SciLux Hanna Siemaszko

Talking to Dr. Dagny Aurich from Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB, University of Luxembourg) turned to be a brilliant travel through many of our previous episodes and we referred a lot to our discussion about unknown chemicals with Prof. Emma Schymanski, Dagny's supervisor.

Dagny, who looked into historical exposomics with C2DH researchers through the IAS-funded Luxembourg Time Machine project, currently focuses more on cheminformatics tools. Prepare for a discussion about all of the above and quite a lot on interdisciplinary approach!

USEFUL LINKS

LCSB - https://www.uni.lu/lcsb-en/
Luxembourg Time Machine - https://luxtimemachine.uni.lu/
EU Time Machine - https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/820323
PubChem - https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
Chemical Stripes - https://gitlab.lcsb.uni.lu/eci/chemicalstripes

SciLux Episodes related to this one:

Prof. Emma Schymanski on Unknown Chemicals - https://www.buzzsprout.com/1412332/10331298
Aida Horaniet Ibanez on Data Visualisation - https://www.buzzsprout.com/1412332/10172586
Dr. Archibold Mposhi on Epigenetics - https://www.buzzsprout.com/1412332/14549769

The invention of heat engines has played a key role in human evolution and this is the starting point for our discussion about thermodynamics with our guests, Prof. Massimiliano Esposito (University of Luxembourg) and Dr. Emanuele Penocchio (Northwestern University). Emanuele is currently working in the intersection between chemistry and physics - studying chemical motors - which we also discuss in this episode. Obviously, two guests also mean two pub quiz questions!

SHOW NOTES

Massimiliano Esposito on Google Scholar - https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UTezPWgAAAAJ&hl=en
Emanuele Penocchio on Google Scholar - https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=w0buCtcAAAAJ&hl=it
Rolf Tarrach Prize - https://www.uni.lu/en/news/rolf-tarrach-prize-2023-for-physicist-dr-emanuele-penocchio/
Video about Emanuele's PhD - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU0820ENNuo
University of Luxembourg - https://www.uni.lu/en/
Northwestern University - https://www.northwestern.edu/

If you want estimate the expected impact of a policy intervention, for example a modification of a tax rate, you can use microsimulations. Microsimulations can inform decision makers on the possible effects of their policies on individual households and support them in evidence-based decision making.


Get to know more about them from our guest, an expert in microsimulations, Dr. Denisa M. Sologon 
 (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)).

This episode felt a little like going back to school as Dr. Archibold Mposhi from LIH was nice enough to first explain very basic genetics and only then moved to his specialisation, epigenetics - the study of the influence of environment and behaviours on genes. So much going on in the field that we did not know about!

SHOW NOTES

About Archibold's research: https://researchportal.lih.lu/en/persons/archibold-mposhi
LIH Website: https://www.lih.lu/en/
Video about Archibold's mentor, Jonathan Turner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqT2BOB7jOI

Sustainability seems to be discussed in all areas of our lives nowadays. But what does it actually mean for a materials engineer? And most importantly, how can we convince the consumers to buy sustainable materials not only because they are better for the environment, but because these materials are simply pleasing to the eye and nice to touch?

In this episode we had a chance to talk to Dr. Tim Huber (LIST) about his multi-disciplinary approach to designing sustainable materials. Tim, who also has extensive experience of teaching design students, is currently trying to convince more people about the necessary dialogue between material engineers and designers. He definitely got us hooked. And you?

USEFUL LINKS

Tim Huber on Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.nz/citations?user=i97I4r4AAAAJ&hl=en
LIST: https://www.list.lu/

After a couple of weeks of discussion we finally had the pleasure to talk to the head of the amazing space labs at SnT (University of Luxembourg) and one of the postdocs who is a member of the space robotics group (SpaceR). Prof. Miguel Olivares Mendez and Dr. Carol Martinez told us what a robot really is, what it means when it has some intelligence and how it is to create labs which emulate space conditions. We also touched about the increasingly important issue of space debris and talked about an upcoming conference iSpaRo24.

USEFUL LINKS

SnT - https://www.uni.lu/snt-en/
SpaceR - https://www.uni.lu/snt-en/research-groups/SpaceR/
Carol Martinez's Website - https://carolmartinez.github.io/
iSpaRo24 - https://www.isparo.space/