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.

Iñaki's research is focused on deciphering the dynamic epigenomic architecture of normal cell differentiation and neoplastic transformation, with particular emphasis on the study of B cells. Using both wet-lab and computational approaches, he aims at understanding the molecular basis of gene deregulation in cancer through the analysis of genetic alterations, DNA methylation, histone modifications, chromatin accessibility and 3D chromatin structure. This integrative approach not only provides new insights into the pathogenetic mechanisms underlying neoplastic transformation but shall also be translated into a benefit for patients in terms of improved diagnosis, estimation of prognosis and treatment.

Prof. Penta is an economic theorist with research interests in game theory, mechanism design and bounded rationality.  His current research, for which he obtained a 2017-ERC Starting grant, focuses on behavioral models of individuals' reasoning processes in strategic situations, on problems of model misspecifications in game theory, and on the impact of Digital Marketing Agencies on the auction formats most commoly used to sell online advertisement space.    

Fran's research focuses on computational approaches for elucidating mutational processes that generate genetic diversity within populations and across species, with the goal of understanding the mechanisms of genome maintenance. His other interests include developing statistical frameworks for detecting the genomic signatures of negative or positive selection, which are often challenging to distinguish from the background DNA sequence variability that results from accumulated genetic changes. Such methodologies provide new opportunities to gain insight into evolution of genomes, as they are molded by an interplay of mutation and selection.