People

Rani Mary Joy is a postdoctoral researcher in the Wide Band Gap Materials Group, where she completed her PhD (2024) focusing on stress evolution and color center growth in CVD diamond. Rani holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Calicut, India, and a Master’s degree in Microelectronics from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. Her career began in the Dutch high-tech industry as a process engineer, specializing in PECVD of silicon oxide and zinc oxide processes for solar cell applications. She later joined the National Centre for Flexible Electronics at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, where she worked on thin-film transistor fabrication on flexible substrates. She has expertise in thin film synthesis and processing, including ALD, and epitaxial growth, her recent work has explored the structural and mechanical properties of low-temperature polycrystalline CVD diamond films. Her current research focuses on the fabrication and optical characterization of Group-IV color centers in diamond, with applications in photonics.

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Essraa Ahmed is a PhD student in the WBGM of UHasselt currently studying charge transfer between diamond electrodes and Cyanobacteria. Essraa has a master degree in physics from Stellenbosch University where she worked on developing a near infrared femtosecond laser source for observation of charge transfer processes in semiconductors. Essraa's current research project focuses on studying the photosynthesis performance of diamond electrodes functionalized by Cyanobacteria under gamma irradiation. 

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After completing her bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences at Hasselt University, Nora obtained a master’s degree in Bioelectronics and Nanotechnology. In 2022, Nora received a Frank De Winne fellowship from FWO for her research project focusing on sustainable hydrogen production for extraterrestrial applications. During this multidisciplinary project, she works closely together with the Belgian Nuclear Research Center (SCK CEN) and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, combining expertise on the cross-over of physics, chemistry and biology.

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Bio-engineer turned physicist, Hendrik is a PhD student in the WBGM group. He attained his Master of Science degree in bio-science engineering: bio-system engineering at KU Leuven. At KU Leuven, Hendriks work revolved mostly around nanoengineering nanoparticles for biomedical and biomimicry applications.

After finishing his degree, Hendrik transitioned to the field of material science by starting his PhD at the WBGM. Currently he is focusing on 2 topics. His first topic revolves around producing micro-heater devices that can be used to study temperature effects on (intra)cellular mechanisms. He is also interested in the thermal properties of thin-film diamond and its applications as heat spreader/electrical insulator in integrated circuit packaging and heater devices.

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Josué Millán Barba is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Materials Science at the University of Cádiz, Spain. He has recently completed his Ph.D. (2024), focusing on composite materials reinforced with CVD boron-doped diamond for aerospace applications. Josué holds a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master's degree in Manufacturing Engineering, both from the University of Cadiz. Currently, Josué is a technical researcher at the CVD Diamond Laboratory of the Institute of Electron Microscopy and Materials (IMEYMAT), at the University of Cadiz, where his research focuses on the growth of n- and p-type doped diamond for electronic and composite applications.

Stephen is a visiting doctoral researcher from the Czech Technical University in Prague, pursuing advanced studies in applied physics. He collaborates with the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences under the Diamond Growth Research Group, supervised by Dr. Ing. Stepan Potocky and specialist Prof. Ing. Alexander Kromka, DrSc, both from the Institute. Concurrently, he is engaged in doctoral research within the Materiomics program at Hasselt University, focusing on the development and characterization of heterostructures composed of polyaniline and boron-doped diamond for supercapacitor applications. He holds a Master's degree in Polymer Engineering and is particularly interested in leveraging his expertise in polymer synthesis to advance energy harvesting technologies.

Raffaella Salerno is a PhD student in Chemistry at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, under the supervision of Prof. Riccardo Polini and Dr. Daniele M. Trucchi. She conducts her research at the DiaTHEMA Lab, part of the Institute of the Structure of Matter at the Italian National Research Council (CNR-ISM). Her PhD focuses on the development of diamond-based electron emitters for sustainable energy technologies, particularly exploring photon-enhanced thermionic emission (PETE) in silicon/diamond heterostructures – a research topic she first began investigating during her Master’s thesis. As a visiting researcher at WBGM, she is collaborating on the synthesis of phosphorus- and nitrogen-doped, ultra-thin, low work function diamond films, in order to improve electron emission and better understand the role of doping and surface termination in controlling electron emission properties.