Rebekah Clements is a historian of Japan, specializing in the Tokugawa period (1600-1868). Her research focuses on language, society, and the characteristics of Japanese early modernity, as understood in the broader context of East Asia. She is currently working on the linguistic and religious networks of exchange that linked seventeenth and early eighteenth century Japanese elites with Chinese and Korean exiles present in Japan following the Imjin War.of 1592-1598 and the fall of the Ming Dynasty. This work takes place within her project funded by the European Research Council, "The Aftermath of the East Asian War of 1592-1598".

My research interests are in experimental soft condensed matter. We study a variety of classical many-body systems that have characteristic energy scales accessible at room temperature and that are internally characterized by mesoscopic length scales in between molecular and macroscopic dimensions. As a result, these soft materials are easily deformable by external stresses and fields, or even by thermal fluctuations, and have microscopic dynamics and structural features that can be directly imaged using optical-microscopy techniques and probed using light scattering; this enables addressing many open questions in equilibrium and non-equilibrium many-body physics. Recent research involves partially ordered fluids, or liquid crystals, colloidal crystals and glasses, and active matter. A recurring theme is the presence of defects in the order and how they sense and respond to the local geometry, the local environment and the system’s inherent activity. We are also interested in fluid mechanics and hydrodynamic instabilities, which we are studying using toroidal droplets.

Sílvia’s research lies at the interface between computational chemistry and biology. Her research focuses on the study of biochemical processes mainly related to enzyme catalysis. Her lab is developing new computational tools for predicting which amino acid changes are required to the enzyme structure for allowing novel function, enhancing a promiscuous side reaction, or expanding its substrate scope. Her goal is to enable the routine computational design of proficient enzymes to boost their use in industry for the synthesis of pharmaceutically relevant targets. She also applies the developed methodologies to the study of the recognition and assembly process of enzymes and other biomolecules with carbon-based materials.   

Jelena's research aims at developing innovative, hybrid treatment techniques that outperform current (waste)water processing methods and drive down the requirements for energy and chemicals. Her research is focused on the development of nanoelectrochemical systems for distributed water/wastewater treatment, based on the use of engineered nanostructured materials to induce oxidative and reductive degradation of pollutants in water. Her research group is also exploring the possibilities of nanoengineering of anaerobic respiration and acceleration of redox microbial reactions by the addition of low-cost carbon nanomaterials. The main objective in the development of these technologies is to design tailored, adaptable solutions for the treatment of contaminated water and eliminate persistent, toxic and carcinogenic chemicals from water in an energy-efficient way.