The EssentialTech Centre at EPFL creates sustainable and scalable healthcare solutions for underserved populations. Together with interdisciplinary and international partners, we develop technical prototypes and business models for innovative solutions in newborn health (low-cost neonatal incubator and AI-based diagnostic tools) and assistive technology (camera-based navigation device) for the visually impaired.Responsibilities:• Generate prototype development and market strategy• Establish multi-stakeholder partnerships and develop project strategy• Grant writing and fundraising (750k + raised from public funding agencies, among others)• Project execution, monitoring and control• Reporting and presentation of deliverables to project partners and funders

The EssentialMed Foundation is committed to the development and deployment of effective, high quality and affordable medical devices. Its next flagship product, an ultra-robust transport incubator, will help stabilise sick newborns in remote areas and ensure safe transfer.Responsibilities:• Coordinate an international consortium of medical device and public health experts to strategize the deployment of transport incubators in Sub-Saharan Africa• Manage feasibility studies for ancillary products such as AI-based body weight estimation from an image• Supporting the team in fundraising by developing grant writing strategiesPublication: "Ending Neonatal Deaths from Hypothermia in Sub-Saharan Africa: Call for Essential Technologies Tailored to the Context"

The core technology of the newborn incubator is a thermal battery that provides heat to keep the infant warm during transport or power outages.Responsibilities:• In charge of the design of the patented phase-change material thermal battery and the improvement of the ventilation system

Imagine drinking coffee that is traded fairly and at eye level. Imagine coffee farmers actually getting the price they need for their work. Imagine your coffee coming from Mexico on a sailing ship powered by the wind. Imagine being part of a global community.Responsibilities:• Develop a sustainable coffee supply chain, focusing on organic farming techniques and sailing cargo to minimize the environmental footprint of coffee. Build up to 11 tons of coffee per year• In charge of the design and implementation of a coffee subscription model to involve the consumer in the pre-financing of the coffee harvest• Responsible for logistics and coffee quality, sensory and roasting

Enhancement of carbon dioxide conversion into high-value chemicals.Responsibilities:• Team lead for various work packages in the framework of 2 multi-national, EU-funded research projects in the field of CO2 conversion into high value chemicals.• Prototype development and testing for a photo-electrochemical reactor to convert CO2 into CO using concentrated sunlight.• Characterization of the morphology of gas diffusion and catalyst layers using FIB-SEM tomography and image processing.• Data visualization and communication to report to an interdisciplinary project committee.

Advancing photoelectrochemical water splitting and electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction:Linking Morphology and Multiphysical Transport in Structured Electrodes.Experience:• Data management and analysis to reconstruct 3D models from computed X-ray tomography and FIB-SEM nano tomography.• Characterization of multi-scale porous materials based on acquired tomography data using image processing and accurate 3D meshing. • Heat and mass transport, semiconductor physics and electromagnetic wave propagation simulations combined with experiments to provide design guidelines for porous photoelectrodes and electrochemical reactors.• Innovation-driven process flow development and testing for a novel template-stripping method using photolithography, silicon etching and film transfer techniques in a clean room facility to fabricate photoelectrodes.• Numerous collaboration with international institutes, writing articles in peer-reviewed journals, and giving talks at international conferences. • Teaching assistance for master courses as well as supervision of several master's theses and projects.

• Collaboration with an industrial partner to characterize the structure of their porous aluminum foam. • Image processing of computed tomography data and finite volume calculations to optimize the foam porosity and morphology in order to improve the heat and mass transfer.

• Engineering and optimization of a porous heat absorber and reaction media in a solar-driven thermochemical fuel processing reactor.• Characterization of the foam-like morphology using computed tomography.• Image processing to model the effect of the fabrication process on the foam morphology.• Monte-Carlo ray tracing and finite volume calculations to find the morphological dependencies of the the radiative, convective and conductive heat transfer as well as the mass transfer.

• Designing a test bench to monitor the accuracy of bismuth telluride based heat flux sensors used in the company’s first production line.

• Computational modeling of a fluidized bed system to guide the manufacturing of an UV-irradiated catalytic water splitting reactor.