sandoz Chair in 

Computational Molecular 

Design 

Prof M. Dal Peraro 

Prof. Dal Peraro Group 

Prof P. Dyson 

Laboratory of Organometallic 

and Medicinal Chemistry 

Dr MER S. Gerber 

Laboratory of synthesis and 

natural products 


Laboratory of Photonics 

and Interfaces 

Prof Ch. Heinis 

Laboratory of Therapeutic 

Proteins and Peptides 

Prof Ch. Holliger 

Laboratory for Environmental 

Biotechnology 



Prof N. Cramer 

Laboratory of Asymmetric 

Catalysis & Synthesis 

Dr MER M. Drabbels 



Prof P. Fraering 

Merck Serono Chair in 

Neuroscience 


Laboratory of Physical and 

Analytical Electrochemistry 

Prof V. Hatzimanikatis 

Lab. of Computational 

Systems Biotechnology 

Prof L. Helm 

Laboratory of Inorganic and 

Bioinorganic Chemistry 

Dr MER R. Hovius 

Laboratory of Physical chemistry 

of Polymers and 

Membranes

19 

Prof J. Hubbell 

Merck Serono Chair in Drug 

Delivery 

Prof K. Johnsson 

Laboratory of Protein Engineering 

Prof Lashuel 


Neurobiology and Neuroproteomics 

Prof P. Leiman 

Laboratory of Structural 

Biology and Biophysics 

Prof A. Osterwalder 

Group Osterwalder 

Prof F. Radtke 

Prof Radtke group 

Prof K. Severin 

Laboratory of Supramolecular 

Chemistry 



Prof X. Hu 

Laboratory of Inorganic 

Synthesis and Catalysis 

Prof L. Kiwi 

Laboratory of Chemical 

Reaction Engineering 

Prof G. Laurenczy 

Laboratory of Organometallic 

and Medicinal Chemistry 

Prof J.-E. Moser 

Laboratory of Photonics 

and Interfaces 

Prof T. Rizzo 



Prof U. Roethlisberger 

Laboratory of Computational 

Chemistry and Biochemistry 

Prof M. Swartz 

Laboratory of Lymphatic 

and Cancer Bioengineering 

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Prof Y. Tsybin 

Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry 

Laboratory 

Prof H. Vogel 

Laboratory of Physical chemistry 

of Polymers and 

Dr MER C. Wandrey 

Merck Serono Chair in Drug 

Delivery 

Prof J. Zhu 

Laboratory of synthesis 

and natural products 



Prof J. Vanicek 

Laboratory of Theoretical 


Prof G. Wagnières 

Group Van den Bergh 

Prof J. Waser 

Laboratory of Catalysis and 

Organic Synthesis

The goal of the EPFL Organic Chemistry 

Symposium is to bring together the EPFL organic 

chemistry community and the chemical 

and pharmaceutical industry. The symposium 

will promote the Doctoral Program, create a 

network with industry and present the different 

opportunities in industry for master and 

PhD students in organic chemistry. 

21 



Organic Chemistry 

Symposium 

The 3rd annual « Chemical Engineering 

Day » took place on December 15 th 2011 at 

CM2. 

Strengthening the interactions within the 

chemical and biochemical engineering 

community at EPFL (professors, PhD students, 

post-docs, scientific collaborators 

and master students) 

Creating a link with former chemical engineering 

PhD students. Discovery of their 

daily life as well as their professional experience. 

22 



Origin of our actual 151 

PhD students 

Switzerland Europe Russia/Ukraine 

China Other Iran 

10% 5% 

7% 

9% 

27% 

42% 

Our actual PhD students 

37% Females 

63% 

Males

Publications by our PhD students 

Number of publications 2011 Hitlist 

�� Basile Curchod (6 publications) 


�� Stephan Steinmann (6 publications) 

PhD advisor Prof C. Corminboeuf 

�� Aurélien Bornet (5 publications) 


�� Veronika Vitzthum (5 publications) 


�� Dmitry Momotenko (4 publications) 


�� Stefano Nicolai (4 publications) 




Totally 128 

publications in 

2011 

CONTACT US 

Telephone: +41 21 693 5846 

Email: mail_edch@epfl.ch 

Web: http://phd.epfl.ch/edch 

COMING UP 2012 

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http://www.linkedin.com/in/edchprogram

Totally 128 publications in 2011 - Doctoral School - EPFL

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