People

Em. Prof. dr. Dirk Vanderzande is the former HyMaD group leader. Since 2022, he has been an emeritus professor at Hasselt University. Prof. Vanderzande is the formal PhD promotor for HyMaD group members Stijn Lenaers and Ilan Devroey. The day-to-day supervision of these PhD students is done by the current HyMaD group leader, Prof. Van Gompel.

Dirk Vanderzande finished his PhD in 1986 under the supervision of Prof. G. Hoornaert (KU Leuven, Belgium). He moved to Hasselt University in 1987, was appointed Assistant Professor in 1992, and after a position as Associate Professor, he became Full Professor in 2000. From 2010 till 2022, he was appointed as Director of the Institute for Materials Research (imo-imomec) at Campus Diepenbeek, a joint research institute of UHasselt and IMEC in the field of advanced materials. His research mainly focused on the synthetic and physical chemistry of conjugated polymers to be used as semiconductors in thin-film devices, e.g. organic solar cells.

Alfonsina Torimtubun obtained her bachelor in Chemical Engineering from Universitas Brawijaya, Indonesia in 2015. She then received a scholarship from National Central University, Taiwan, to continue her master in Chemical and Materials Engineering, with a research focus on device engineering and characterisation of n-type organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). In 2017, she worked as a lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Institut Teknologi Kalimantan, Indonesia. She was later awarded the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) COFUND fellowship to complete her PhD in Technologies for Nanosystems, Bioengineering and Energy at Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain in 2022. Her PhD research centered on the design, engineering and characterisation of ternary organic solar cells. Following her PhD, she joined Prof. Mariano Campoy's group at the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) as a postdoctoral researcher, where she focused on enhancing her skills in high-throughput techniques for the development of rainbow organic solar cells. In 2025, she was granted an MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship to expand her research on the material and device design, synthesis, and characterisation of 2D hybrid perovskite-based floating-gate transistors at IMO-IMOMEC. She will be working jointly with the HyMaD group and the OOE group of Prof. Koen Vandewal. 

Stijn Lenaers received his bachelor in Chemistry at Hasselt University in 2018. During his bachelor thesis, he focussed on the synthesis of porphyrin push-pull molecules for organic photodetectors under the supervision of prof. Wouter Maes. In 2020, he obtained a master’s degree in chemistry from KU Leuven. His master thesis focussed on the synthesis of precursors of fluorinated 1,4-dihydropyridines and was conducted in the research group of prof. Wim De Borggraeve. During the master, he also performed an external internship in the HyMaD research group working on the synthesis of large organic ammonium cations. This internship eventually led him towards a PhD in the HyMaD research group in September of 2020, under the supervision of Prof. Dirk Vanderzande with Prof. Wouter Van Gompel as co-supervisor. The goal of his PhD project is to synthesise and incorporate large organic cations as interlayers for hybrid perovskite solar cells.

Ilan Devroey obtained his bachelor degree at KU Leuven in 2019 and went on to receive his master degree in chemistry at the same institution in 2021. In the course of his first master year, he did a research internship at imec where he focused on the electro- and wet chemical atomic layer etching of ruthenium. In the following year, he completed his master thesis project under the supervision of Prof. Wim De Borggraeve. The project comprised the design and synthesis of novel anti-convulsants. In September 2021, Ilan started his PhD in the HyMaD group under supervision of Prof. Dirk Vanderzande, in which he works on the development of novel hybrid perovskites and their application in sustainable energy production.

Ola Ciesielska obtained her bachelor's degree in materials chemistry from Hasselt University in 2021. Within the HyMaD group, her bachelor's thesis delved into the synthesis and application of functional organic ammonium salts in hybrid perovskites. In 2023, she obtained a master's degree in chemistry at KU Leuven, conducting research on the wet-chemical properties of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides for next-generation transistors during her internship at imec in Leuven. During her final year, Ola did her master's thesis within the SOLVOMET group under the guidance of Prof. Koen Binnemans. Her research focused on the utilization of ionic liquid-based aqueous biphasic systems for the extraction and separation of metal ions. Since September 2023, Ola has started a PhD in the HyMaD group under the supervision of Prof. Wouter Van Gompel. Her current research centers around chiral hybrid perovskites, exploring their applications in circularly polarized LEDs.

In 2020, Ediz Garip received his BSc degree in chemistry at Hasselt University. During his bachelor project, he focused on the flow synthesis of push-pull type copolymer PBDB-T for highly efficient organic solar cells under the supervision of Prof. dr. Wouter Maes. He continued his studies at the Technical University of Eindhoven, where he obtained his MSc in chemical engineering and chemistry in 2023. During his master studies, he carried out his graduation project in the Molecular Materials and Nanosystems (M2N) group. Under the supervision of Prof. dr. ir. Rene Janssen, he worked on the optimization and 2D/quasi-2D passivation of inverted FAPbI3-based perovskite solar cells. His master studies were finished with an industrial internship at Nitto Belgium, where he studied filled pressure sensitive adhesives. In 2023, he started in the Hybrid Materials Design (HyMaD) group as a PhD candidate under the supervision of Prof. dr. Wouter Van Gompel, where he is currently investigating the mechanism of crystallization of low-dimensional hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites.

In 2021, Robin Erkens earned his bachelor's degree in materials chemistry from Hasselt University. For his bachelor's thesis, conducted at the HyMaD group under the guidance of Prof. Dirk Vanderzande, he concentrated on the synthesis and application of organic ammonium iodide salts in hybrid perovskites. Subsequently, pursuing a master's degree in chemistry at KU Leuven, he completed an industrial internship at Hercorub, contributing to the optimization of polychloroprene rubber compounds. His master's studies concluded with a thesis exploring the influence of chiral monomers on sequence-defined conjugated polymers within the research group of Prof. Guy Koeckelberghs. In 2023, Robin returned to the HyMaD group under the supervision of Prof. Wouter Van Gompel to delve back into the realm of hybrid perovskites. Presently, his research focuses on investigating the impact of energy level tuning in 2D hybrid perovskites for their application in solar cells.

Arne Verding earned his bachelor's degree in materials chemistry from Hasselt University in 2022. For his bachelor's thesis, conducted within the HyMaD group under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Dirk Vanderzande, he focused on the synthesis and application of organic ammonium iodide salts in two-dimensional hybrid perovskite single crystals. In 2024, he obtained a master's degree in chemistry from
KU Leuven. During this program, he completed an internship at imec Leuven in the ECAT research group, where he explored electrochemistry in greater depth. For his master's thesis, he worked on zero-dimensional perovskite-like structures for light emission, under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Elke Debroye. In October 2024, Arne started his Ph.D. within the HyMaD group under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Wouter Van Gompel to continue his research on perovskites. His project focuses on tuning 2D hybrid perovskites for their application in memory devices.

Brent Motmans obtained his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry at Hasselt University in 2023. For his bachelor's thesis, supervised by Prof. Wouter Maes (DSOS), he focused on the synthesis and computational study of TADF molecules. In 2025, he completed his master’s degree in Materiomics at the same university. During his studies, he conducted an internship at imec in Leuven, where he combined machine learning and density functional theory to predict complex material properties. His master's thesis, supervised by Prof. Danny Vanpoucke (QuATOMs) and Prof. An Hardy (DESINe), focused on machine learning-based prediction of inorganic nanoparticle synthesis. He started his PhD in 2025 in a joint collaboration between the QuATOMs and HyMaD groups, under the supervision of Prof. Danny Vanpoucke and co-supervised by Prof. Wouter Van Gompel. His research focuses on the computational modeling of chiral hybrid perovskites.