New Senior Scientist and a farewell
Dr. Eleonora Secchi has been promoted to permanent Senior Scientist at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at ETH Zurich, effective 1 June 2023. Dr. Joris E. Van Wezemael, currently Executive-in-Residence at the department, will leave his position at ETH Zurich on 31 October 2023.
Dr. Eleonora Secci (*1986), currently Principal Investigator of an SNSF PRIMA Grant and Group Leader of the bioMatter Microfluidics Group, has been promoted to permanent Senior Scientist at D-BAUG at ETH Zurich. Secchi earned a B.A. in Physical Engineering, a M.Sc. in Nuclear Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and Industrial Chemistry from the Polytechnic University of Milan. From 2014 to 2018, she was a postdoctoral fellow, initially at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, and then at ETH Zurich. When Secchi received the PRIMA grant in 2018, she started her own research group. Her research aims to understand the physical mechanisms and environmental factors controlling bacterial surface colonization and biofilm formation. Biofilms are a widespread mode of growth of bacteria and have a crucial impact in environmental, industrial, and medical settings. She brings to this critical problem an interdisciplinary, cutting-edge toolbox: by applying tools from microfluidics, fluid dynamics, microbial ecology, and soft matter physics to characterize biofilm formation and rheology, she seeks to understand their behavior and impact in natural and industrial systems. Congratulations, Eleonora!
Departure
PD Dr. Joris E. Van Wezemael (*1973), currently Executive-in-Residence at D-BAUG, will end this position at ETH Zurich at the end of October 2023. Van Wezemael focuses on the transformation of urban landscapes in the context of global urbanization and changing socio-technical regimes. He is leaving his role to focus on his responsibilities in the continuing education programmes within ETH Raum and UZH CUREM, as well as his mandates in transformation, strategy and policy consulting. All the best, Joris!