Research Faces DeLux

A native of Luxembourg, Malou Fraiture obtained her PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Strasbourg in France where she lived for more than 8 years. She then moved to Tübingen in Germany for a postdoctoral research position. After this experience, she looked for a position in science management or communication in Germany but eventually moved back to Luxembourg. Since 2014, she has been working at the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) in the field of research support.

Her involvement in a young researchers’ association during her doctoral studies has made her aware of the importance of quality doctoral training and supervision and of the hurdles that can arise during the course of a PhD.

Originally from Russia, Marina Laurent moved to Germany at the age of 10. After her studies in Germany, she spent an academic year at the York University in Toronto, before moving to Paris, where she spent eight years working as a translator in an international law office and as a project assistant at the OECD.

While still in Paris, she had translated a book by the French philosopher Pierre Legendre into German as part of a larger translation project initiated by Georg Mein, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) at the University of Luxembourg. Following her translation work, she was offered the possibility to write her PhD dissertation on Legendre at the FHSE. After defending her dissertation in Cultural Studies, she started at her current position as a Research Facilitator at the Department of Humanities of the University of Luxembourg.

Afonso Delerue Arriaga came to Luxembourg in 2013 to do a PhD in cryptography at the University of Luxembourg. He was a researcher in Portugal when he came in contact with researchers from the SnT with common interests. With their support, he applied for an AFR individual grant, one of FNR funding schemes. He was incredibly fortunate to see his project proposal accepted, and Luxembourg became my home.

Charles Betz came back to Luxembourg in 2017 after 14 years abroad, having worked as a molecular biologist in Basel and Boston before. His plan had always been to come back to Luxembourg eventually, and having such a narrow geographic destination did not leave a lot of options to pursue a classic academic career. He had two options on the table: switching to research support by joining Luxinnovation, the national innovation agency or continuing my work through a CORE Junior application for a project on a neurodegenerative disease model in zebrafish. Looking back after 5 years, he does not regret his choice.

Anja Lenninger has been working in Luxembourg since 2009 after having worked in Germany, France, Belgium, England and the USA. When moving back from the UK to Germany in 2009, she was looking for an interesting job where she could benefit from an international atmosphere.

As the team leader of the Office of Doctoral Studies (Bureau des études doctorales / BED), she facilitates, as much as possible, the entire lifecycle of our 1000 doctoral candidates, in the midst of many administrative steps.

Her office is a central service point for all procedures and communication (application for acceptance of a PhD student, reports, recommendations, request for defense, cotutelle management, etc.) related to the path of a doctoral student. In addition, one of her team members is responsible for the transferable skills course offer. 

Miriam Fougeras arrived in Luxembourg five years ago to start a PhD at the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH), thus the job brought her here, similar to many other expats in Luxembourg. her goal was to gain more experience in proteomics, the study of proteins, and she saw a great opportunity in the field of cancer research at the LIH.

After successfully completing my PhD, Miriam started a job at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) in science communication.

Nicole Paschek joined the University of Luxembourg in January 2019. Before that, she worked in Germany.

As the Project Manager of DESCOM, she is in charge of organising different kinds of trainings in science communication for doctoral candidates in Luxembourg. So apart of administrative tasks, She manages science communication courses and internships, but also plans and carries out outreach activities. In the context of those activities, like science comics, scientists learn how to communicate science.

Originally from Portugal, where Alberto Noronha worked before, he came to Luxembourg in 2014 to start his PhD studies at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) at the University of Luxembourg.

He is currently the CEO of Nium, a spin-off of the University of Luxembourg. As in any startup he wears many hats, but most of his time is spent on strategy, product, and fundraising.

Originally from Denmark, Emily Iversen grew up in Luxembourg, but went abroad (Austria and England) to study and then work. She returned in 2015 and have been at theLuxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) ever since. 

Since returning to Luxembourg, she have been at the FNR, where I am the Digital Communication Manager. Her job consists of a variety of tasks: she uploads and writes the content for the FNR’s website fnr.lu, manages the corporate social media channels, sends out the newsletter, analytics, creating graphic design elements, videos and much more. One example of a series she developed is Spotlight on Young Researchers, which has been running since 2016 and has featured around 100 young researchers in or from Luxembourg so far.

Louis Krieger started his first job in Luxembourg since at the end of 2018. He came to Luxembourg because he stumbled upon an opportunity to continue doing research, and coincidentally he is able to live at home.

Louis worked as a researcher, where his job consisted of looking deeper into the water transport in trees.

Since September 2020, Hélène Jacuszin am the Marketing and Communication Coordinator of Research Luxembourg, a joint initiative of the main players in Luxembourg’s public research landscape.

The project has been launched in 2019 with the objectives to raise the reputation and attractiveness of Luxembourg’s research environment. Research Luxembourg’s mission is to promote scientific cooperation in Luxembourg by attracting talented professionals and create international visibility and recognition for Luxembourg’s research community.