“Starting January 2017, I will be working with both physicists and chemists. My background has been a combination of these two fields: I have worked with fast and intense lasers to study the properties of materials (physics), but also on developing new methods for nanoparticles synthesis (chemistry). This has taught me to ‘speak both scientific languages’. Within the MCEC program I will act as a bridge between chemists and physicists. I hope to learn more from both types of scientists, about heterogeneous catalysis as well as studying chemical reactions from chemists, and about material self-assembly and fluid dynamics from physicists.
“As a first research project, I will develop spectroscopic techniques to study catalyst materials and chemical reactions on a wide range of time and length scales, by combining pulsed lasers with microscopy. This will teach us how, when and where a solid catalyst does its job most efficiently, and thus how a solid catalyst should be designed ideally. I will start by immersing myself in the groups of Soft Condensed Matter and Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis at Utrecht University, and also visit the MCEC research groups of the University of Twente and Eindhoven University of Technology. In this way, I will learn more about the possibilities and challenges within the MCEC program, and come up with concrete ideas for scientific collaborations.”