ACADEMIC STAFF:

Omololu Akin-Ojo (Director)

Omololu Akin-Ojo is a condensed matter physicist from Nigeria who has been appointed as EAIFR's first director. Professor Omololu earned a master's degree in physics from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and a PhD in physics from the University of Delaware, USA. He has years of teaching and research experience, most recently as a senior lecturer at the University of Ibadan. He is an Associate scientist at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics.

Marcello Musso

Marcello Musso is a theoretical physicist with research interests in a broad range of subjects in cosmology. He earned a PhD in physics at the University of Pavia, and held postdoctoral positions at ICTP and at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied under the guidance of Physics Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg. He has taught physics at the Politecnico di Milano, ICTP, the University of Louvain, and at ICTP's partner institute in Brazil, the South American Institute for Fundamental Research.

Shoaib Munir

 Shoaib Munir has extensive research experience in particle physics phenomenology, with a primary focus on the additional Higgs bosons predicted in beyond Standard Model frameworks of particle physics. He obtained his PhD degree in theoretical high energy physics from the University of Southampton, UK, in June 2007, and has held postdoctoral fellowships in Mexico, Poland, Sweden, and South Korea. He has also in the past briefly held a tenure-track position at the Department of Physics, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), in his hometown of Lahore, Pakistan. 

Steve Ndengué

Steve Ndengué is a chemical physicist with broad research interests, particularly in the use of tensor contraction methods combined with quantum and classical dynamics to describe physical and chemical processes relevant to atmospheric chemistry, combustion, astrophysics and catalysis. He earned a PhD in physics of condensed matter and radiation from the University of Grenoble, France. Following a teaching and research position at the University of Douala, Cameroon, he went for a postdoctoral position at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, USA. Learn more about the work done in our research group and the EXAF project that supports part of our work.

Catherine A. Meriaux

Catherine A. Meriaux is a professor of geophysics. Her research is motivated by her interest in the dynamics of the Earth. In this vast field of research, she has focused her work on geophysical flows driven by gravity or buoyancy. Her research portfolio includes studies on: the propagation of magma through dykes, the spreading of lava domes, granular flows, mantle convection and plate tectonics, as well as turbulent particle flows. Her research works rely on scaled physical modelling using theoretical, numerical and/or laboratory approaches. Her overriding goal is to better understand the physical processes at stake and explain the geophysical observations.

ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF:

Sylvane Ndayikunda

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS:

Ayda Badri

During her PhD, her research laid at the boundary between chemistry and physics with substantial expertise in ab-initio calculations of the weakly-bound van der Waals complexes, spectroscopic and dynamic studies of molecules of astrophysical interest. Her current projects are about neural network and Gaussian regression fitting of potential energy surfaces (PES) of the reactive process, method development and wave packet dynamics data analysis.

POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS:

Sosthène Irambona

Supervisor: Dr. Steve Ndengué

His work falls in the area of condensed matter physics and quantum simulations where he is specifically interested in understanding the photocatalytic splitting of water on the surface of a solid substrate (heterogeneous catalyst) using classical and quantum molecular dynamics simulations.

Sunday Joseph Ogenyi

Supervisors: Dr Omololu Akin-Ojo and Dr. Nicola Seriani

His research interest is in the area of computational catalysis for renewable energy material.

Hervé Tajouo Tela

Supervisors: Dr. Steve Ndengué and Dr Ali Hassanali

He is working on the spectroscopy and dynamics of small water clusters. He uses and develops quantum dynamical methods to describe accurately phenomena in the gas and condensed phase with applications in atmospheric chemistry and astrophysics.

Murad Ali

Supervisor: Dr. Shoaib Munir

He is interested in Flavor Physics, Dark Matter, Collider Phenomenology in particular the CERN LHC, Supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model and Composite Higgs Models. Currently, he is working on B Physics anomalies and LHC phenomenology for Leptoquarks in UV completed models, i.e. Exceptional Supersymmetric Standard Model (E6SSM).

Daniel Wakweli

Supervisor: Professor Ilja Doršner

His research field concerns grand unification theory beyond the standard model. Currently, he is working on minimal non supersymmetric SU(5) gauge group.

Kakona Mbambu Tony

Supervisor: Professor George Thompson (ICTP)

His area of research is Mathematical Physics. He focuses on topological field theories, especially the Chern-Simons Theory and its non-compact variant, the so called 3-dimensional BF theory.

Wala Fathelrahman Ibrahim Elsayed

Supervisors: Dr. Steve Ndengué, Dr. Omololu Akin-Ojo and Dr. Nicola Seriani

Her research project concerns an ab-inito attempt to understand the interface properties of the photocatalytic systems, Fe3O4-SiO2 and Fe3O4-TiO2 heterojunction, and how the chemical and physical aspects are affected by the solid-solid reaction. This understanding will allow the optimal utilization of such materials in their applications.