Politecnico di Milano welcomes 14 young researchers granted with MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship

The recent international migrations reveal new ways of inhabiting cities - more mobile, temporary and precarious - challenging urban policies traditionally based on stability and permanence. The PLANwise project will address this issue by developing knowledge, approaches and tools able to recognize and support mobile forms of dwelling. It will do so across three diverse migration and research contexts: Los Angeles, Beirut and Milan. 

The goal is to initiate a process of scaling up and operationalizing existing knowledge on temporary migrant presence, contributing to a more effective policy framework, improved territorial governance and better living conditions for all. In this sense, the project aims to rethink the role of urban policy in relation to new ways of inhabiting cities. The grantee’s recent national and international research experience shows how developing research from Italy remains relevant in this field, and the Politecnico di Milano, with its Department of Architecture and Urban Studies and the supervision of Prof. Briata, offers a unique environment for its diverse expertise and networks.

The IMpACT project will develop a digital model of the heart that reproduces heartbeat regulation and contraction under autonomic nervous system control, enabling the simulation of conditions involving both the autonomic nervous system and the cardiac tissue. 

The goal is to understand susceptibility to arrhythmias and to improve diagnosis, therapies, and risk stratification through advanced simulations. The main innovation lies in integrating detailed autonomic regulation into a realistic four-chamber cardiac model. Chiara chose the Politecnico for its interdisciplinary environment, strong expertise in computational biomechanics, and close collaboration with the clinical world, as well as access to high-performance computing infrastructures that are ideal for validating complex cardiac models using real clinical data.

Carbon solids are formed in many energy systems and industries, either as harmful soot or as valuable advanced materials used in sectors like aerospace and medicine. The KINMECPRO project aims to understand, at the molecular level, how to shift from unwanted byproducts to profitable carbon materials, linking system conditions to the properties of the solids produced. The resulting model will connect operating parameters with carbon material characteristics, supporting the economic viability of sustainable technologies by enabling conditions that favor high-value carbon formation. 

This will be the first model to integrate gas-phase chemistry with solid carbon properties, representing the project’s main innovation. PoliMi’s strong reputation and the excellence of the CRECK modeling group in combustion and chemical kinetics were crucial motivations for developing this research with Prof. Pelucchi and Prof. Pratali Maffei.

The MESISACproject aims to make chemical production cleaner, safer, and more sustainable by developing single-atom catalysts and using bioderived renewable compounds to transform specific parts of complex molecules without relying on high-pressure hydrogen or expensive metals. Using synchrotron Xray techniques, we can observe catalysts at the atomic level and design greener, more efficient processes that benefit industry and society, producing high value chemicals while reducing CO₂ emissions by up to 50% and enabling industrial adoption. 

Agustín chose Polimi for its outstanding international reputation and leadership in engineering and sustainable technologies. Working in Prof. Vilé’s group provides a highly stimulating, collaborative environment, while the secondment at the SOLARIS Synchrotron will strengthen the project’s scientific excellence and international dimension.

The SEISMOR Project will investigate the effect of vibrations generated by meteoroid impacts on the lunar surface. By combining numerical simulations and vacuum experiments, it aims to identify the physical law that links seismic vibrations to surface changes. 

SEISMOR wants to provide the first vacuum-validated law that predicts how vibrations modify weakly cohesive soils in low gravity, supporting the placement of lunar infrastructures and improving asteroid deflection models. On Earth, the same physics applies to powders and granular materials in industrial settings. The project’s innovation lies in integrating simulations, experiments, and data driven models into a unified predictive framework. Eric chose the Politecnico because the DART Lab is a European reference point in regolith dynamics thanks to the ERC TRACES project, guided by Prof. Ferrari.

The growing use of X-ray technologies is increasing exposure to hazardous ionizing radiation. The HALOS-BiPeX project will develop lead-free perovskite X-ray detectors that directly convert X-rays into electrical signals, enabling high-resolution imaging at low exposure. HALOS-BiPeX explores halogen bonding chemistry to enhance the X-ray sensitivity of conventional perovskites. Since current CT scanners lack sensitivity for early diagnostics, these high-performance perovskite detectors could transform CT imaging while improving patient safety. 

The research focuses on perovskite semiconductors, and the SupraBioNanoLab at Politecnico di Milano offers the expertise and infrastructure needed to advance optoelectronic applications under the supervision of Prof. Cavallo.

The wave function (WF) is fundamental to quantum physics, enabling prediction of observables in pure states. Recent techniques allow reconstruction of WFs from experimental data, but no method currently exists to evaluate the quality of these WFs. The PIXWAVE project aims to fill this gap, improving understanding of the strengths and limitations of such approaches. 

Physical interpretation of the WFs derived from the data on the elastic scattering of X-rays is essential for advancing quantum crystallography. It will help to place this method on the same “ladder” with well-established but purely theoretical methods of quantum chemistry and provide guidance for its further development. Politecnico offers excellent theoretical and experimental infrastructure, and Professors Piero Macchi and Alessandro Genoni are leading experts in quantum crystallography, providing the ideal environment for the PIXWAVE project.

The XRWOptoMat project will integrate experimental data with quantum mechanics to predict the physical properties of materials. By combining theory and experiments, it aims to understand microscopic behavior, to guide the design of materials with tailored properties, and to accelerate innovation in technology, energy, and electronics. This approach will be faster and more accurate than traditional methods, making material development more efficient, sustainable, and innovative. 

Raphael chose Politecnico to work with Professor Alessandro Genoni, a leading figure in quantum crystallography, and because it offers academic excellence, strong international visibility, and an inspiring environment, providing outstanding research opportunities within a rich cultural setting.

Modern physics is highly successful, yet many theories work only within limited domains, and different theories can explain the same data while portraying reality in conflicting ways. This raises the question of what we should regard as genuinely real. Lorenzo develops an approach called effective realism and applies it to quantum physics and dark matter, showing how theories can offer true knowledge of reality at the scales where they function, even if incomplete. 

The EFFECT project will clarify the conceptual and methodological assumptions behind cutting-edge research, helping physicists understand what their theories commit them to and why they remain reliable despite incompleteness. It is interdisciplinary, combining philosophy and physics through contemporary case studies. At Politecnico, Lorenzo will work with Prof. Giovanni Valente and collaborate with mathematical physicists on quantum theory.

The IKAROS project advances the development of ARIPES, a next-generation inverse photoemission instrument designed by Prof. Ghiringhelli’s group, aiming to set a new state of the art for this technique. IKAROS will apply this technique to the study of Kagome crystals, a newly discovered class of quantum materials with largely unexplored properties. The creation of cutting-edge scientific instruments has historically led to new companies and high-tech spinoffs, as seen with scanning tunneling microscopy, photoemission, and ultrafast laser methods. IKAROS has the potential to follow a similar industrial path. 

Leonardo chose the Department of Physics at Politecnico di Milano as it is internationally known for excellence in experimental innovation, and Prof. Ghiringhelli’s group has played a key role in revolutionizing X-ray scattering over the past 15 years.

The BRIDGE project aims to deliver an effective and accessible solution to reduce the environmental impacts of decentralized wastewater treatment, focusing particularly on gaseous emissions. It introduces an innovative biotechnological process that exploits N-DAMO microbial communities, capable of using nitrite and nitrate to anaerobically oxidize methane. This enables the simultaneous reduction of greenhouse gases and nutrient pollution, limiting both atmospheric emissions and the discharge of eutrophying compounds into water bodies. 

The Politecnico, with the expertise of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Prof. Turolla’s group, provides the ideal scientific environment to advance this research with strong societal impact.

MELA-NIR will transform melanin, a natural pigment found even in extremophile organisms, into light-activated functional materials. By exploiting its ability to absorb across the full solar spectrum, including near-infrared (NIR) light, the project aims to generate long-lived reactive molecular species capable of driving chemical reactions in water, opening new pathways toward cleaner and more sustainable technologies. The goal is to create metal-free materials that operate under NIR light for applications in sustainable manufacturing, environmental remediation, and light-enhanced antioxidant technologies. 

The innovation lies in redefining melanin, historically viewed as a passive photoprotective pigment, as an active light-harvesting and radical-buffering system for solar chemistry. Vasilis chose Politecnico di Milano, and specifically Prof. Cerullo’s group, for its advanced research infrastructure and strong interdisciplinarity, which together provide the ideal environment to expand this research direction and consolidate its scientific independence at the interface of physics, chemistry, and materials science.

ENDEAVOR project will tackle the growing problem of battery waste from EVs. Conventional methods of battery recycling are energy intensive, emits GHGs, and recovers metals inefficiently. The project will use AI and CFD to model a cleaner, more efficient battery recycling process with higher recovery of critical materials such as lithium. 

The generic CFD-ML framework to be developed under the project could be applied to various recycling processes, helping optimize industrial operations, cut waste, reduce emissions, and improve worker safety. It will also strengthen access to essential electronic devices and reinforces EU circular economy. ENDEAVOR aligns with the researcher’s expertise in reactive multiphase flow and machine learning (ML), and benefits from the Polimi CRECK group’s and Prof. Cuoci strong track record in CFD modelling, as well as access to high-performance computing (HPC) resources.

TRUST aims to reduce the dependence of deep‑space missions on large ground teams by giving small spacecraft a compact AI “guidance brain” trained on extensive trajectory data. This enables faster onboard planning, manoeuvre correction, and lower operational cost. Each AI output is paired with a rapid safety check based on sensitivity analysis, allowing more autonomous and reliable CubeSat/SmallSat missions. 

TRUST compresses complex trajectory optimisation into an onboard model and introduces a universal pretrained guidance system enhanced with real‑time, quantifiable safety feedback from high‑order sensitivity tensors, validated through hardware‑in‑the‑loop testing. Politecnico, and particularly the DART group of Prof. Topputo, offers leading expertise in astrodynamics, deep‑space CubeSats, and hardware validation, providing the ideal environment to advance TRUST into tested autonomous capabilities.