Dr. Loredana Protesescu
University of Groningen, Faculty of Science and Engineering,
Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials / Chemistry of nanomaterials
Loredana Protesescu (PhD obtained in 2016) has been an assistant professor since 2019 at Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen. She is an inorganic chemist with solid expertise in the chemistry of (novel) nanomaterials, their structural particularities, and their surface chemistry in relationship to self-assembly, and their properties. She uses chemical design to achieve functional materials at the nanoscale with applications in energy, extreme environment, and bio-applications. She has vast experience in the development of tailored semiconductor nanocrystals with applications in opto-electronic devices. Her contribution to the perovskite semiconductors nanocrystals is reflected by her extensive work with lead and tin halide perovskites with 2D and 3D structures and morphologies.
She has published more than 50 papers. She contributed to the development of two patents, and she is the scientific advisor of Peafowl Plasmonics, a Sweden start-up company. She has recently won the Nanomaterials 2020 Young Investigator Award and a Veni NWO grant (2019). She was selected as an Early Career Board member for Nano Letters starting 2022
Research interests:
Chemical design for advanced functionalized nano-materials
My research interest is how to enable functional nanomaterials using chemical design to achieve properties considered impossible for the next generation of applications taking advantage of nanoscale.
I study novel colloidal nano-materials while developing synthetic strategies, and programming their structural particularities and their surface chemistry in relation to their properties and potential applications in energy, extreme environment, and bio-applications. The colloidal nanocrystals are specially designed and studied for their physical properties such as optical characteristics, conductivity, magnetism, ultra-high temperature ceramics, or bio-physics.
Education and professional experience:
2019- present
2017-2018
2016-2017
January 2016
Assistant professor (tenure track), Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen, Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials
Postdoctoral Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Chemistry, advisor: Prof. dr. dr. Mircea Dincă, (Swiss National Science Foundation Fellowship).
Postdoctoral Scholar, ETH Zurich/D-CHAB, Functional Inorganic Materials, Kovalenko Group, with Prof. dr. Maksym V. Kovalenko.
Doctoral degree, ETH Zurich/D-CHAB, Functional Inorganic Materials, with Prof. dr. Maksym V. Kovalenko. Thesis title: “Novel luminescence colloidal nanocrystals and studies on nanocrystal surface chemistry”
Awards:
2021 Early Career Board member for Nano Letters (appointed for 3 years)
2020 Nanomaterials 2020 Young Investigator Award, MDPI, Basel.
2019 NWO VENI grant (250K euro). The Netherlands.
2018 ETH Medal (for top 5% PhD Theses), ETH Zürich, Switzerland.
2017 Best PhD Thesis Award in Materials Science, ETH Zürich, Switzerland.
2016 Swiss National Science Foundation Fellowship (early postdoc mobility).
2016 Best Poster Prize at MRS-2016 Conference (Symposium “Perovskite- Based Photovoltaics and Optoelectronic Devices”).
2014 SCNAT_SCS Travel Award.
Teaching experience:
2022-ongoing Coordination chemistry, bachelor (coordinator and lecturer)
2020-ongoing Engineered nanomaterials for industry, master (coordinator and lecturer)
2019-ongoing Structure at Macro, Meso and Nanoscale, master (coordinator and Lecturer)
Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen
Scientific and synergistic activities:
- Total of 51 publications in peer-reviewed journals (Science, JACS, Advanced Materials, ACS nano, Nanoletters, Chemical science, etc)
- Invited lectures and conference participation: >25 lectures (NanoGe-Spring meeting 2022, Amolf – 2022, University of Amsterdam 2022, Twente University, 2022, Nanoseries 2022, Brazil MRS – 2021, University of Uppsala, Sweden/2020, Physics@Veldhoven, the Netherlands/2020, Amolf/The Netherlands/2019, etc)
- 2 patents (with Avantama, Switzerland, 2016: Solid polymer composition, Luminescent crystals and manufacturing thereof 2017).
- Peafowl Plasmonics (Sweden Startup)– Scientific Advisor
- Supervisor for 5 PhD students , more than 25 master and bachelor
- Chair of organization Symposium Chemistry of nanomaterials, NanoGe , spring 2021, 2022.
- Public lectures/experiments for primary schools Groningen (2020,2021), on Maturandentag (2012, 2013) and Tag der Offenen Labor (2012, 2013).
- Board of reviewers (2020-2021): Frontiers in Chemistry, Elsevier;
- Active reviewer for journals from ACS, Royal Society, Elsevier.
Membership of professional societies:
ACS (since 2013), MRS member (since 2015)
Professional service and management:
- Early Career Board member for Nano Letters (appointed for 3 years)
- Scientific executive boards (External, review committees, program committees)
- Program committee national meetings- Physics@Veldhoven (2022) – CHAINS (2022)
- Selection of executive boards (internal, Faculty board, institute, educational)
- Member of Program Committee (CH/CE)-2019-present)
- Member of curriculum committee Master Advanced materials 2020
- PhD defense committees RUG, University of Amsterdam.
- Organizer PhD colloquium and Zernike Colloquium.
- Webinars organization for materials chemistry group (with participants from Zernike Institute of Advanced Materials),
Media:
It's okay to have kids https://ukrant.nl/magazine/its-okay-to-have-kids/?lang=en