About the Speaker's

Dr. Safeer Chenattukuzhiyil, Oxford University, Royal Society University Research Fellow

Dr. Safeer obtained his PhD from the SPINTE-CNRS lab in Grenoble, France, on the topic of 'spin-orbit torque and chiral magnetism.' He then worked at CIC nanoGUNE in San Sebastian, Spain, as a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow, studying '2D material spintronics.' In 2021, he moved to the UK and joined the Department of Physics at Oxford University as a postdoctoral researcher, focusing on 'spintronics neuromorphic computing.' In 2024, he was awarded the Royal Society University Research Fellowship for his project to develop next-generation 2D spin computing devices, with which he is currently setting up his research group at Oxford Physics.

Dr. Alexandra Gibbs, University of St Andrews

Alex Gibbs obtained her MPhys from St Andrews in 2008 and followed this with a PhD in 2013, also at St Andrews, under the supervision of Prof. A. P. Mackenzie and Prof. P. Lightfoot. From 2012 to 2016 she undertook postdoctoral research at the University of Tokyo and RIKEN and the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart with Prof. H. Takagi. She followed this with an Instrument Scientist position at the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source from 2016 to 2020. She returned to St Andrews in 2020 to take up an EPSRC Early Career Fellowship.

Tom Lancaster, Durham University

Tom Lancaster is Professor of Physics at Durham University. His research interests include using muons to investigate aspects of magnetism, including low-dimensional and topological magnetic systems.

Dr Servet Ozdemir, University of Leeds

Dr. Servet Ozdemir has obtained his PhD from the University of Manchester in 2020, under supervision of Nobel Laureate Sir Kostya Novoselov as a student of Graphene NOWNANO CDT. He was awarded the Springer Thesis Prize for his PhD thesis titled ‘Electronic properties of rhombohedral graphite’. Following his PhD, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Heriot-Watt University studying optoelectronic properties of 2D semiconductors. Since September 2022, he has been working at the Condensed Matter Physics Group of University of Leeds with Prof. Oscar Cespedes and has recently become interested in emerging many-body dynamics at metal-organic molecule interfaces.

Prof. Dr Christian Ruegg, PSI/ ETH Zurich/ EPFL

Prof. Dr Christian Rüegg is Director of the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) and full professor of physics at ETH Zurich (ETHZ) and EPF Lausanne (EPFL) and professor at the University of Geneva.
Christian Rüegg studied physics at ETHZ and obtained his doctorate in 2005 at the Laboratory for Neutron Scattering at ETH Zurich and PSI. He then worked at the London Centre for Nanotechnology of University College London (UCL) and Imperial College London from 2005 to 2011. He was a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Lecturer and Reader at UCL. Between 2011 and 2016 he headed the Laboratory for Neutron Scattering and Imaging in the Research Division Neutrons and Muons at PSI and from 2017 to 2020 he was head of the division. Since April 2020 he has been leading PSI as director.
Christian Rüegg is a solid-state physicist working on quantum phenomena in magnetism. He has received various awards for his work, including the Lewy Bertaut Prize and the Nicholas Kurti Science Prize for Europe, as well as an ERC Consolidator Grant. He played a decisive role in the use and further development of the instrumentation at large-scale research facilities in Switzerland and Europe, e.g. at the Swiss Spallation Neutron Source SINQ and at the European sources ILL and ESS and represents this field of research in numerous international committees.

Dr Andrew Wildes, Institute Laue Langevin, Grenoble, France

Andrew Wildes has ben an instrument scientist at the Institute Laue-Langevin since 1997, and is currently responsible for the D007 neutron diffuse scattering spectrometer with polarisation analysis. His primary research interests are in the magnetic structure and dynamics of quasi-low dimensional materials, and in short-range order in frustrated compounds.