Welcoming 8 New Postdoctoral Researchers Joining the CRM this Month

Gloria Cecchini (Computational Neuroscience) graduated with both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s in mathematics at the University of Florence (Italy). She earned her PhD in physics, at the University of Aberdeen (UK) and Potsdam (Germany), focusing on improving network inference by overcoming statistical limitations. After the PhD, she moved back to Italy where she did a 2-year postdoc in calcium imaging analysis. In particular, she investigated the impact of focal stroke on brain dynamics by analysing spatio-temporal propagation patterns. In the past 2 years, she was a postdoc researcher at the University of Barcelona (Spain) working on the role of consequence in a decision-making process, by not only analysing data from humans and non-human primates, but also developing mean-field models of consequential reward-driven decision-making.

She is currently a postdoc at CRM working with Alex Roxin on dynamical and network mechanisms in systems neuroscience, with a particular interest in short- and long-term memory in the hippocampus, and more specifically on the representational drift.

Ielyaas Cloete (Mathematical & Computational Biology): I completed my PhD in mathematics at the University of Auckland, under the supervision of Professors James Sneyd and Vivien Kirk, studying the dynamics of calcium oscillations in hepatocytes. I then started a postdoc at the University of Sussex, based at the Brighton & Sussex Medical School, studying the apoptotic signalling network in leukaemia. Thereafter I joined University College London, in the Medical Physics & Biomedical Engineering department where we studied treatment schedule optimisation for combination treatments in glioblastoma patients. At CRM, I have joined the group of Prof. Tomas Alarcon, we’ll be studying the BCL2 protein network in cellular senescence and interactions between BCL2 and calcium signalling networks. Our modelling approach involves using ODEs, SDEs, PDEs, data fitting and applications of dynamical systems theory to study biology. The modelling work is performed in collaboration with experimental biologists.

Katerina Kalou (Computational Neuroscience): Katerina is a Bioengineering and Biorobotics doctoral graduate from the University of Genova, Italy, with an MSc degree in Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Trento and a Diploma degree in Psychology from the University of Athens, Greece. She has previously worked as a junior postdoc in the lab of Prof.Redmond O’Connell in the areas of visual perception and decision-making using EEG/ fMRI and psychophysics. She is joining the Neuroscience research group to work with Klaus Wimmer.

Egor Kosov (Harmonic Analysis and Approximation Theory): Egor Kosov studied at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, where he obtained his PhD with the thesis “Polynomial images and shifts of measures on linear spaces”. Before joining the CRM, he held positions as an assistant at the Department of Theory of Functions and Functional Analysis at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Computer Science at the HSE University, and as a senior research fellow at the Department of Function Theory at the Steklov Mathematical Institute. He has worked on problems related to the discretization of integral norms, and Nikolskii-Besov regularity properties of distributions. He joins the Harmonic Analysis and Approximation Theory group to work with Sergey Tikhonov as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellow.

Alberto Maione (Analysis and Partial Differential Equations): My name is Alberto Maione and I am a Maria de Maetzu Postdoctoral fellow at the Centre de Recerca Matemàtica (CRM) of Barcelona in the research group of Analysis & PDEs, hosted by Prof. Xavier Cabré. I come from Italy, where in 2020 I received my PhD in Mathematics from the University of Trento under the supervision of Prof. Francesco Serra Cassano and Prof. Andrea Pinamonti. After the PhD, I moved to Freiburg, Germany, where I held a postdoctoral position from January 2021 to September 2023, in the research group of Prof. Patrick Dondl. I am very excited to be here and ready for this new experience!

Tássio Naia (Discrete Mathematics and Computer Science): My main research interests lie in Probabilistic and Extremal Combinatorics, which I will pursue working with Prof. Guillem Perarnau, the GAPCOMB group in general, and with whomever else wants to join in! I have a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Birmingham (UK), and have since held postdoctoral positions at the Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil) and Université de Bordeaux (France). Previously, I got an MSc in Computer Science and a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, both at the Universidade de São Paulo. Encantat d’unir-me al CRM!

Gustavo Rodrigues Ferreira (Dynamical Systems): Gustavo Rodrigues Ferreira is a postdoctoral researcher who has joined the Centre de Recerca Matemàtica to work with Núria Fagella. He studied molecular sciences at the Universidade de Sao Paulo, obtaining an M. Sc. in dynamical systems at the Instituto de Matemática e Estatística of the Universidade de São Paulo (IME-USP) and a PhD from The Open University (UK). His previous experience includes roles as an LMS Early Career Fellow at Imperial College London and, most recently, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Liverpool.

Daria Stepanova (Computational & Mathematical Biology): I have a background in mathematical modelling, specializing in theoretical biology. I earned my Ph.D. in 2022 at the CRM (affiliated with UAB) under the guidance of Tomás Alarcón (ICREA, CRM), Helen Byrne, and Philip Maini from the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford. My research focused on understanding the behavior of endothelial cells during angiogenesis, and the growth of blood vessels. Following my Ph. D., I spent two months at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, investigating cellular interactions in intestinal crypts and mechanisms of mutation fixation leading to polyps and cancer. I then joined the Laboratorio Subterráneo de Canfranc (LSC) in Huesca, Spain, where I supported the Hyper-Kamiokande (HK) experiment by analyzing pressure variations during implosion tests for photomultiplier covers on the HK detector’s surface. Additionally, I conducted research on the effects of low-background radiation on living systems at the LSC, leading to an approved experiment in early 2024. After completing my work at LSC, I returned to CRM for my second postdoc. I am currently collaborating with Tomás Alarcón, Josep Sardanyés, and Helen Byrne from the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, to study interactions between epigenetic regulation and 3D chromatin structure. Feel free to reach out, I’m in office 20 on the first floor!