ERC Starting Grant funding
Matilda Backholm
Project: "Direct measurements of collective swimming forces at the mesoscale"
Duration: 2024 - 2028
Matilda Backholm aims to understand the complex movement of brine shrimp - a gateway to physics on an unfamiliar scale.
Dominik Baumann
Project: "Ergodicity-aware continual reinforcement learning"
Duration: 2027 - 2031
Dominik Baumann leads a project focusing on reinforcement learning (RL), a subfield of artificial intelligence that has driven several recent breakthroughs.
Person profile Dominik Baumann
News: Three rising Aalto University researchers secure highly sought-after EU funding
Corinna Coupette
Project: "Toward a Computational Theory of Legal Complexity"
Duration: 2025 - 2030
Corinna Coupette aims to improve the capacity of legal systems to respond effectively to today’s problems, such as combatting climate change, safeguarding democracy and regulating artificial. In this project, Coupette’s team will develop a computational theory of legal systems. To this end, the researchers combine perspectives from legal theory with concepts and method-development techniques from computer science and network science.
Daniel Hauser
Project: "Modeling Misspecification: Incorporated Information Processing Biases into Economic Models"
Duration: 2025 - 2030
Daniel Hauser works on game theory and the economics of information. His work is primarily focused on model misspecification of information and the role it plays in economic decision-making.
Jarno Mäkelä
Project: "Single-molecule visualization of temperature adaptation in sub-cellular dynamics and organization across bacteria"
Duration: 2023 - 2028
Tero Mäkinen
Project: "Design rules for failure-resistant materials"
Duration: 2027 - 2031
Tero Mäkinen studies how damage happens to materials like metals and biomaterials, and how that damage spreads starting from micrometers to larger cracks. The goal is to find out the physical processes involved in damage and, based on that, develop design principles for more durable materials. The results could help with designing materials that are structurally more able to mitigate spread and less prone to break in the first place.
News: Three rising Aalto University researchers secure highly sought-after EU funding
Pekka Peljo
Project: "Bioinspired, biphasic and bipolar flow batteries with boosters for sustainable large-scale energy storage"
Duration: 2021 - 2025
Eveliina Peltola
Project: "Interplay of structures in conformal and universal random geometry"
Duration: 2023 - 2027
Eveliina Peltola's Starting Grant project uses symmetries to build links between random phenomena. The goal is to create connections between different areas of mathematics and bring new tools to the research of random geometry and mathematical physics models.
Andrea Sand
Project: "Comprehensive multiscale modelling of atomistic and electronic structure of radiation-induced defects in semiconductors"
Duration: 2023 -2028
The aim of this five-year research is to improve the prediction of radiation damage in semiconductors. The new method could increase the lifetime of equipment and promote the introduction of new materials in various electronic components.
Person profile Andrea SandNews: Research project develops method for predicting radiation damage in semiconductors
Owies Wani
Project: "Decoupling Ionic Transport from Mechanical Properties using Hybrid Liquid Crystal Electrolytes"
Duration: 2026 -2031
The ERC project led by Owies Wani aims to develop a new type of structure for polymer electrolytes, in which ion transport and the material’s mechanical properties can be controlled more independently than before. The results could contribute to the development of safer, higher-energy-density batteries, particularly lithium metal batteries and other post-lithium-ion technologies. The project uses hybrid liquid-crystal electrolytes that combine the benefits of molecular and colloidal liquid crystals.
News: Three rising Aalto University researchers secure highly sought-after EU funding
Robin Welsch
Project: "Amplifying the Mind with Interactive AI"
Duration: 2025 - 2030
The ERC project, led by Professor Robin Welsch, examines how artificial intelligence (AI) can be integrated with human intelligence, thereby enhancing our ability to reason, make decisions, and solve problems. Unlike today’s AI tools, which often leave us overconfident or overly reliant, this project develops new ways to measure human–AI performance, strengthen our self-awareness when working with AI and design.
Maja Vuckovac
Project: "Ultrasensitive probing of wet adhesion and charge dynamics in soft materials"
Duration: 2025 - 2030
Maja Vuckovac studies how electric charges affect adhesion between soft materials in wet environments. She is developing a new electron adhesion microscope to uncover these mechanisms at the mesoscale, where molecular interactions determine material behaviour. The findings could lead to tangible improvements e.g. in biomedical engineering and enable new technologies in soft robotics and underwater adhesives.