Tom van Waas is an ASP-FNRS PhD student in the group of Prof. Samuel Poncé.

In 2019, Tom obtained a joint bachelor's degree in Molecular Science & Technology at Leiden University and Delft University of Technology (DUT) in the Netherlands and an Applied Physics bachelor's degree at DUT. In 2021, Tom completed the Applied Physics master's programme, also at DUT.

During their Casimir pre-PhD master's programme, Tom performed their main pre-PhD master’s project on first-principles simulations of halide double perovskites involving Prof. Ferdinand Grozema from DUT. Tom completed two shorter pre-PhD master’s projects at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI): one project on metal-organic frameworks in the van Bokhoven group and a project on angle-resolved spectroscopy of quantum materials under the supervision of Prof. J. Hugo Dil.

The PhD project of Tom is based on the latter pre-PhD project, where the aim is to study fully spin- and momentum-resolved electron-phonon interaction from first-principles simulations as well as from angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy at the PSI Laboratory for Advanced Spectroscopy and X-ray Sources and other beamlines.

When Tom is not found at their computer trying to solve a computational physics problem, they can be found on an outdoor running session or listening to some of their favourite jazz.

Samuel Poncé is an F.R.S.-FNRS Research Associate and Professor at the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium.

He completed his PhD in Solid State Physics at the Université catholique de Louvain in 2015 under the supervision of Prof. Gonze. He earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Civil Engineering at the Université catholique de Louvain in 2008 and 2010, respectively.

Samuel was a Postdoctoral Research Assistant in the group of Prof. Giustino in the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford and a Junior Research Fellow of the Wolfson College from 2015 to 2019.

From 2019 to 2021, he was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in the Institute of Materials from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in the group of Prof. Marzari.