Prof. Dr. Natalie Banerji
Natalie Banerji is currently a Full Professor of Chemistry at the University of Bern and leads the FemtoMat group. Her research interests include the study of organic and hybrid materials using ultrafast spectroscopic techniques, in view of solar cell and bioelectronic applications. She studied Chemistry at the University of Geneva and obtained her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in 2009, under the supervision of Prof. Eric Vauthey. She then moved to the University of California in Santa Barbara (USA), to work on organic solar cells during a Post-Doctoral stay with Nobel Laureate Prof. Alan J. Heeger (2009–2011). In 2011, she started her independent research career in Switzerland at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) with an Ambizione Fellowship by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). She moved to the University of Fribourg in 2014, was subsequently nominated Associate Professor in 2015, and presided the Chemistry Department in Fribourg form 2016–2017.
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Senior researchers
Dr. Julien Réhault
Julien joined the FemtoMat group as a PostDoc in August 2017 and became Research Associate in June 2018. His research interests involve any kind of Ultrafast Laser Spectroscopy ranging from the ultraviolet to the Terahertz. He is mainly involved in developing new tools for the field of Organic Bioelectronics, especially in the Terahertz.
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Dr. Demetra Tsokkou
Demetra is currently a researcher assistant in the FemtoMat group. She joined the group as a Post-Doctoral Researcher in February 2015. She obtained her Ph.D. at the University of Cyprus on the synthesis and photophysics of inorganic semiconducting nanowires. Her current research is focused on the transport properties and electronic structure of doped organic materials (small molecules and polymers) via ultrafast spectroscopic techniques, such as time domain THz and absorption spectroscopy.
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Dr. Olivier Bardagot
Olivier started his Post-Doctoral position in the FemtoMat group in 2020 to join the bio-electronics team in their investigations of accumulation mode Organic ElectroChemical Transistor (OECT) devices. From 2023 on, he participates at a 20% capacity while developing his own research activity as tenured researcher at CNRS (ICPEES, France) focusing on highly structured polymer films for OECTs and thermoelectricity.
PostDocs
Dr. Jihad Sissaoui
Jihad joined FemtoMat as a Post-Doctoral Researcher in October 2024. She obtained her Ph.D. at the University of Geneva, where she investigated the properties of interfaces between immiscible liquids using Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) spectroscopy. Her current research focuses on the interfacial properties of organic and perovskite thin films and devices, particularly their interactions with air and electrolytes. She primarily uses Sum Frequency Generation (SFG) spectroscopy, supported by techniques such as FTIR, transient absorption, spectroelectrochemistry, and device characterization.
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Ph.D. students
Cedric Hoffmann
Cedric joined the FemtoMat group as a Ph.D. student in May 2021. He obtained his Master’s degree in Chemistry at Technical University of Dresden in 2021, where he worked on organic semiconducting materials and organic electrochemical transistors.
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Isabelle Heinzen (née Holzer)
Isabelle joined the FemtoMat group in January 2021 as a Master student and started as a Ph.D. student in March 2022. She currently investigates chemical and electrochemical doping of different semiconducting materials using multiple spectroscopic techniques such as THz spectroscopy, spectroelectrochemistry and Raman spectroscopy.
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Kaishuai Zhang
Kaishuai joined the FemtoMat group in August 2022 as a Ph.D. student focused on spectroelectrochemistry of glycolated polymers and 2D materials.
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Christian Franz
Christian joined the FemtoMat group in February 2022 for his Master’s project, which involved treatment effects on PEDOT:PSS. In April 2023, he started with his Ph.D. focusing on electrochemical doping of organic semiconductors, especially the effect of side chains on the electrolyte–polymer interaction.
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Maximilian Horn
Maximilian obtained his B.Sc. degree in Chemistry from the University of Würzburg in 2021. He then moved to Hamburg for his Master’s studies and joined the FemtoMat group in September 2022 for an Erasmus internship focusing on chemical doping of glycolated polymers. In November 2023, he started with his Ph.D. where he will focus on the investigation of organic photocatalysts.
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Basil Hunger
Basil completed his Bachelor’s studies in Chemistry and Molecular Sciences at the University of Bern in 2022. He joined the FemtoMat group for his Bachelor project, continued with his Master’s thesis on the doping of different polythiophenes and joined recently for his Ph.D. project.
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Alan Eduardo Ávila Ramírez
Alan holds a Bachelor’s degree from Tec de Monterrey, with bioengineering experience at Harvard Medical School, and a Master’s degree with the BIOEL group at KAUST in 2023. Later, as an engineer at KTH, he worked on sustainable electrochemical transistors. In September 2024, he joined FemtoMat as a Ph.D. student, contributing to the EIC project ICONIC and the fundamentals of bioelectronics.
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Master students
Silène Gobeil
Silène obtained her Bachelor degree in Chemistry and Molecular Sciences at the University of Bern in 2024. She joined the FemtoMat group in January 2025 as a Master student and currently investigates the transport properties of doped polymers.
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Bachelor students
Anouk Petrillo
Anouk is currently a Bachelor student at the University of Bern. She joined the FemtoMat group for her Bachelor thesis in February 2025 where she is researching the photocatalytic capabilities of semi-conducting polymers.
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Former Group Members
Post Doctoral Researchers
- Dr. Kaila Yallum (2024)
- Dr. Kejun Liu (2022–2023)
- Dr. Gonzague Rebetez (2022)
- Dr. Gareth J. Moore (2022)
- Dr. Rishi Shivhare (2020–2022)
- Dr. Bruno Nicolau (2019–2020)
- Dr. Yufei Zhong (2017–2019)
- Dr. Muddassir Iqbal (2015–2016)
- Dr. Jan Brauer (2014–2017)
PhD Students
- Dr. Eva Röck (2020–2025)
- Dr. Md Soif Ahmed (visiting 2023–2024)
- Dr. Priscila Cavassin (2019–2024)
- Dr. Kaila Yallum (2019–2023)
- Dr. Gonzague Rebetez (2018–2022)
- Dr. Gareth J. Moore (2017–2022)
- Dr. Philipp Krauspe (2016–2020)
- Dr. Nikolaos Droseros (2015–2020)
- Dr. Martina Causa’ (2014–2019)
- Dr. Lisa Peterhans (2014–2019)
- Dr. Mariateresa Scarongella (2012–2015)
Master Students
- Marco Finger (2023–2024)
- Basil Hunger (2022–2024)
- Maximilian Horn (2022–2023)
- Christian Franz (2022–2023)
- Tristan Blandenier (2022–2023)
- Lukas Gut (2021–2022)
- Isabelle Holzer (2021–2022)
- Frédéric Schneider (2019–2020)
- Jana Daepp (2019–2020)
- Kaila Yallum (2018–2019)
- Aleksandra Burlakova (2019)
- Jenny Farquhar (2016–2017)
- Arun Aby Paraecattil (2012–2013)
Bachelor Students
- Naomi Denzler (2023)
- Basil Hunger (2022)
- Marco Finger (2021)
- Iva Walz (2020)
- Joel Affolter (2019)