Each year, Université Paris Cité awards several doctoral students international mobility grants. For 2022, three FIRE doctoral students will receive financial support for a professional stay abroad, to enrich their research, expand their scientific network and strengthen connections between French and international laboratories.
Chiara Figazzolo is a 3rd year doctoral student at the’Pasteur Institute. She will spend a month at the School of Biomedical Sciences University of Hong Kong to carry out a fundamental part of her biochemistry research. She will then bring back to her laboratory the expertise she acquired there, as well as her knowledge of the international start-up ecosystem in her field of study.
Kseniia Konishcheva is supervised by Ariel Lindner [research director] in the’research team housed at the Learning Planet Institute. For her project dedicated to assessing the mental health of individuals, she will spend 6 months of her 2nd year PhD at the Child Mind Institute in New York, to deploy the tools it has already developed with local researchers and clinicians.
Antoine Levrier is also supervised by Ariel Lindner and is aiming to establish a cotutelle with the University of Minnesota, where he is co-supervised at the University of Minnesota. School of Physics andAstronomy. This is where he plans to spend five months at the end of his first year of doctoral studies. In addition to strengthening the collaboration, he will be carrying out experiments on phages (viruses capable of destroying bacteria).
The FIRE doctoral school has a student-centered approach and supports PhD candidates to become well-rounded young researchers. We value such international collaboration initiatives, made possible here through these academic mobility grants, because the experience goes beyond science. It's also an opportunity to discover new places and countries, and to broaden one's cultural horizons, as candidates point out when they say what they're most looking forward to doing: “What are you most looking forward to doing there, both professionally and personally?
ChiaraI'm delighted to be joining the laboratory of Julian Tanner, one of our longest-standing collaborators and a leading expert in the field of aptamers. I'm looking forward to discovering the history and culture of Hong Kong“.”
Kseniia“Collaborating with my colleagues in person, rather than via Zoom, and eating New York-style pizza!
Antoine“Understand how viruses can interact with synthetic cells... and visit Minnesota's 10,000 lakes”
ArticleCamille Gaulon, scientific and educational coordinator of the FIRE doctoral program
Photo credits: ©Quentin Chevrier - Learning Planet Institute
