Dear Mephy group,

I have an announcement to pass on for the Piaget Scientific Award at EPFL, forwarded from Yves Bellouard. If you think the Mephy list would potentially find it of interest, please consider posting it to the jobs list.

I would like to bring your attention to the Piaget Scientific Award that was set up at EPFL in Switzerland. In short, it offers to freshly graduated PhD student (or student who will graduate in a few months), the opportunity to suggest a research topic they would like to explore over one year at EPFL. They can propose a lab of their choice, but this is not mandatory. The committee will examine the proposals and find the best match. The fellowship is worth about 100kCHF, which includes the post-doc salary (roughly 6-7k /month) and a small budget for travelling. It is quite competitive (it’s an award), but I am sure you have excellent students who might be interested by such opportunities.

The goal is to identify early stage future academics and boost their career. It is therefore not an ordinary post-doc.

More information can be found here: https://piaget-award.epfl.ch/

Topics are broad and covers everything related to ‘miniaturization’ in a broad sense (from fundamental science to more applied research), and naturally includes micro-manufacturing,  laser-matter interaction, microscopy, optics at the small scales, and so on. For instance, the past awarded works on active water repellent smart materials and understanding the physics of it. The main criteria is the quality of the applications.

Deadline is soon approaching (31^st of May). If you are aware of possible late candidates, they can be a little flexibility with the deadline. Just let me know!

Best,

John Kolinski