News

Registration to the science summer camps organized by the EPFL's Science Outreach Department in August 2026 are opening on Monday 24 March at 12:30 and will fill up quickly. With the objective of promoting MARVEL-related fields, especially toward girls, and encouraging them to choose scientific and engineering careers, MARVEL has supported throughout the years the summer camp in chemistry for girls and boys 11-13 years old (taking place in 2026 from 3 to 7 August) and the summer camp on materials science Matériaux super géniaux for girls 11-13 years old (in 2026, from 10 to 14 August). 

During the Psi-k 2025 that took place from 25 to 28 August 2025 in Lausanne, we interviewed several MARVEL members or top experts in computational materials science and asked them how they see the future of the field. Over the past few months we have been publishing the resulting interviews that present a range of diverse perspectives on the challenges and opportunities that await the community. The interviews are also an opportunity to assess the impact of MARVEL and its impact on the field overall. This month we complete the series with the interviews with MARVEL members Giovanni Pizzi from PSI and Virginie de Mestral from ETH Zurich, with the Funan University professor Xingao Gong, and with MARVEL director Nicola Marzari. All the interviews are collected in a playlist on the Materials Cloud YouTube channel.   

Three new collections of portraits of women professors in Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics are now on display across EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences, ten years after the initial installation in Materials Science. Come and discover this new opportunity to showcase role models and encourage young women to choose a career in science.

We are happy to announce that Lisa Ruth Andreozzi (Sapienza, Roma), Natalie E. Hooven (Univ. Wisconsin, Madison), and Ruth Mora Soto (Univ. Politècnica de Catalunya) were granted INSPIRE Potentials – MARVEL Master's Fellowships after the November 2025 call. The three women will join MARVEL labs for a 3 to 6 month research project — congratulations!

Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg (Sweden) invites applications for two Assistant or Associate Professor positions as WISE Fellows in the area of Materials Science for a Sustainable Future.

The Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge, UK, invite applications for a University Assistant/Associate Professorship position. The successful candidate will have an outstanding research record in a Materials Science related field and strong commitment to teaching. The post is available from 1 July 2026 or as soon as possible thereafter.

The MARVEL community gathered in Grindelwald for the final MARVEL Review and Retreat to reflect on the program’s 12-year journey and celebrate the connections, collaborations, and sense of community that have grown over the years. From lively project sessions and poster discussions to a pub quiz and spontaneous gatherings, the retreat offered a unique mix of science, friendship, and reflection, celebrating both the NCCR’s achievements and the lasting impact it will have on participants and the wider research community.

Two more interviews filmed during the Psi-k 2025 that took place from 25 to 28 August in Lausanne, presenting a range of diverse perspectives on the challenges and opportunities that await the community. The interviews are also an opportunity to assess the impact of MARVEL and its impact on the field overall. Here are the interviews to Michele Kotiuga, a former MARVEL member who is now with the company Materials Design, and Indian professor Shobhana Narasimhan from the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bengaluru.

CP2K is an open-source quantum chemistry and solid state physics software package that can perform atomistic simulations of solid state, liquid, molecular, periodic, material, crystal, and biological systems, and that was developed by Jürg Hutter’s group at the University of Zurich with support by MARVEL. It has received the Scientific Originality Prize at the second Helmholtz Software Award, assigned by the Helmholtz Association, Germany’s largest research organization.

Do you communicate about your research with the public? And do you use AI when doing so, or not? These are some of the questions the SNSF project "Science Communication in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" at the University of Zurich is trying to answer. Thus they are inviting researchers across all disciplines to participate to an anonymous online survey.

Gramatte, a member of Empa's Laboratory for Advanced Materials Processing, was presented with the award by Empa Director Tanja Zimmermann during the recent Empa Leadership Forum. He received the recognition for his work on a recent publication in npj Computational Materials with MARVEL PI Vladyslav Turlo, where they introduced a new, fast atomistic simulation technique that leverages spectroscopy data, machine learning, and molecular dynamics techniques to model how hydrogen interacts with thin alumina films manufactured through atomic layer deposition (ALD). 

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) Lab, an independent research institution based in Abu Dhabi specializing in data and computational sciences, is seeking a Senior Computational Scientist with a focus on Material Sciences. This position plays a pivotal role in establishing a new research group, cultivating and expanding a globally recognized team of researchers, and leading lab-wide initiatives at ADIA Lab and within the broader international community. The goal is to leverage computational science and data-driven discovery to accelerate breakthroughs in materials for energy, sustainability, and advanced technologies.