Istituto Italiano
di Tecnologia (IIT)

Dr Francesco De Angelis is Principal Investigator at IIT where he leads the Plasmon Nanotechnologies Unit (20 members in total: 2 researchers, 15 postdocs, 2 PhD students and 1 technician). His main expertise relies on micro and nano-optical devices for biomedical applications. He was awarded an IDEAS-ERC Consolidator grant (Neuro-Plasmonics, grant agreement 616213) for developing radically new interfaces between electrical/optical devices and neuronal networks. Before ProID, He has been also the coordinator of the PROSEQO project (FET Open, grant agreement 687089) that was devoted to next-generation methods for protein sequencing. He published more than 160 papers in peer-review impacted journals.

Working as a part of the ProID project, in the Plasmon Nanotechnology group at the IIT since September 2021, on nanopore fabrication and optimization through supporting ions and surface functionalization. Previously, my PhD was awarded from Twente University (Netherlands) on "Photophysics of Photothermal Activation of Plasmonic Nanostructures" in July 2021, and my MSc was awarded by Carleton University (Canada) in 2016 for "Silver nanowire coatings as a functional thin film". My background in chemistry turned towards bottom-up production of plasmonic nanostructures, with a focus on energy, charge, or heat production monitored spectroscopically.

Senior researcher at the Plasmon Nanotechnologies unit led by Dr Francesco De Angelis. His main expertise is on nano-phonics and plasmonic with particular attention on exploiting the near field for measuring, mapping and modifying surfaces at the nanoscale. With his activity in IIT, his experience has then shifted more to the application of nanophotonics to the biological field, especially for high-performance sensing and mapping of biosamples. He also is the inventor co-author of three patents and published more than 60 papers on peer-review impacted journals; H index = 14. Dr Tantussi has been involved in many projects, among them: FET-Open PROSEQO (2016-2019); ERC CoG, Neuro-Plasmonics (PI Francesco De Angelis, 2014-2018), E2-Plas, EC FP7: NanoSci-E+ (2009-2012).

Giada La Gala was born in Italy. She studied physics at the University of Pavia, obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in 2013 with a final research project about Raman spectroscopy applied to forensic sciences.

She later obtained a Master’s degree in Condensed Matter Physics from the same University in 2016. During the Master’s program she spent five months at Utrecht University following the European Erasmus+ study exchange program. For the final research project, she spent one year at the NWO institute AMOLF in Amsterdam working in the Photonic Forces group of Professor Ewold Verhagen in the field of quantum optomechanics.

In 2016, Giada started as a PhD researcher in the same group. During her PhD she presented her results in international conferences and advanced schools (in USA, Israel, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Greece and Italy). She graduated in 2020. Since 2021 she works as a postdoctoral fellow at Italian Institute of Technology - Genova, Morego. Here she works at the intersection between nanophotonics, microfluidics and molecular biology.  She is independently active as an organizer of cultural and artistic initiatives connecting art and science.

Dr Erick Ulin-Avila is currently a Postdoctoral fellow in Plasmonic Nanotechnologies at IIT, Genova where he works on ultrafast Raman spectroscopy. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral fellow in the Advanced Photonics Research Laboratory at the Technion's Faculty of Electrical Engineering where he studied graphene as an optical-fibre interface for the spectroscopy of aqueous media. Erick graduated with a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley in the areas of MEMS, Nanomaterials and Nanophotonics under the supervision of Prof. Xiang Zhang, focusing on plasmonics, metamaterials and graphene-based photonic devices.  As a graduate student researcher at UC Berkeley, Erick also investigated electric field noise from metallic surface-electrode ion microtraps for scalable quantum information processing under the supervision of Prof. Haeffner in the Physics Department. In addition, he worked on the fabrication of two-dimensional arrays of nano-josephson junctions based on high-transition temperature (Tc) materials for superconducting quantum interference devices under the supervision of Prof. Robert Dynes in the Materials Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Erick holds minors in Nonlinear Control Systems and Electrodynamics from the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Departments and M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering with a focus on time-lapsed Scanning Tunneling Microscopy based diffusion studies under the supervision of Prof. Ludwig Bartels in the Chemistry Department at UC Riverside. He holds a B.Sc. in Digital Systems and Control Systems in the Electronics Engineering Department at Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Azcapotzalco (UAM-A) in Mexico.