Jonathan Houser joins us for graduate studies from the Trant lab at the University of Windsor. Jonathan has also won an NSERC CGS-M award to fund his studies. Congrats! He will work on understanding the origin of the catalytic relationship between RNA and proteins. Welcome, Jonathan!
Congrats to recent PhD graduate Maciej Piejko, who has won the 2026 thesis prize from the Fondation Jean-Marie Lehn of the University of Strasbourg! Maciej’s main project was on the use of NMR spectroscopy to probe the effects of vibrational strong coupling on London dispersion interactions, but his broad background allowed him to pursue side projects in many other topics. Maciej’s thesis was co-supervised by our lab’s own Dr. David Leboeuf and was carried out in collaboration with Prof. Thomas Ebbesen. Maciej is currently a postdoc at the Technical University of Munich. Congrats, Maciej!
A warm welcome to second year undergraduate student Imrâne Chemlal, who was awarded an NSERC USRA to conduct research in our lab this summer. He will work with Sinan Bascil on NMR kinetics of reactions under VSC.
Inspired by discussions with members of our research group in Strasbourg and in Ottawa (Emilie, Maciej and Joseph), Québec artist Julie Tremble open her exhibit LUCABOT today at the OBORO gallery in Montréal. The exhibit runs until June 6, with audio in French.
Lots of good news from recent group members.
Former PhD student Dr. Emilie Werner was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship to work with Prof. Igor Larossa at the University of Manchester.
Former PhD student Dr. Cyprien Muller, now a postdoctoral fellow at ISTA with Prof. Rafal Klajn, was selected to attend the prestigious 75th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting.
Former PhD student Dr. Maciej Piejko has received a Walter-Benjamin Postdoctoral Fellowship to work with Prof. Robert Mayer (also a group alumni) at TUM.
Former research associate (CR) Dr. David Leboeuf was promoted to Director of Research (DR) at the CNRS. He has led his own group at LIMA since 2024.
Keep up the great work, everyone!
Congrats to Shunjiro Sodei on successfully defending his thesis! He is the eighteenth PhD student to graduate from the group. Special thanks to jury members Prof. Grégoire Danger (Marseille), Prof. Klara Hlouchova (Charles University), and Dr. Wolfgang Nitschke (Marseille), and our jury president Prof. Sheref Mansy (Trento). Shunjiro will join Sumimoto Chemical in Osaka, Japan as a senior scientist.
Congrats to Sinan Bascil for receiving the prize for best poster at the 53rd Physical Organic Mini-Symposium (POMS), an annual national conference for students, postdocs and faculty doing physical organic chemistry. Sinan’s poster featured his work on improving our ability to monitor vibrational strong coupling experiments by NMR.
Three new MSc student have joined the group. New Brunswicker Marcus Vaillancourt joins us from Acadia University, Newfoundlander Rosemary Karn joins us from the University of Ottawa, and Ontarian Jack Cottingham joins us from Carleton University. All three received Merit scholarships. A warm welcome to all three!
A warm welcome to Rim El Alaoui and Isaac Utovac, who join our lab for the summer. Rim is a second year student at uOttawa who won an NSERC USRA award. Isaac is a third year coop student at uOttawa. Welcome to both!
Congrats to Maciej Piejko on successfully defending his thesis! He is the seventeenth PhD student to graduate from the group. Special thanks to jury members Prof. Peter Schreiner (Giessen), Dr. Ilaria Ciofini (ParisTech), and our jury president Prof. Jérôme Lacour (Geneva). Maciej will join the lab of Prof. Robert Mayer at TUM as a Walter-Benjamin postdoctoral fellow.
