Krutika Singh

Krutika obtained her MSc degree in NanoBio Science at University College Dublin in 2018. Later, she joined the School of Chemistry as a PhD student and is currently working on the preparation and optimization of 3D printable hydrogels to produce magnetically responsive constructs for tissue engineering applications under the supervision of Prof. Dermot Brougham and Prof. Brian Rodriguez. Krutika recently submitted her thesis!

Alyona Yedelkina

Alyona joined UCD as a PhD student in the School of Physics in September 2022 under the supervision of Antonio Benedetto and Brian Rodriguez. Her project focuses on the effect of ionic liquids on lipid bilayers of increasing complexity and cells by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM), neutron scattering, and other complementary techniques. She was originally supported by a UCD School of Physics scholarship and is now on an Irish Research Council Fellowship.

Aidan O'Dowling

Aidan is a surgical trainee who graduated from medicine in UCC in 2017. He is currently undertaking an MD investigating the biomechanics of the pancreatic cancer microenvironment under the supervision of Dr. Stephen Thorpe.

Michelle Fox

Michelle graduated from the University of Galway with a bachelor of science in 2020. In September of that year, she joined the UCD School of Medicine as a PhD student and an anatomy demonstrator. Her research focuses on the biomechanics of the pancreatic cancer tumour microenvironment under the supervision of Dr. Stephen Thorpe and Brian Rodriguez.

Sinny Trivedi

Sinny received her PhD degree in Physics from Gujarat University, India in 2019. Her area of research was on structural, optical and electrical properties of the wide band gap oxides and their hetrostructures. She received her MPhil degree in Physics in 2009. She is a visiting researcher at UCD. While at UCD she is learning Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and Piezoelectric Force Microscopy (PFM) under the supervision of Professor Brian Rodriguez. She is interested in gaining more knowledge on learning and applying AFM techniques, contributing to group activities including photodeposition experiments.

Lima Zhou

Lima graduated with a Master's in Materials Science from the University of Augsburg, Germany, focusing on domain (wall) engineering, using broadband dielectric spectroscopy and various modes of AFM. He joined the UCD School of Physics as a PhD student in September 2023 under the supervision of Brian Rodriguez. His project, funded by the Irish Research Council, addresses the question of whether the presence of ionic species can change the size of ferroelectric domains using (liquid) AFM, aiming at the exciting research direction of ferroelastic-ferroelectrics for artificial muscles.

Nawal Ashraf

Nawal is a PhD researcher in the Nanoscale Function Group. She graduated from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS, Beijing, China) with a Master in Nanoscience and Technology in 2022. During her graduate research, she worked at National Centre for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST, Beijing, China), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and National Centre for Physics (NCP, Islamabad, Pakistan). In 2023, she conducted postgraduate research at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia) and subsequently joined University College Dublin in 2024 to continue her PhD studies. She is a recipient of four international scholarships, including Belt and Road (China), ANSO (China), KAUST Scholarship (Saudi Arabia), and SIRAT (Ireland). At NFG, her research focuses on manoeuvring ferroelectric templates using AFM and other methods for electrooptic and catalysis applications.

Yevhen Brych

Yev joined the Nanoscale function group at the beginning of 2024 during his Nanotechnology Masters at UCD. Prior to this, he completed his Bachelor in Physics and Biomedical Sciences at DCU in 2023, where he worked on prototyping sustainable 3D printed Microwell plates.

Current Research Interests
All things AFM, with a focus on electrical modes. As well as developing a pre-existing but unimplemented Scanning Microwave Impedance Microscopy (sMIM) mode for the AFMs in the Nanoscale Function group lab.

Saakshi Podduturu

Saakshi is currently a 3rd year undergraduate at University of California Merced, studying Computer Science and Engineering. In her summer research project in the Nanoscale Function Group, she focuses on data analysis of force and bias spectroscopy data, using her technical expertise to generate insights and advance ongoing projects’ goals.

Claudia Sosa Espada

Claudia is heading into her fourth undergraduate year at UCD, where she is completing a MSc degree in Theoretical Physics. She is joining the Nanoscale Function group for the summer 2024 through a research studentship.

During her time in the research group, she is eager to gain hands-on experience with AFM and explore its potential in natural and bioinspired piezoelectric materials. She will help monitor and analyse their response using various procedures, such as topographical, electromechanical, and pyroelectric characterization.

Connor McIlvain

Connor is a 3rd year student studying Chemistry at the University of Notre Dame. His summer research project at UCD in the Nanoscale Function Group involves working with their Lego AFM. He is excited to bring his previous experience with microscopy to this project.