word to the elders
ASC ALUMNI TESTIMONIALS
STUDENTS COME FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD TO JOIN THE ASC MASTER !
Since the beginning of ASC’s Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree, students from over 50 countries joined the programme
THEY ARE TELLING YOU THEIR STORIES
Watch Sailendra’s video to find out more about the Erasmus Mundus experience.
Sailendra Chaudhari (ASC 2013-2015)
Assistant Professor, Asian College for Advanced Studies, Purbanchal University, Biratnagar, Nepal.
So far, the programme has been exactly what I expected: interesting courses, new experiences and challenges. It's clear that you don't just go here to travel and spend time with new friends, the focus is on learning chemistry. The studies are by far the greatest asset of this programme. With five different universities to choose from, you can choose exactly what you want to study. This is by no means an easy route to a Master's degree, but it gives you a great foundation for an academic career and is particularly good for international networking. An experience like this is life-changing and I wouldn't trade this opportunity for anything.
When I began the first semester, I had the feeling that the ASC program would be fundamental for my personal and professional growth, but I would never thought that this would happen so quickly.
Before the start of my second semester in Leipzig, I spent two months at the MSAP laboratory in Lille where I had the opportunity to deepen my knowledge in Mass Spectrometry applied to Cultural Heritage.
The internship helped me reach a lot of goals such as: the participation to the 6th international congress for Cultural Heritage with a poster presentation, to the 1st Iperion HS Training Camp, to the International Mass Spectrometry Congress (IMSC) 2022 and the possibility to write an article.
I’ve always enjoyed two things: science and travelling. That’s why when I started university, I decided to leave my home and begin my own adventure! That’s when I moved from my little “Les Fossés” to big “Bruxelles” to start my bachelor’s in chemistry at the “Université Libre de Bruxelles.
Emilie Gérouville (ASC 2018-2020)
starting a PhD (end of Sept. 2020) in Southampton University, UK
I am a Brazilian born in the oldest city of the Amazon, Belém, where most of my family and friends still live. There, my love for chemistry began already in high school, when I didn’t feel the hours go by while I studied chemistry. In 2010. I moved to Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, to pursue my degree in Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry at the University of Brasilia. During my undergrad studies, I spent one year in an exchange program in France at the Université de Savoie and four months doing an internship at the Université de Montréal. Since then, I have always wanted to continue my studies abroad because of the challenges and different scientific contexts. That’s why I pursued my Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in Advanced Spectroscopy in Chemistry abroad. This opportunity allowed me to meet people of different nationalities who shared my love for challenges and chemistry. It was an amazing experience that greatly contributed to my development as a scientist and a human being. I spent my first year in Lille, France, and my second year in Krakow, Poland.
Now, I’m starting a new chapter of my life, which I’ve always dreamed of: starting a Ph.D. I would like to truly thank the ASC team for giving me this incredible opportunity and allowing me to pursue my doctoral studies.
Jacqueline Figueiredo Da Silva (ASC 2017-2019)
PhD, TU Delft/ IBM Research Zurich, Marie Curie CREANET ETN
Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, I gained my Bachelor’s degree in Moscow State University and decided to continue my career in science by becoming a part of ASC Master’s program, and have been studying in France, Germany, and Finland. At the moment, I am doing my doctorate at the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie.
I am a part of Marie Sklodowska-Curie International Training Network. The Photo-Emulsion project is an extensive program targeted to train 8 early stage researchers to build a new generation of scientists. My work is based on the aerosol photopolymerization reactions of thiol-enes. I am trying to produce multi-component polymeric nanoparticles to perform bioanalysis for cancer diagnostics and prognosis.
I will be performing advanced research at the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Institut Charles Sadron (University of Strasbourg) and Peschl Ultraviolet. I am also a proud owner of the Science Ambassador title, that gives me an opportunity to carry my knowledge to the younger generation and encourage them to pursue the natural sciences.
Believe in your power and work hard to become a successful scientist.
Narmin Suvarli (ASC 2016-2018),
PhD, Germany
I was born in Kazakhstan and had ambitions to travel around the globe. After stays in the USA and Taiwan, I was delighted to be awarded an ASC scholarship to study in Europe. During this 2-year long Master’s programme, I studied in France, Germany and Finland followed by a thesis at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF, France). This unique programme gave me the opportunity to travel across the Europe while obtaining top-notch multiple degrees from universities in the three European countries. The mobility is a key feature in the programme and should be chosen carefully depending on the candidate’s career preferences. I obtained amazing international experience combined with advanced professional skills. After being awarded the MSci degree I was getting job offers from around the globe from Australia to Canada and landed an excellent PhD position in the Netherlands. I’m well on my way to shaping my future academic career.
Vitaliy Khlebnikov (ASC 2011-2013),
PhD, Netherlands
I was awarded an Erasmus Mundus scholarship and concluded the ASC Master in 2013. Throughout the programme, I acquired knowledge about several spectroscopic techniques and related subjects. Being a pharmacist, I chose asymmetric organic chemistry as the topic of the thesis, which I believe is an example of the range of opportunities the programme may provide. After graduating, I returned to my home country, Brazil, and got a position at ANVISA, a regulatory agency which plays a role somewhat equivalent to that of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in the United States, or the European Medicines Agency (EMA). I currently work at the Post-Approval Changes Office and my job involves verifying the compliance of files with pharmaceutical regulation. Even though I am no longer in academia, the knowledge acquired in the ASC Master is of great importance in my profession, since I often need to assess spectroscopic data in the analysis of new synthetic routes for drug substances and quality control and stability studies for drug products.
Gabriel Ramos Ferronato (2011-2013)
has a position in ANVISA, Brazil
I was offered with the Erasmus Mundus scholarship and joined the ASC program in 2009-2011. In this program I learned many useful and interesting subjects about various spectroscopic techniques. From them, I chose the direction of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) applied in bioanalysis (DNA). With the obtained training experiences, I then obtained a PhD thesis scholarship (2011-2014) from Ecole Polytechnique and joined the lab of condensed matter physics to study the elaboration of glycan biochips applied in proteomic analysis (sensing and screening) using silicon-based thin films. This work offered me a great space and honor to develop the technique for biomedical applications. I am proud that some of the essential results have been published in chemical journals. In this thesis, I feel that the multidisciplinary course trainings and lab internship experiences in different collaborative universities of the ASC program were highly helpful to handle my work, like the characterization of surface functionalization (IR, AFM, XPS, etc), the organic and polymer synthesis (NMR, MS, etc), bioanalysis techniques (SPR, LSPR, etc).
Jie Yang (2009-2011)
has a PhD position at Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.
It has been two years since I graduated from the ASC program, but the three letters always bring back fresh memories and a smile to my face when I think of the two years that I have spent with ASC program.
To me, ASC offers a perfect mixture of academic development and cross-cultural communication. The first year’ intensive courses unfold a wide spectrum of art-ofstate spectroscopic technologies, which altogether form a solid theoretical foundation for the master project undertaken in the second year, in a different country! I can still remember the days that we were bombarded with profound quantum theories, the nights that we stayed up for preparing presentations, and the holidays that we couldn’t relax because of all the reports due. ASCers are true warriors, who fight with tough mind and sharp intelligence.
The amazing ASC experience also involves moving, integrating and sharing. My mobility plan constitutes of one year in France and the other in Poland, which allows me to have a taste of two fairly different cultures and meet with students from all over the world. The opportunity to see, to travel, to understand is a real blessing because it has ever since transformed me into someone with an open mind and global horizons. ASCers are also real adventurers, who are fearless in face of changes and dare to embrace the world.
After graduation, I returned to China and started my career as a formulator for hair color products in L’Oreal. There is little doubt that my experience in France was an advantage in my job application. Though spectroscopy seems very far from cosmetic products formulation, what I learned from ASC experience still proves to be highly beneficial to my work. To start with, spectroscopic technologies are widely used to characterize the structure and properties of hair fibers in a way that they provide important information for the evaluation of the product performance. The other two important lessons that ASC has taught me — the ability to adapt to the new environment and the passion to learn new things — have also been great support when I am faced with new challenges at work.
In the end, I am truly grateful for the ASC experience and I wish all the lovely staff and my dear colleagues great happiness in life.
Xinxia Ye (2010-2012)
is working in L’Oreal R&D in Shanghai