News

Dec 2024: Quirine’s paper ‘Formation of motile cell clusters in heterogeneous model tumors: The role of cell-cell alignment‘ is selected as an Editors’ Suggestion, and is highlighted in Physics Magazine!

Nov 2024: Liesbeth wins the NWO Athena Award! Check out the TU/e article (in Dutch or in English) or read the NWO press release. The Athena Award is one of a total of five science awards, awarded annually by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

Oct 2024: Ilian’s paper ‘Comparison of integral equation theories of the liquid state‘ is selected as an Editors’ Suggestion!

Sept 2024: Congratulations to all laureates of the 2024 Heineken Young Scientists Awards! It was an honor to serve on the jury.

June 2024: Vincent won the Best PhD Thesis Award of the TU Eindhoven, awarded during the annual TU/e Research Day. We are immensely proud that Vincent’s thesis was deemed the best of the entire university!

Apr 2024: Liesbeth became a member of the KNAW Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering (KNAW-Raad voor Natuur- en Technische Wetenschappen), one of the four advisory boards of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

Mar 2024: It was an honor to join the 10-year Jubilee of the Mildred Dresselhaus Award program & meet up with so many stellar scientists!

Jan 2024: During the national NWO Physics conference, Vincent received an Honorable Mention of the jury for the Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa Thesis Award. We are beyond thrilled that Vincent’s PhD thesis was lauded as one of the best in the country!

Nov 2023: Very proud of Giulia, who successfully defended her PhD thesis on November 9th! Congratulations Dr. Janzen!

Nov 2023: After almost 20 years of Dutch Soft Matter meetings, we’re finally taking the meeting to Groningen! Many thanks to Andrea Giuntoli and Daniele Parisi for the local organization.

Nov 2023: A great reunion at Radboud University Nijmegen in celebration of Prof. Ad van der Avoird’s 80th birthday!

Nov 2023: Leon Hillmann joins our EAISI EMDAIR team as a PhD student. Welcome Leon!

July 2023: Liesbeth’s Viewpoint article ‘Physics of Cancer Takes Shape’ is published in Physics Magazine. This viewpoint highlights an exciting new PRX paper by Gottheil et al. on cell unjamming in cancer metastasis prognosis.

July 2023: On July 7th, Vincent defended his PhD cum laude! Congratulations Dr. Debets!

July 2023: It was a great pleasure to host the symposium on Dense Active Matter, featuring talks by Profs. Olivier Dauchot, Thomas Voigtmann, Grzegorz Szamel, Thomas Franosch, and Hartmut Löwen!

July 2023: Vincent was interviewed about his PhD work for the TU/e magazine Cursor. Check out the article here.

July 2023: Our work on emergent four-body correlations in supercooled liquids is published in PNAS Nexus! Check out the press release here. Congrats to first authors Ilian and Corentin!

June 2023: First author Simone Ciarella was interviewed by AIhub about our recent work on machine learning approaches for supercooled liquids. Great collaboration with the group of Prof. Marjolein Dijkstra from Utrecht University!

May 2023: Vincent’s talk at the Biological Physics & Physical Biology Seminar on the curious glassy dynamics of active matter is available online! 

Apr 2023: Congratulations to Quirine for winning yet another poster prize, this time the Audience Award at NWO Physics!

Apr 2023: Looking forward to our focus session at NWO Physics on Frontiers in Dense Active Matter!

Mar 2023: PhD student Quirine Braat won a poster prize at the CECAM-Lorentz workshop ‘The extracellular matrix’! Congratulations, Quirine!

Feb 2023: Excited to see our Perspective article on steering self-organisation through confinement in published form! A collaborative effort of 29 scientists from different fields, based on a Lorentz Center workshop jointly organized with Nuno Araújo, Alvaro Marin, and Giorgio Volpe.

Jan 2023: Vincent’s paper on the unique glassy dynamics of chiral active fluids is published in Physical Review Letters! Excellent collaboration with Prof. Hartmut Löwen from HHU Düsseldorf.

Jan 2023: On January 17th, Chengjie defended his PhD cum laude! Congratulations Dr. Luo!

Jan 2023: Honored to have four internationally renowned speakers at our symposium on Glassy Physics. Great talks by Profs. Daniele Coslovich, Jörg Baschnagel, Thomas Voigtmann, and Paddy Royall!

Dec 2022: Thrilled to receive a grant from the Eindhoven AI Systems Institute (EAISI) to work on physics-informed machine learning for cancer prognosis, together with the amazing groups of Dr. Sibylle Hess and Dr. Mitko Veta!

Nov 2022: Vincent’s paper on the influence of particle softness on active glassy dynamics is published as a Letter in Physical Review Research!

Oct 2022: Our focus session ‘Frontiers in dense active matter’ has been accepted for NWO Physics 2023. The session is organized by Liesbeth Janssen and Mazi Jalaal and will feature a keynote lecture by Prof. Josef Käs.

Oct 2022: Together with the groups of Profs. Nicolas Vogel and Hartmut Löwen, we found that the crystallinity of 2D colloidal crystals can be greatly improved by acoustic stimuli (such as Beethoven)! The full paper is out in Advanced Materials.

Sept 2022: Our new work on the important but often-overlooked role of many-body correlations in glassforming materials is published in Physical Review Letters! Great collaboration with the group of Prof. Paddy Royall at ESPCI Paris.

Sept 2022: Liesbeth becomes Chair of the section Soft Matter and Biological Physics in the Department of Applied Physics.

July 2022: Liesbeth was granted the ius promovendi.

May 2022: Our collaborative research with the Netherlands eScience Center is highlighted online! Check out Ilian’s blog post ‘The mystery of glass: why machine learning can help us‘.

May 2022: Liesbeth was nominated for the 2022 Groundbreaking Researcher Award of the TU/e!

April 2022: Our research on glass features on the TV show Atlas. Watch the item here.

Mar 2022: Liesbeth was interviewed about her membership to the Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Read the TU/e highlight in Dutch or English.

Mar 2022: Giulia’s paper on aging in thermal active glasses is published as a Letter in Physical Review Research!

Mar 2022: Liesbeth will speak at GLAS2022, a symposium held at the Rijksmuseum in celebration of the UN International Year of Glass. The symposium features talks by scientists, artists, and curators. Tickets are available here.

Feb 2022: Our (hybrid) Lorentz Center workshop on Self-Organization under Confinement will take place from 21-25 Feb 2022.

Jan 2022: Vincent was interviewed by BNR Nieuwsradio to discuss his latest work on active glassy matter. Check out the interview here!

Jan 2022: Our study explaining the nonmonotonic dynamics of active glassy matter is published in Physical Review Letters. Congratulations to PhD student Vincent and (former) MSc student Xander! The work is also highlighted on the TU/e website and on Phys.org.

Dec 2021: Quirine Braat joins our ENW-XL metastasis team as a PhD student. Welcome Quirine!

Nov 2021: The Dutch popular science magazine Quest interviewed Liesbeth about the mysterious physics of glass.

Oct 2021: Corentin Laudicina completed his MSc program in Theoretical Physics with highest honors. Congratulations Corentin! He will continue as a PhD student in our group to work on the glass transition problem.

Sept 2021: Max Kerr Winter joins the group as a postdoc. Welcome Max!

Aug 2021: Chengjie’s work on the glassy dynamics of sticky hard spheres is highlighted on the cover of Soft Matter. Congrats Chengjie!

Aug 2021: Our paper ‘Glassy dynamics of sticky hard spheres beyond the mode-coupling regime‘ is published in the 2021 Soft Matter Emerging Investigators themed collection. Honored to be part of this special issue!

June 2021: Congratulations to all winners of the KNAW Onderwijsprijs! It was an honor to serve on the jury; impressed to see so much young academic talent!

May 2021: Once more, the group has submitted three papers within one week! Check out our new theory for single-particle dynamics of glass-forming materials, our improved predictions for the reentrant phase diagram of sticky hard spheres, and the first study of non-equilibrium aging in thermal active glasses. Congratulations to PhD students Chengjie, Giulia, and Vincent!

May 2021: Excited to be part of the new organizing team of the Dutch Soft Matter Meetings! The next (online) edition will take place on May 25th, featuring a keynote lecture by Prof. Hartmut Löwen. Registration is free of charge.

May 2021: Our collaborative work with the groups of Profs. Nicolas Vogel and Hartmut Löwen on collapse-induced phase transitions of binary microgel mixtures features on the inside cover of Soft Matter.

Apr 2021: Ilian Pihlajamaa joins the group as a PhD student. Welcome Ilian!

Apr 2021: Our team has been selected for the OpenSSI program of the national eScience Center. We look forward to this exciting collaboration!

Feb 2021: Our Lorentz Workshop on ‘Self-Organization under Confinement’ has been rescheduled to 2022, but we are excited to offer an online teaser in the meantime. Please join us on March 1st for a seminar across length scales, featuring talks by Cécile Sykes, Iker Zuriguel, and Itai Cohen. Registration is free of charge.

Jan 2021: Incredibly proud of Simone, who successfully defended his PhD thesis on the 22nd of January! Congratulations Dr. Ciarella!

Jan 2021: Liesbeth’s outlook on applying machine-learning methods to better understand the glass problem is published in De Correspondent. You can read the article (in Dutch) here.

Jan 2021: Francis Jose joins our VITRIMAT team as a PhD student. Welcome Francis!

Dec 2020: Honored to be interviewed for the national newspaper Trouw about our research on the glass transition. You can read the article (in Dutch) here.

Nov 2020: Beyond excited to announce that our group was awarded the prestigious Vidi grant from NWO! The Vidi program provides funding for experienced researchers to establish a curiosity-driven, innovative line of research.

Oct 2020: Liesbeth’s talk for the Simons Collaboration Webinar series on  Cracking the Glass Problem is available online.

Oct 2020: It’s official! As of Oct 1, 2020, Liesbeth is promoted to Associate Professor with tenure.

Oct 2020: Liesbeth’s invited article on the physics of glass formation is published in the Dutch Journal of Physics (NTvN). Read the article (in Dutch) here.

Sept 2020: Three new papers on arXiv in one week! If you want to know more about universal scaling laws near the glass transition, or about multiscale engineering of soft microgels, or about cooperative dynamics of living tumor-cell clusters, check out our recent work. Very proud of PhD students Chengjie, Simone, and Vincent!

July 2020: As a new member of the KNAW Young Academy, Liesbeth was interviewed by Lisa Becking to discuss the group’s research during corona times. Read the interview (in Dutch) here.

May 2020: Our proposal for an international scientific workshop on ‘Self-Organization under Confinement’ has been approved by the Lorentz Center.  Very excited to organize this workshop together with Alvaro Marin, Giorgio Volpe, and Nuno Araújo! Mark your calendars for 1-5 March 2021!

April 2020: Liesbeth has officially become a member of the KNAW Young Academy! The inauguration ceremony at the Trippenhuis has been converted to an online format.

April 2020: Our European ITN consortium VITRIMAT has kicked off! We have openings for 11 PhD positions to push the development, modeling, and characterization of vitrimers. Check out the VITRIMAT website for more details.

Mar 2020: Liesbeth will give a Studium Generale lecture on ‘Cracking the glass mystery’. Tickets and more information can be found here.

Feb 2020: We are excited to announce that our joint ENW-GROOT research proposal on the active-matter physics of cancer metastasis is funded by NWO. This research program combines in-vivo and in-vitro cell biology, biophysics, and theoretical physics to shed new light on the physical drivers underlying cancer metastasis.

Feb 2020: Liesbeth’s article on vitrimers is published in Europhysics News.

Jan 2020: Liesbeth will host a scientific session and panel discussion entitled ‘The Science of Diversity’ at the annual Dutch Physics meeting in Veldhoven. Please join us and share your thoughts on how we can make the physical sciences more diverse and inclusive!

Dec 2019: Our new work on vitrimers features in the Dutch newspaper Eindhovens Dagblad.

Dec 2019: Liesbeth is elected as one of ten new members of The Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. The interview with Cursor can be found here.

Dec 2019: Our group’s research features on the Dutch science platform NEMO Kennislink.

Nov 2019: Our study on the unusual fragility of vitrimers has been published in PNAS! Very proud of PhD student Simone Ciarella and (former) BSc student Rutger Biezemans! The work is also featured on the TU/e website, Phys.org, Engineers Online, DuurzaamBedrijfsleven, Maakindustrie Nieuws, Kunststof en Rubber, Engineering Net, and Nederlands Dagblad.

Nov 2019: Our group’s research features in the Dutch national newspaper NRC.

Oct 2019: Our Topical Review paper on active glasses is published in the Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter.

Sept 2019: Our perspective article on non-equilibrium polymer processing features on the cover of Macromolecules. 

Aug 2019: Our perspective article in Macromolecules on non-equilibrium processing pathways in polymers was selected as ACS Editors’ Choice. Congratulations to the entire team!

Aug 2019: We are proud to have our research on glass highlighted in one of the first TU Eindhoven longread feature articles! The article is available both in Dutch and in English.

July 2019: We are pleased to announce that our focus session ‘Science of Diversity’ has been selected for Physics@Veldhoven 2020. The session aims to spark an evidence-based discussion on diversity within the physical sciences, and features an impressive list of speakers: Prof. Wim van Saarloos (President KNAW), Prof. Herma Cuppen (RU Nijmegen), Prof. Jasper Knoester (RU Groningen), Prof. Evangelia Demerouti (TU Eindhoven), and Diederik Jekel (Chair NNV).

July 2019: Liesbeth features in ‘The Glass Delusion‘, an ongoing multi-media project about glass created by artists Barbara Visser and Bart Haensel. The Glass Delusion Live will be presented in art centre DordtYart on July 21.

June 2019: We are excited to host the 26th Dutch Soft Matter Meeting at TU Eindhoven on June 17! For the full program and registration details, see the website.

June 2019: Giulia Janzen joins the group as a PhD student. Welcome Giulia!

May 2019: Liesbeth’s lecture for the ‘Universiteit van Nederland’ features in the Dutch national newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.

May 2019: Our joint H2020 Marie Curie ITN proposal ‘VITRIMAT’, which combines academic and industrial expertise in vitrimers, was funded by the European Commission. The ITN program aims “to train a new generation of creative, entrepreneurial and innovative early-stage researchers, able to face current and future challenges and to convert knowledge and ideas into products and services for economic and social benefit.”

May 2019: Our joint Nature Communications paper on blood-triggered cell migration has received a prize for excellent research from Oslo University Hospital.  Congratulations to the entire team!

May 2019: Liesbeth heads north to the University of Groningen to speak at the Student Symposium ‘In a materialistic world’, organized by the student association T.F.V. ‘Professor Francken’.

April 2019: Vincent Debets successfully defended his MSc thesis entitled “Collective cell dynamics in cancer metastasis” and  received his MSc degree in Applied Physics with highest honors. Congratulations, Vincent! He will continue as a PhD student in our group to study the physics of active glassy matter.

Mar 2019: PhD student Chengjie Luo won a Best Poster Award at the annual ICMS Outreach Symposium. Congratulations, Chengjie!

Mar 2019: MSc student Vincent Debets was selected as 1 of 7 Dutch participants to attend the prestigious 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Physics. Congratulations, Vincent! His interview with Cursor can be found here.

Jan 2019: Liesbeth gave a lecture for the ‘Universiteit van Nederland‘ to explain why glass is one the greatest mysteries in physics. Online video here!

Dec 2018: Our group was awarded a Physics Projectruimte grant from NWO. The Projectruimte funds “innovative and risky fundamental research of high scientific quality, with a scientific, industrial or social urgency.”

Dec 2018: Liesbeth joins the newly established national NWO Working Group on Physics of Fluids and Soft Matter as 1 of 10 advisory committee members. The Working Group aims to identify new developments within the field, monitor ongoing research programmes, provide advice to the boards of the Physics and Science domains, and maintain and facilitate close contact with researchers in the field and with other relevant networks.

Dec 2018: We are pleased to announce that we will be hosting the 26th Dutch Soft Matter Meeting at TU Eindhoven. Mark your calendars for June 17, 2019!

Oct 2018: Marijke Valk successfully defended her MSc thesis entitled “The physics of collective cell motion: jamming, structure, and alignment” and received her MSc degree in Applied Physics with highest honors. Congratulations, Marijke!

Sept 2018: Chengjie Luo joins the group as a PhD student. Welcome Chengjie!

Sept 2018: Liesbeth made her national radio debut on NPO Radio 1 to explain how blood can trigger massive collective motion of skin cells.

Sept 2018: Our paper on blood-induced collective cell motion was published in Nature Communications — a great collaborative effort with the cell biology group of Prof. Stig Ove Bøe in Oslo. The paper features our newly developed Voronoi-Vicsek model, which was implemented by MSc student Marijke Valk.

July 2018: Liesbeth heads to the USA and Canada, joining a group of 24 Applied Physics students on an exciting 3-week study tour!

July 2018: BSc student Niels Smith was awarded a prestigious ASML Technology Scholarship. Congratulations, Niels!

July 2018: We are pleased to announce that, together with Luca Giomi and Kees Storm, we will be organising a focus session on ‘the Physics of Tissues’ at Physics@Veldhoven 2019, featuring keynote speaker Cristina Marchetti.

June 2018: Liesbeth gave a lecture on the scientific mysteries of glass in the theater show ‘Professoren op het Podium‘.

May 2018: Liesbeth features in the Mildred Dresselhaus Magazine of CUI Hamburg.

Mar 2018: A figure from our paper, based on the BSc thesis of Jens Grauer, was highlighted by the journal Physical Review E in ‘Kaleidoscope‘.

Mar 2018: Liesbeth features in the Dutch national newspaper Trouw.

Jan 2018: Our joint proposal with the groups of Prof. Nicolas Vogel (Erlangen) and Prof. Hartmut Löwen (Düsseldorf) was funded by the DFG.

Jan 2018: Our group was awarded a generous START-UP grant from NWO. The START-UP program gives “new Principal Investigators the opportunity to refine their creative, high-risk ideas, to establish a basis for future research themes, and to generate scientific innovations.”