Research Specialist

Vasiliki Tsikourkitoudi

Dr. Vasiliki Tsikourkitoudi is a Chemical Engineer graduated from the National Technical University of Athens (2010). She performed her MSc studies in Materials Science and Technology in the Research Unit of Advanced, Composite, Nano Materials & Nanotechnology (Prof. Costas Charitidis) in the same university (2010-2012). In 2012, she moved to northern Spain where she was employed in Technological Centre L’UREDERRA as a Process Engineer elaborating an industrial PhD under Marie Sklodowska-Curie ITN MANANO project (EC under grant agreement No. 264710) working on Flame Spray Pyrolysis (FSP) process optimization for synthesis of nanoparticles with desired properties. She received her PhD in 2016 from Kingston University of London supervised by Prof. Tao Zhang(Department of Mechanical Engineering). She then carried out postdoctoral research stay in Physics Department of University of Ioannina, Greece. She joined Prof. Georgios Sotiriou’s group in 2019 and she is currently working on nanoparticle-drug conjugates for drug delivery. She has published 11 scientific publications and haspresented her scientific results in various scientific international conferences.

Distinctions and Awards

• Best poster award in Symposium N of E-MRS Spring Meeting (May 11-15, Lille, 2015).
• “Marie Curie fellowship” for PhD studies, “Manufacturing and applications of nanostructured materials (MANANO)” FP7-PEOPLE-2010-ITN project (grant agreement No. 264710).
• “Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefits Foundation” Fellowship for MSc studies.
• “Thomaidio Award” from National Technical University of Athens for scientific publication.
• “Chris Papakyriakopoulos” award for excellent performance in Mathematics.

email: vasiliki.tsikourkitoudi@ki.se

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Postdoctoral fellows

Haipeng Li

Haipeng Li graduated in 2014 with a master’s degree in Materials Science and in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern Polytechnical University, China. He performed his PhD study from 2014 to 2020 at Leibniz Institute for Materials Engineering IWT and University of Bremen, Germany. During his PhD study, Haipeng has worked on functional nanoparticle synthesis via single and double flame spray pyrolysis (FSP), as well as studying droplet combustion and explosion using optical diagnostic techniques, including shadowgraphy (high-speed camera recording and backlight), rainbow refractometry, interferometric particle imaging, and digital in-line holography. Haipeng joined the group of Prof. Georgios Sotiriou in 2020 and his current research interest is to fabricate plasmonic nanostructured substrates for biosensing applications. He has published 7 first-author papers and 7 co-author papers in the international journals including Combustion and Flame, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, ACS Applied Nano Materials, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, as well as Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science.

email: haipeng.li@ki.se 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haipeng-li-52400219a/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=hIDeqycAAAAJ&hl=de&oi=ao

Padryk Merkl

Padryk Merkl is a postdoc in Dr. Georgios Sotiriou’s group in the department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell biology at Karolinska institutet. He earned his PhD from KI under the supervision of Georgios Sotiriou, the title of his thesis is “Responsive nanostructured materials for bioanalyte detection and triggered antimicrobial therapy”. He graduated in 2017 with an integrated masters degree in chemical physics from the University of Edinburgh, during this time he spent 13 months as an industrial placement student at Unilever in Colworth studying hair using confocal Raman spectroscopy supervised by Dr. Paul Pudney. He wrote his master’s thesis on an ab-initio computational study of the phase stabilities of neon hydrates conducted under the supervision of Dr. Andreas Hermann. He also spent a summer working in Dr. Colin Campbell’s group at the University of Edinburgh investigating the use of surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy for 3D cell culture analysis.

email: padryk.merkl@ki.se

Reshma Vasantha Ramachandran

Reshma graduated in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from NIT Calicut,  India. Further, she received her PhD in Bioengineering in 2022 from Indian Institute of Science (IISc) under the joint supervision of Prof. Ambarish Ghosh (Centre for Nanoscience and Engineering) and Prof. Deepak Saini (Dept. of Molecular Reproduction, Development and Genetics). During doctoral studies, she worked on helical magnetic nanomotors – focusing on their fabrication, toxicity and therapeutics. She joined the Sotiriou Lab as a postdoc in 2023 and her current research interests are bone tissue engineering and wound healing.

email: reshma.ramachandran@ki.se