Research Team

We are always looking for talented and enthusiastic masters, PhD students and post-doctoral researchers.
Please contact Prof. Rocha (email) for inquiries.

Principal Investigator


Post-doctoral researchers


PhD students


Research Specialists


Master students


Internship & Exchange students


Honorary members of the team


Alumni


Dr. Charlotte Cresens, PhD student
Charlotte finished her PhD entitled 'Exploring colorectal cancer metastasis: proteomic insights enlightened' in August 2024 (promotor, link to archived page). Charlotte is currently working at the VIB BioImaging Core in Leuven.

Arthur Talpe, Master student
Arthur finished his master thesis on 'Upconverting nanoparticles coupled to BODIPY for deeper penetrating photodynamic therapy' in June 2024 (promotor).

Bert Poedts, Master student
Bert finished his master thesis on 'Development and evaluation of a molecular tension sensor library in a disease model Cerebral Cavernous Malformations' in June 2024 (promotor).

Siska Sommers, Master student
Siska finished her master thesis on 'Implementation and optimization of optogenetic tools in mammalian cells.' in June 2024 (promotor).

Mehak Sharma, Master student
Mehak finished her master thesis on 'Multiplane Dark-field Quantitative Phase Imaging For 4D Cell Microscopy' in June 2024 (promotor).

Dr. Quinten Coucke, PhD student
Quinten finished his PhD entitled From theory to practice: phasor-based insights into FRET-sensing in January 2024 (co-promotor, link to archived page)

Esther Ocket, Master student
Esther finished her master thesis on 'Super-resolution investigation of integrin adhesion structures in colorectal cancer metastasis' in June 2023 (promotor).

Mathilda Corcoles, Master student
Mathilda finished her master thesis on 'Imaging of the binding and signaling cascade between immunofilaments and T cells' in June 2023 (promotor).

Sofie Berden, Master student
Sofie finished her master thesis on 'The Influence of Surface charge, Shape and Size on the Internalization of Gold Nanoparticles in 2D and 3D cell models' in June 2023 (promotor).

Dr. Johannes Vandaele, PhD student
Johannes finished his PhD entitled Structural and thermo-mechanical characterization of new biomimetic materials in January 2023 (co-promotor, link to archived page)

Dr. Boris Louis , PhD student
Boris finished his PhD entitled Multi-dimensional imaging : A tool to unravel material properties at the nanoscale in December 2022 (co-promotor). After his PhD, Boris received a FWO post-doctoral scholarship.

Dr. Guillermo Solis, PhD student
Guillermo finished his PhD entitled Imaging and proteomics-based analysis of colorectal cancer metastasis in September 2022 (co-promotor). After a post-doctoral stay at the group of Prof. Francisco Monroy (Complutense University of Madrid, SP), Guillermo re-joined the group (FWO post-doctoral fellowship)

Astha Tiwari, Master student
Astha finished her master thesis on 'Investigation of clathrin- mediated endocytosis in cancer metastasis using confocal and super-resolution microscopy' in June 2022 (promotor).

Lars Fever, Master student
Lars finished his internship on 'Effect of substrate stiffness on the cellular uptake of nanoparticles' in June 2022 (promotor).

Fábio Gonçalves, Master student
Fábio finished his Erasmus + internship on 'Investigating the Hofmeister Effect on Polyisocyanopeptide Gels' in June 2022 (co-promotor).

Dr. Indra Van Zundert, PhD student
Indra finished her PhD entitled Bringing Drug Delivery Systems into the Third Dimension in June 2022 (co-promotor). After a post-doctoral stay at the group of Prof. Tom de Greef (TU Eindhoven, NL), Indra re-joined the group (FWO post-doctoral fellowship)

Dr. Aline Acke, PhD student
Aline finished her PhD entitled Studying an Array of Biological Questions at the Nanoscale with Expansion Microscopy: From cells to viruses in February 2022 (co-promotor, link to archived page)

Dr. Marisa Vanheusden, PhD student
Marisa finished her PhD entitled Multiplexing spatially resolved omics with increased resolution: Development of an expansion microscopy platform in December 2021 (co-promotor, link to archived page)

Dr. Laurens D'Huys, PhD student
Laurens finished his PhD entitled Optical DNA Mapping: The Super-Resolved Genomic Barcode in September 2021(co-promotor, link to archived page)

Dr. Danai Laskaratou, PhD student
Danai finished her PhD entitled Development of fluorescent protein-based strategies and microscopy techniques for cell signaling studies in July 2021(co-promotor, link to archived page)

Dr. Monica Ricci, PhD student
Monica finished her PhD entitled Hands and Eyes on Single-cells: Silver Nanowire Endoscopy for Intracellular Delivery and Sensing in January 2021(co-promotor, link to archived page)

Dr. Kaizheng Liu (Max), Post-doctoral researcher Jan-Nov 2020
After a short research stay, Max join us to continue his work on the effect of non-linear mechanics on cell behaviour (link to archived page)

Stéphanie Geerts, Master student
Stéphanie finished her master thesis on 'The influence of the ECM on Cancer Associated Fibroblasts and cancer cell interplay' in June 2021 (promotor).

Nele Philippens, Master student
Nele finished her master thesis on 'Imaging and manipulation of the immunological synapse with polyisocyanopeptide polymers' in June 2021 (promotor).

Laurens Kimps, Master student
Laurens finished his master thesis on 'Quantifying the Förster resonance energy transfer of intracellular tension sensors for investigating mechanotransduction' in June 2021 (co-promotor).

Maria Bravo, internship student Feb-Aug 2020
Maria joined our group as an Erasmus+ exchange student to work on the functionalization of nanoparticles for drug delivery. After finishing her master degree, she returned as a PhD student.

Elfriede Heerwegh, Master student
Elfriede finished her master thesis on 'The role of cancer associated fibroblasts in tumor invasion' in June 2019 (promotor).

Dr. Herlinde Dekeersmaecker, PhD student
Herlinde finished her PhD on 'Superresolution fluorescence microscopy based techniques for the study of signal transduction' in February 2017 (co-promotor).