Education and Working Experience
Dates |
Position/Activity |
1992 – 2000 |
High School (BG 19, Vienna, Austria) |
Jan – Jun 1999 |
Exchange student in Fayetteville, AR, USA |
2000 – 2006 |
Physics student at Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria |
Jul – Aug 2002 |
Internship at CTR (Carinthian Tech Research), Villach, Austria |
2002 – 2005 |
Teaching assistant in Physics at the Vienna University of Technology |
2003 – 2004 |
Erasmus exchange student at Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden |
2005 – 2006 |
Master thesis “Transport through quantum wires with surface disorder”, advisors: S. Rotter and J. Burgdörfer |
Jul – Sep 2005 |
Summer Student at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, advisor: G. Folger |
Mar 2006 |
Master’s degree (Dipl.-Ing.) with distinction |
Mar 2006 – Sep 2009 |
University Assistant and Ph.D. student at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, Vienna University of Technology as a member of the International Max Planck Research School on Advanced Photon Science, advisor: J. Burgdörfer |
Nov – Dec 2006 |
Guest Researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA |
Sep 2009 |
Ph.D. degree (Dr.) with distinction |
Oct 2009 – Oct 2012 |
Postdoctoral Fellow at ITAMP, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Harvard Physics Department |
Oct 2012 – Mar 2017 |
Postdoc in the Nanophotonics Group at the Departamento de Física Teórica de la Materia Condensada, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid |
Apr 2017 – Dec 2017 |
IFIMAC Young Researcher at the Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC) at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid |
Jan 2018 – Dec 2022 |
Ramón y Cajal Fellow at the Departamento de Física Teórica de la Materia Condensada and at the Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC) at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid |
Dec 2022 – Sep 2025 |
Associate Professor (Profesor Contratado Doctor) at the Departamento de Física Teórica de la Materia Condensada and at the Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC) at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid |
Sep 2025 – present |
Associate Professor (Profesor Titular) at the Departamento de Física Teórica de la Materia Condensada and at the Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC) at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid |
Prizes
Dates |
Award |
Jan 2007 |
Diploma Thesis Prize of the City of Vienna |
Feb 2007 |
IOP Student Travel Prize in Electron Interactions with Atoms and Molecules |
Jul 2017 |
IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics |
Grants
Dates |
Grant |
2011 – 2014 |
Co-PI of NSF TeraGrid and XSEDE grants on Computational Studies of the Interaction of Time-Dependent Electromagnetic Fields and Charged Particles with Atoms and Molecules for more than 55 million CPU hours |
2014 – 2017 |
Marie Curie Career Integration Grant StroCOMP: Strong Coupling of Organic Molecules and Plasmons (87,500 €) |
2015 – 2018 |
Co-PI on Grant “Quantum Phenomena in Plasmonics” of the Spanish Secretariat of State for Research, Development and Innovation within the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (100,000 €) |
2017 – 2023 |
PI of ERC Starting Grant ERC-2016-StG-714870 MMUSCLES on Modification of Molecular Structure Under Strong Coupling to Confined Light Modes (1,499,500 €) |
2018 – 2022 |
Ramón y Cajal grant of the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness (308,600 €) |
2019 – 2021 |
Co-PI on Grant “Quantum Polaritonic Technologies” of the State Research Agency (AEI) of the Spanish Ministry for Science, Innovation, and Universities (157,300 €) |
2020 – 2021 |
PI of four computational projects on “Ultrafast atomic & molecular processes driven by classical & quantized light”, Red Española de Supercomputación, 3.6 million CPU hours |
2022 – 2024 |
Co-PI on Grant “Manipulating matter through vacuum fields” of the State Research Agency (AEI) (237,160 €) |
2022 |
PI of computational project on “Ultrafast chiral and polaritonic spectroscopy”, Red Española de Supercomputación, 2.3 million CPU hours |
2022 – 2025 |
Leading Scientist at Coordinating Institution (UAM) for EU grant MIRAQLS on Mid-infrared quantum technology for sensing (Total: 2,662,604 €, UAM contribution: 300,000 €) |
2023 – 2026 |
PI at UAM for EIC Pathfinder grant SCOLED on Strong-coupling-enhanced nanoparticle array organic light emitting diode (Total: 2,621,998 €, UAM contribution: 87,500 €) |
2023 – 2025 |
PI of Grant MAQUINA on Mapping between Quantum Optics and Nanophotonics of the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (100,000 €) |
2024 – 2026 |
PI of Grant HELIOS on Harnessing extreme light sources of the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (199,892 €) |
2025 – 2028 |
PI of Grant QUALIMAX on Quantum light-matter interactions on extreme scales of the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (218,750 €) |
Supervision
I have supervised 10 PhD students (5 finished, 5 ongoing), as well as 14 postdocs (12 finished, 2 ongoing). I have also supervised more than 20 Master and Bachelor theses.
Professional Activities
Dates |
Activity |
2012–2014 |
Member of the XSEDE User Advisory Committee |
Nov. 2014 |
Organizer of CECAM workshop on “Electron Dynamics on Surfaces and Nanostructures” in Zaragoza, Spain |
Sep. 2018 |
Organizer of XXV International Summer School “Nicolás Cabrera” on “Manipulating Light and Matter at the Nanoscale” in Miraflores de la Sierra, Spain |
May 2019 |
Member of the Scientific Committee, TERAMETANANO-4 in Lecce, Italy |
Jul. 2019 |
Organizer of the workshop “Molecular Polaritonics 2019: Theoretical and Numerical Approaches” in Miraflores de la Sierra, Spain |
since 2021 |
Member of the Equality Commission of IFIMAC, UAM |
since 2022 |
Member of the Physical Review A Editorial Board |
Sep. 2022 |
Organizer of the workshop “Molecular Polaritonics 2022: Theoretical and Numerical Approaches” in Straubing, Germany |
Sep. 2025 |
Organizer of the workshop “Molecular Polaritonics 2025” in Miraflores de la Sierra, Spain |
Review Activities
Reviewer of >200 articles for journals including Science, Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Photonics, Nature Physics, Nature Chemistry, Nature Communications, Science Advances, Physical Review X, Physical Review Letters, Optica, and many others.
Reviewer for >50 project proposals for funding agencies including European Research Council (EU), National Science Foundation (USA), Department of Energy (USA), Agencia Estatal de Investigación (Spain), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Germany), Agence Nationale de la Recherche (France), Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (Austria), Israeli Science Foundation (Israel), Swiss National Science Foundation (Switzerland), and others.