Team

Principal Investigator: 

Assist. Prof. Dr. Maria Ibáñez

 

Maria Ibáñez was born in La Sénia (Spain). She graduated in physics at the University of Barcelona, where she also obtained her PhD in 2013. Her PhD thesis was qualified Excellent Cum Laude and awarded with the Honors Doctorate by the University of Barcelona. Her PhD research was funded by a Spanish competitive grant (FPU) which supported her to conduct short-term research stays in cutting-edge laboratories. In particular, she worked at CEA Grenoble (2009), the University of Chicago (2010), the California Institute of Technology (2011), the Cornell University (2012) and the Northwestern University (2013). In 2014, she joined the group of Prof. Dr. Kovalenko at ETH Zürich and EMPA as a research fellow where in 2017 she received the Ružička Prize. In September 2018 she became an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) at IST Austria and started the Functional Nanomaterials group.

Office: I23.O2.012
E-mail: mibanez@ist.ac.at
Phone: +43 664 7935557

Maria Ibáñez’s Google Scholar

 

Project Technician:

Dr. Magali Lorion

 

Magali was born in France. She first studied Chemical Engineering at the École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Lille in her native France. She received her PhD in Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry in 2007. She then worked as a postdoctoral research associate in the group of Nicholas J. Westwood at St. Andrews University, U. K. then at the Institute of Organic and Analytical Chemistry at the University of Orléans, France. She has experience in heterocyclic and medicinal chemistry as well as in multistep synthesis. She then joined, in 2016, the company Greenpharma in Orléans, France as a medicinal chemistry manager to develop hemisynthesis and bioisosteres of natural compounds scaffolds. She joined the Ibáñez group in November 2020 as a project technician.

Office: I23.O2.008
E-mail: magali.lorion@ist.ac.at
Phone: +43 (0)2243 9000-2117


PostDocs:

Dr. Cheng Chang

Cheng Chang was born in China in 1992. He received his BE degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Beihang University in 2014. He joined Li-Dong Zhao’s group in 2014 as a Master’s student and received his Ph.D. degree in July 2019. In October 2019 he joined the Ibáñez group as a postdoc. His research focuses on bottom-up engineering of tin chalcogenide for thermoelectric applications.

 
Office: I23.O2.007
E-mail: cheng.chang@ist.ac.at
Phone: +43(0)0677-63501888
 
Cheng’ Google scholar

 

Dr. Daniel Balazs

Daniel Balazs was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1989. He first studied Chemical Engineering at the Budapest University of Technology in his native Hungary. He received his PhD cum laude in Nanoscience from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands under the supervision of Prof. Maria Antonietta Loi in 2018. He then worked as a postdoctoral research associate in the group of Prof. Tobias Hanrath at Cornell University, focusing on nanocrystal self-assembly. He joined the Ibáñez group in September 2020. Daniel has been working on nanocrystals, surface chemistry, self-assembly, and optical and electronic properties of hierarchically structured matter. He likes to describe his work as ‘playing with atomic-sized Legos’ – and the headache caused by the complexity of these systems is just as painful as stepping on those little plastic pieces.
 
Office: I23.O2.008
E-mail: daniel.balazs@ist.ac.at
Phone: +43 (0)2243 9000-2117
 
Balazs’ Google scholar

 

PhD Students:

Mariano Calcabrini

Mariano Calcabrini was born in Quilmes, Argentina. He graduated in Chemical Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires in 2017. During his Master he worked in sol-gel processing of silica gels and nanoparticles. In March 2019 he joined Ibáñez’s group as a PhD candidate studying thin film thermoelectrics and surface chemistry.

Office: I23.O2.007
E-mail: mariano.calcabrini@ist.ac.at
Phone: +43 (0)2243 9000-2117

 

 

Tobias Kleinhanns

Tobias Kleinhanns was born in Nuremberg, Germany. He graduated in Materials Science from the University of Stuttgart, Germany. In 2019, he received a master’s degree also in Materials Science from the University of Stuttgart. During his Master’s thesis he worked on the synthesis and characterization of heterostructured nanowires. Subsequently, he joined the graduate school of the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria as a Ph.D candidate and affiliated with the Ibañez group in June 2020.

Office: I23.O2.008
E-mail: tobias.kleinhanns@ist.ac.at
Phone: +43 (0)2243 9000-2117

 

Seungho Lee

Seungho Lee was born in South Korea. He graduated in Material Science and Engineering from Kookmin University. He received a master’s degree in Energy Science and Engineering from Daegu Kyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) in 2016. The topic was the synthesis and characterization of nanocrystals for energy devices. In April 2019 he joined the Ibáñez group. His research focuses on the synthesis of nanostructures for catalytic applications.

Office: I23.O2.008
E-mail: seungho.lee@ist.ac.at
Phone: +43 (0)2243 9000-2117

 

Christine Fiedler

Christine Fiedler was born in Barbados and is also Austrian. She graduated in 2016 from the University of the West Indies Cave Hill, Barbados, with First Class Honours in Chemistry with Biochemistry. She received her master’s degree in 2020 from the Johannes Kepler University in Linz Austria in Polymer Chemistry. Her work focused on the synthesis and engineering of Janus micro/nanomotors and nanoparticle synthesis. Christine started her PhD studies in September 2020 and joined the Ibañez group to work on the processing of thermoelectric materials by solution methods. 

 

Office: I23.O2.007
E-mail: christine.fiedler@ist.ac.at
Phone: +43 (0)2243 9000-2117

 

Scientific interns:

Prathamesh Patil

Prathamesh (Pratham) was born in India. He completed his Bachelors and Masters in the Department of Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He specialized in Ceramics and Composites. For his Master’s project, he worked on synthesis, characterization and theoretical modeling of MnTe. Prathamesh joined the Ibáñez group in September 2021 as a scientific intern.

Office: I23.O2.007
E-mail: prathamesh.patil@ist.ac.at
Phone: +43 (0)2243 9000-2117

 

Maria Garcia Ramon

Maria Garcia  Ramon was born in Ibiza, Spain. She studied a BA in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB)  with Honours in ‘General physics’. During her degree, she worked at the Catalonia Institute of Energy Research (IREC) in the synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials for thermoelectric energy conversion where she did her undergraduate project. The topic was ‘study of bottom-up engineering of copper telluride nanomaterials for thermoelectric energy conversion. She also did an internship in the materials characterization group of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) where they synthesized and characterized a new family of high entropy metallic glasses based on alloys. She joined the Ibáñez group in October 2021 as a scientific intern. 

Office: I23.O2.007
E-mail: mariagarciaramon@ist.ac.at
Phone: +43 (0)2243 9000-2117

 

Rotation students:

Lorena Layana

Lorena Layana was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador. She is the first female student to obtain her bachelor’s degree in nanotechnology engineering back in her country at Yachay Tech University. Her undergraduate research project was focused on the characterization of individualized single-walled carbon nanotubes via chemical exfoliation. Other projects related to her field lie in graphene and chitosan composites and their interaction. Her main interest is in material science and its development for future applications. 

Office: I23.O2.007
E-mail: lorenaalexandra.layanafranco@ist.ac.at
Phone: +43 (0)2243 9000-2117

 

Bhargavi Pant

Bhargavi Pant was born in India. She completed her under-graduation from the University of Delhi, India in 2018. She received her master’s degree with a specialization in Analytical Chemistry in 2020 from the National Institute of Technology Warangal, India. Bhargavi joined the Ibañez group as a rotation student in September 2021 and her work focuses on thermoelectric materials.

Office: I23.O2.007
E-mail: bhargavi.pant@ist.ac.at
Phone: +43 (0)2243 9000-2117

 

Former members:

 Name Year Position in the group Current position
Marian Janik 2019 Rotation Student PhD student in Katsaros Group (IST)
Yu Zhang 2019 Visiting Student PhD student at IREC
Wei Tan 2019 Summer Intern Bachelor student at Imperial College
Guillem Montaña Mora 2019 Visiting Student PhD student in IREC
Doğukan Hazar Apaydın 2019-2020 Postdoc Postdoc TU Wien
Juan Carlos Sobarzo Ponce

2019

 Rotation Student PhD student in Waitukaitis Group (IST)
Maximilian Ritter 2020 Summer Intern PhD student at ETH Zurich
Anna-Maria Fuchsberger 2020 Summer Intern Student at TU Wien
Christoph Bartmann 2020 Summer Intern Student at TU Wien

Alwin Meledeth

 2020 Master student OMV company
Sajal Naduvile Thadathil 2021 Rotation Student Rotation Student (IST)

Shiva Safari

 2021 Rotation Student PhD student in Modic Group (IST)

Soumyadip Mondal

 2021 Rotation Student PhD student in Freunberger Group (IST)

Kemal Yorulmaz

 2021 Intern  
Guillem Montaña Mora 2021 Visiting Student PhD student in IREC
Anna Smirnova 2021 Scientific Intern Bachelor student Duke University
Tanmoy Ghosh 2021 Postdoc Postdoc at RWTH Aachen University
Yu Liu 2021 Postdoc PI at the Hefei University of Technology
Sergi Sànchez Ribot 2021 Scientific Intern  
Maryna Dryhailo 2021 Scientific Intern Master (Italy)