Ekaterina Zossimova

 

Jan 2019 to July 2019: My PhD journey began at the University of Exeter in the research group of Prof Frank Vollmer. I gained knowledge about the sensing technique used in the lab, which combines the plasmonic properties of gold nanoparticles with the high quality factor of optical whispering gallery mode resonators. This sensing technique detects fractional changes in the local permittivity due to molecules interacting with the biosensing fields. My task was to build a computational model of the sensor to understand how the resonance shifts map to the electronic properties of single molecules. 

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Aug 2019 to Aug 2021: I joined the Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC) in Singapore, as an A*STAR Research Attachment Scholar. I worked with experts in computational modelling to study the optical properties of atomic-sized clusters and organic molecules with density functional theory. I also took part in the regional hackathons organized by the HPC-AI Advisory Council to learn about how to accelerate code on high-performance computers.

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Sept 2021 to Nov 2022: I moved to the FIT Freiburg Center for Interactive Materials and Bioinspired Technologies to develop polarizability models in collaboration with the group of PD Walter. The polarizability models consider pairwise corrections for van der Waals interactions and perform faster in comparison to the equivalent many-electron simulations, whilst maintaining good accuracy for most molecular systems. 

 

Dec 2022 to April 2024: I continued my PhD as a guest researcher in Freiburg, linking the models that I previously built to experiments in the Vollmerlab. I successfully defended my PhD thesis on 23 July 2024, and graduated from the University of Exeter the following year in July 2025.