Applied Sciences

Low Temperature Growth and Layer Transfer of Two-Dimensional Materials

The discovery of graphene and its astonishing properties has given birth to a new class of two-dimensional (2D) materials so named because, as with graphene, they can be thinned down to single layers only one to three atoms thick. This particular feature grants 2D materials unique physical and chemical properties such as transparency, flexibility, and extreme sensitivity to stimuli, making them very attractive for electronic and photonic applications such as high performance bendable electronics, optoelectronic and spintronic devices, sensors, electrodes and nanocomposites.

Novel Theranostic Agents for Imaging in the Near-Infrared II Region and for Photodynamic Therapy

In the search for an alternative approach to chemotherapy against cancer, Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) has proven to be an effective treatment technique. PDT used a chemical compound called photosensitizer (PS), which is injected intravenously. When the PS reaches the tumor (generally after a few hours), a physician activates it with a non-harmful laser. The combination of PS and light instantly generates toxic molecular species that kill the tumor.

Undergraduate Internship in Microbial Growth Data Analysis

For my FSCIS fellowship, I worked at EcoleCentrale's Life Sciences Laboratory. Over the course of my six-week internship, I coded a program (written in C++ and Python) that utilizes image analysis algorithms and logistic regression to predict whether a cell will divide in the next X hours. It currently classifies cells as growing or not with 97% accuracy allowing for predictive analysis, which was not previously used in the laboratory. What drew me to the FSCIS fellowship is my love for the French culture.

Efficient Modeling and Inference in Population Genetics

DNA sequences from a sample of present day individuals is a record of the evolutionary history of the population. Availability of molecular sequence data from different organisms living today and from ancient DNA samples has enabled reconstruction of past population size trajectories of human populations over the past 150,000 years, the 2014 Ebola virus epidemic in Sierra Leone, and the Hepatitis C virus epidemic in Egypt.