Current
Shubhradip Guchait
Email: shubhradip.guchait@kuleuven.be
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PhD/Postdoc: PhD in Physical Chemistry, CNRS-University of Strasbourg/ Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven.
Project: Organic Thermoelectrics
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shubhradip-guchait-53a5871a2/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ioix4xEAAAAJ&hl=en
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Shubhradip Guchait was born in Kolkata, India. He earned his Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira, one of the top 10 colleges in India according to the NIRF rankings. He then completed his Master’s degree in Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Ropar, having qualified through the prestigious JAM examination. He pursued his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at the Institut Charles Sadron, CNRS (University of Strasbourg), France, as a Marie Curie ITN Fellow under the HORATES project. His doctoral research focused on the in-plane alignment, structural control and doping mechanisms of polymer semiconductor films for thermoelectric applications. Additionally, in recognition of his work, Shubhradip received the Young Researcher Award at the EMRS 2024 conference. He moved to Belgium in April 2025 to work as a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Prof. Francisco Molina-Lopez at KU Leuven. His goal is to optimize high-performance organic thermoelectric generators for efficient conversion of waste heat into electricity.
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Juhyung (Jay) Park
Email: jay.park@kuleuven.be
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PhD/Postdoc: PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Seoul National University / Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven.
Project: Organic Thermoelectrics
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juhyung-park-a44619201/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VRxeV5YAAAAJ&hl=en
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Juhyung (Jay) Park was born in the Republic of Korea (South Korea). He completed his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Seoul (UOS) in 2017 and 2019, respectively. He then earned his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2023 from Seoul National University (SNU) under the supervision of Professor Jeonghun Kwak. During his PhD, he was awarded a prestigious grant from the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea for his research on wearable organic thermoelectric generators, a grant given to only 300 recipients nationwide. After serving one year as a post-doctoral researcher at SNU, he moved to Belgium in October 2024 to work as a post-doctoral researcher in the group of Professor Francisco Molina-Lopez at KU Leuven. In Feburary 2025 he has been awarded Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral fellowship. His research has focused on molecular doping, charge transport physics, and the structure-property relationships of conjugated polymers, as well as organic thermoelectric devices for sustainable energy solutions. His ultimate goal is to extend the fundamentals of these organic thermoelectric materials and devices to realize fully self-powered IoT devices and microelectronics.
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Michael Ng
Email: Michael.Ng@kuleuven.be
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PhD/Postdoc: PhD in Chemistry, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology / Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven.
Project: Printed Organic Thermoelectric Generators
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-ng-b13115145/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sjbJScoAAAAJ&hl=en
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Michael Ng was born and raised in New Zealand. He completed his Bachelors in Chemistry and Physics at Victoria University of Wellington in 2014, followed by a Masters in Physics in 2017. He then completed his PhD in Chemistry in 2021 at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in the Halpert Group. Afterward, he briefly returned to New Zealand, where he worked in the Materials Team at GNS Science in 2022. His previous areas of research have been focused on colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals, perovskite materials, LEDs, solar cells, optoelectronic devices, photothermal materials, and renewable energy materials.
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Altynay Kaidarova
Email: Who is Who, LinkedIn, Google Scholar
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PhD/Postdoc: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
Project: Printed organic thermoelectric generators
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Dr. Altynay Kaidarova was born in Pavlodar, Kazakhstan, in 1991. In 2010, she received the prestigious Bolashak International Scholarship, which enabled her to pursue a foundation program at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. She went on to major in Electronic and Communication Engineering at the University of Liverpool (UK), graduating in 2014 with a first-class degree.
In 2022, she earned her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. After completing her Ph.D., she was awarded the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctral Fellowship and the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO) fellowship for the BEST-TEC project, allowing her to continue her postdoctoral research in the Francisco Molina-Lopez Research group at KU Leuven (Belgium).
Her research focuses on the design, fabrication, and characterization of printed, low-cost organic/inorganic electronics, sensors, and actuators using additive manufacturing techniques. She is passionate about developing new materials and processes for energy harvesting and storage on large-area and curved surfaces. She also seeks to apply her multidisciplinary research to new applications in autonomous and wearable systems for biomedicine and the Internet of Marine Life.
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Vijitha Ignatious
Email: Who is Who, LinkedIn, Google Scholar
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PhD/Postdoc: PhD in Physics, CSIR- National Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences and Technology (India) / Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven (Belgium)
Project: Organic Thermoelectrics
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Vijitha obtained her doctoral degree in Physics in "Organic-based hybrid materials for thermoelectric applications" from India on October 2022. Her doctoral research focused on preparing a class of new-generation thermoelectric materials with the unique benefits of easy processing, printable, lightweight, intrinsically highly flexible, affordable, and low toxic. She developed hybrid materials of conjugated polymers and carbon nanotubes followed by device/module fabrication, focusing on thermoelectric applications for energy harvesting. She moved to Belgium in April 2023 to work as a post-doctoral researcher in the group of Prof. Francisco Molina-Lopez at KU Leuven.
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Alysson Ferreira Morais
Email: Who is Who, Google Scholar
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PhD/Postdoc: PhD in Physics, University of São Paulo (Brazil) / Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis, KU Leuven (Belgium)
Project: A thermoelectric generator for low-grade heat to electricity/hydrogen conversion (H2E)
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Alysson was born in Brazil in 1990. He graduated in Physics in 2012 at the University of Campinas (Brazil) and obtained his master’s (2014) and his doctorate’s (2018) degree in Physics at the University of São Paulo (Brazil). His doctorate studies focused on the synthesis, structural and spectroscopic characterization of hierarchical porous solid-state materials. His main goal was the achievement of improved surface and bulk properties for the investigated materials. During his PhD, he was granted the Santander Mobility fellowship and visited KU Leuven as a visiting scholar. After a period as interim professor and lecturer at the University of São Paulo (aug-dec 2018), he worked as a post-doctoral researcher in São Paulo with a fellowship granted by FAPESP to investigate the applications of porous materials as molecular markers. He moved to Belgium in 2021 to work as post-doctoral researcher in the group of Prof. Johan Martens at KU Leuven. In 2022 he was granted the prestigious MSCA-IF grant from the European Commission and since September 2022 he works as a Marie Curie fellow in the group of Prof. Johan Martens and in collaboration with Prof. Francisco Molina-Lopez at KU Leuven, exploring the thermoelectric properties of recently discovered porous semiconductor materials. His final aim is to develop new cost-efficient thermoelectric generators for waste heat to electricity/hydrogen conversion.