Doctoral candidate 6 - Gaétan Grima - University of Bielefeld, Germany


Project Title: High speed, super-resolved imaging of nanoscale endothelial cell interactions in-situ and in-vivo

Supervisor name: Thomas Huser, UniBi;

co-supervisor: Peter McCourt, UiT

Meet our doctoral candidate #6 at the University of Bielefeld, Gaétan Grima!

Tell us about yourself, who are you? And how do you like to spend your time?

My name is Gaetan Grima, I am originally from France. I grew up in the south of France in Carcasonne, world-famous for its medieval town, which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  I then went to study in Lyon and Paris before moving to Bielefeld, Germany last year to pursue my PhD.

In my spare time, I often go to the gym and work out, but I also like to build computers or computer parts ever since I have been somewhere between 10 to 12 years old. I generally really like tinkering with electronics, I have already built a few drones myself!

What is your educational background and what have been up until now?

My educational Background is quite diverse I would say. So after finishing high school I went to a so called “prep school” in Lyon and started studying engineering which was quite intense! I felt like I was doing great in the school but was not sure if engineering was the correct choice for me.

I then moved to Paris to study maths, finance and IT at the university in Paris. But after a year, I discovered that I was more practically minded. So I decided in favor of physics, because that's what I'm most interested in. Although I was better at pure maths. So I went to the Sorbonne University and got my bachelor's degree there.

In my Master's degree, I focused on fundamental and applied physics. Before specializing in fluid physics and interfaces in my second year. I also attended a course in engineering because I found it really exciting and wanted to fill up some ECTS.

I also worked on solving various (physics) problems for the International Physics Tournament and we didn't hold a small robotics competition.

After my Master's degree, I spent 6 months as an intern at Elvesys. And there I was working on a high precision flow sensor for microfluidics. After that I did some user data analyzes for some friends from school for their homepages (paths across the website and some A/B testing), before being offered the PhD position here in Bielefeld.

 

Why did you decide to join ImAgE-D?

I was quite interested in a variety of physics related subjects, and I was contacted by Thomas about this PhD Position. For me the work is a bit of a mix between optics, engineering but also a lot of programming which I am doing right now. Optics has always been one of the subjects that interested me the most, even though I haven't studied it much. And I understand it pretty well! Im also interested in computers in general – as mentioned previously – and the concept of image reconstruction.

So it’s the technology, the microscopy and overall the engineering side of the project that I very much like.

 

What are your expectations regarding your work in the ImAgE-D project?

I'm very interested in in the experience of doing actual research where I am held accountable. In particular with respect to peer reviewed publications and diving deep into a subject. Which is for me personally a natural continuation of studying physics.

Furthermore I expect to learn a lot about good and best practice in research in general. And last but not least I am looking forwad to building a network although I have to be honest at this point and admit, that I have not been thinking too much about this aspect as of now.

 

Could you share a fun fact with me?

Here is one I really liked when I found out about it (Borsuk-Ulam Theorem). At any given time, there are always two exactly opposite points on the globe with equal temperature and pressure.

It's basically because of the continuity of pressure and temperature.

We are delighted that Gaétan has found his way to  the ImAgE-D project and wish him every success and practical experience!