Research Fellows 2026-2028 & 2026-2029

To be updated

 

Dr Feixiong Chen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Tampere Institute for Advanced Study in 2026-2029 and Academy Research Fellow (2023-2027, Research Council of Finland). His research project, NEURO-IMAGES, aims to advance the use of magnetic nanoparticles for cutting-edge biosensing in healthcare applications. The project integrates bio-nano interaction, magnetic manipulation and nanopore technology to decode the spatial organization of protein aggregates, challenging the Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis.

Currently, he is also leading a group of advanced nano-diagnostic and biosensing lab in University of Oulu. From 2014 to now, his professional trajectory has included the roles of a PhD student, Postdoc Researcher, Marie Curie Fellow, Senior Scientist, Academy Research Fellow, and Senior Research Fellow in the countries of France, South Korea, Ireland, UK, and Finland across both the academic and industry sectors.

Up to date, he has secured research funding from the Chungnam National University Research Grant (South Korea), Higher Education Authority (Ireland), Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (EU), Academy of Finland (Finland), University of Oulu 6GESS, University of Oulu Proof of Concept funding, and the Tampere IAS with up to €1,3M.

His decade of in-depth experience in nano-diagnostics has aimed to exploit the electrochemical sensing, magnetophoresis, bio-nanotechnology in advancing Point of Care (POC) technology. He is eager to establish a broad collaboration network within the Chemistry, Materials and Engineering system.

 

(Photo forthcoming)

Leena Enbom, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2026-2028

Personal profile page | Research activities | Leena and her research (video)

Invisible Earners: Rethinking the Male Breadwinner in Nordic Working-Class Households, 1890–1920

Leena Enbom (DSocSc) is an economic and social historian specialising in the history of labour, poverty, and precarious livelihoods. Her research examines the long history of insecure employment and the historical roots of work practices associated with today’s gig economy.

At the Tampere Institute for Advanced Study, Enbom examines the tension between the male breadwinner model and the economic realities of working-class households in Nordic cities between 1890 and 1920. Drawing on charity case files linked to population registers, she reconstructs and quantifies income-generating activities that were largely obscured in official statistics and often undertaken by women and children. The project brings together street vendors, laundresses, domestic cleaners, home-based needleworkers, and other self-employed and casual workers—groups rarely studied together—to reassess the significance of informal work in urban economies before the Nordic welfare states.

 

(Photo forthcoming)

Giusy del Giudice, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2026-2028

Personal profile page | Research activities | Giusy and her research (video)

 A Mechanistic View of Environmental Health: Linking Epigenetic Regulation to Disease and Ecosystem Resilience

Giusy del Giudice is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Tampere Institute for Advanced Study, with a background in medical biotechnology and a PhD in computational biology.

Her research focuses on how living systems adapt to environmental challenges and how these responses shape health over time.In a nutshell, she asks how exposure to pollutants, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals is translated into a biological response, and how that response can leave a molecular memory with long-lasting effects.

Her IAS project “A Mechanistic View of Environmental Health: Linking Epigenetic Regulation to Disease and Ecosystem Resilience” investigates how these trajectories are established through epigenetic regulation, with the aim of turning mechanistic understanding into better prevention and intervention.

By studying whether these mechanisms are conserved across species, her work extends this perspective from individual health to ecosystems and the planetary level. Exposures do not respect biological or ecological boundaries, and neither should our understanding of their consequences.

 

(Photo forthcoming)

Silvia Gramolelli, Senior Research Fellow, 2026-2029

Personal profile page | Research activities | Silvia and her research (video)

Decoding EBV–PIK3CA Cooperation in Gastric Oncogenesis and in Tolerance to PI3Kα Inhibition

Silvia Gramolelli is an IAS Senior Research Fellow in cancer biology whose research combines molecular virology, inflammation biology, epigenetics, and translational oncology. Her work focuses on understanding how Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) reshapes cellular signaling, inflammatory responses, and chromatin regulation to promote cancer development and therapeutic adaptation. She is particularly interested in the molecular mechanisms linking viral infection, chronic inflammation, and tumor progression.

Silvia Gramolelli has extensive expertise in molecular and cellular approaches to studying cancer and complex diseases. Her research spans cancer biology, virology, inflammation, epigenetics, and cell signaling, with a particular interest in understanding how cellular and microenvironmental factors influence disease development and treatment response. She has broad experience in the use of advanced experimental models, including two-dimensional cell cultures, three-dimensional organoids, and patient-derived systems, combined with functional genomics, molecular profiling, and multi-omics approaches. Her work bridges basic and translational research, with a focus on identifying disease mechanisms, biomarkers, and novel therapeutic opportunities that can ultimately benefit patient care.

 

(Photo forthcoming)

Terhi Helminen, Senior Research Fellow, 2026-2029

Personal profile page | Research activities | Terhi and her research (video)

Bodily Synchrony, Socioemotional Communication and a Sense of Connection in Neurodiverse Children (AS-Connection)

Dr Terhi Helminen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Tampere Institute for Advanced Study. She conducts her research at the Psychology Clinic PSYKE within the Faculty of Social Sciences, where she also holds a faculty position.

Dr Helminen has training and clinical experience in neuropsychology, with a focus on children and adolescents. This background strongly informs her research. Her work is rooted in experimental psychophysiology, with a growing emphasis on applying psychophysiological methods in naturalistic settings and using multimethod approaches. Most importantly, she seeks to better understand the experiences of neurodiverse children and to develop effective, research-informed, and ethically grounded approaches to supporting them, with a particular focus on social interaction and emotion regulation.

During her IAS Fellowship, Dr Helminen’s work focuses primarily on the project AS-Connection: Bodily Synchrony, Socioemotional Communication and a Sense of Connection in Children on the Autism Spectrum, funded by the Eemil Aaltonen Foundation and led by Dr Helminen. The project investigates how social connections unfold among neurodiverse children by examining connectedness at bodily, interactional, and subjective levels in an intervention setting. The findings are expected to advance understanding of the mechanisms underlying social connection and inform autism-friendly practices that foster meaningful peer relationships.

In addition to AS-Connection, Dr Helminen leads the iN TUNE and SIILI projects and collaborates in the Gaze@Toddler and Cognirem research projects.

 

(Photo forthcoming)

Johanna Horppu, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2026-2028

Personal profile page | Research activities | Johanna and her research (video)

Configuring Digital Waste: Marketing Imperatives and Consumer Experiences of Digital Excess

Johanna Horppu is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Tampere Institute for Advanced Study and the Faculty of Management and Business. She obtained her PhD in marketing from Tampere University in 2025. Her research explores the entanglements between consumers, technologies, and data, with a particular focus on the ethical use of data and technology in marketing. Her work is multidisciplinary, bridging consumer research, science and technology studies, critical data studies, and digital sociology.

In her IAS project, she explores how (digital) marketing and its imperative to “collect all data from all sources” configures and sustains digital excess and waste. The project critically discusses the implications of this digitally generated waste for the well-being of individuals, society, and the environment.

 

(Photo forthcoming)

Iva Milisavljevic, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2026-2028

Personal profile page | Research activities | Iva and her research (video)

Advancing Understanding of Room-temperature plasticity and Optical Response in Amorphous oxide films (AURORA)

Iva Milisavljevic is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Tampere Institute for Advanced Study and the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences at Tampere University. She earned her PhD in Ceramic Engineering from Alfred University, USA, in 2023. Her research focuses on understanding structure-property relationships in functional ceramic materials, with expertise in advanced structural and synchrotron-based characterization.

In her Tampere IAS project “Advancing Understanding of Room-temperature Plasticity and Optical Response in Amorphous Oxide Films” (AURORA), Iva is interested in understanding a new generation of amorphous oxide materials that challenge the traditional view of oxide glasses as brittle and prone to cracking. Recent discoveries have shown that some amorphous oxide thin films can instead deform at room temperature without breaking, giving them remarkable damage tolerance. Iva is particularly interested in understanding what makes this unusual behavior possible and whether such mechanical resilience can be combined with other useful functionalities, such as optical, electronic, and dielectric properties, to create multifunctional materials. Through AURORA, she aims to connect the way these materials are made and their atomic structure with the properties they exhibit. Her research brings together thin film deposition, multi-modal experimental characterization, and atomistic simulations to examine these connections from different perspectives. Ultimately, she hopes to uncover the fundamental principles that could guide the development of damage tolerant, multifunctional materials for future technologies in areas such as electronics, microelectronics, photonics, and sensing.

Beyond research, Iva is actively involved in the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and is interested in supporting women in engineering, professional development, mentoring, and building inclusive scientific and engineering communities.

 

(Photo forthcoming)

Michael Neri, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2026-2028

Personal profile page | Research activities | Michael and his research (video)

Audio Deepfake Detection using Spatial Audio

Michael Neri received his Ph.D. degree in applied electronics from Roma Tre University in 2025. He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences and Tampere Institute of Advanced Study, Tampere University, Finland.  His main research interests are in the area of audio deepfake detection, spatial audio, and multimedia processing with learning-based approaches.

 

(Photo forthcoming)

Emma Raitoharju, Senior Research Fellow, 2026-2029

Personal profile page | Research activities | Emma and her research (video)

Epigenetic Profiles Mediating the Effects of Past Exposures to the Future Risk of Cardiometabolic Diseases

Emma Raitoharju is a Senior Research Fellow and a Principal Investigator of the Molecular Epidemiology Research Group at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University. Her research combines molecular epidemiology, epigenetics, and bioinformatics to understand how biological and environmental factors shape the risk of cardiometabolic diseases across the life course.

Raitoharju’s work focuses on identifying molecular signatures, particularly epigenetic mechanisms, that link early-life exposures, health behaviours, and disease processes to cardiovascular and metabolic health. She has a particular interest in how experiences and environmental influences may become biologically embedded and potentially affect health across generations. One of her current projects investigates the transgenerational epigenetic consequences of war stress exposures and their implications for long-term health and disease susceptibility in multiple generations of descendants.

She leads an interdisciplinary research group and collaborates extensively with epidemiologists, geneticists, computational scientists and historians. Her research integrates large-scale longitudinal cohort data from the Young Finns Study with molecular profiling technologies to advance understanding of disease mechanisms and improve risk prediction and prevention strategies for chronic diseases.

 

(Photo forthcoming)

Rafael Arturo Rubio Ruiz, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2026-2028

Personal profile page | Research activities | Arturo and his research (video)

Lifetime-Informed Design Optimization for Sustainable Manufacturing
(LIDO-SuMa)

Rafael Arturo Rubio Ruiz is a researcher in computational mechanics, materials science and simulation-driven engineering. His research combines finite element modelling, experimental data and computational optimization to predict fatigue, damage evolution and component lifetime. He received his Doctor of Science in Technology from Tampere University in 2024 and has subsequently worked with large-scale structural simulations, CAE automation and durability assessment in industrial R&D.

At the Tampere IAS, his project “Lifetime-Informed Design Optimization for Sustainable Manufacturing” (LIDO-SuMa) develops AI-assisted engineering workflows that integrate fatigue and wear predictions directly into sustainable design optimization. The aim is to enable engineering decisions that account simultaneously for component performance, lifetime, and environmental impact.

 

(Photo forthcoming)

Alper Baran Sözmen, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2026-2028

Personal profile page | Research activities | Baran and his research (video)

Magneto-Plasmonic Nano-Architectures for Isolation and Profiling Extracellular and Bacterial Membrane Vesicles

A. Baran Sözmen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Tampere Institute for Advanced Study. He specializes in biosensor engineering, with a particular focus on plasmonic and magnetic-based detection methods for point-of-care applications. He earned his doctoral degree in Bioengineering from İzmir Institute of Technology (İzTech) in 2024, and Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering at Ege University. Prior to joining Tampere IAS, he worked as a research assistant at İzTech until August 2026, where his doctoral work spanned exosome-based diagnostics, paper-based microfluidics, enzymatic assays, and magnetic levitation–based detection platforms.

At Tampere IAS, he is developing a magneto-plasmonic sensor platform that combines magnetic enrichment with optical detection. The primary goal of his project is to build this platform, and to apply it to the isolation and profiling of extracellular vesicles and bacterial membrane vesicles in complex biological fluids such as blood, urine, and saliva; vesicle populations that carry useful diagnostic information but have been difficult to detect consistently due to their diversity and background interference in real samples.

 

(Photo forthcoming)

Miika Tervonen, Senior Research Fellow, 2026-2029

Personal profile page | Research activities

Deportation Turn and the Post-Universal Welfare State in North-Western Europe (NORDEP)

(Intro forthcoming)

 

 

(Photo forthcoming)

Amit Tewari, Senior Research Fellow, 2026-2029

Personal profile page | Research activities | Amit and his research (video)

2D Materials-based NEUROmorphic Architecture for Flexible Electronics Using High-Photonic-Sintering (2D-NEURO)

Amit Tewari is a Senior Research Fellow at the Tampere Institute for Advanced Study (Tampere IAS), Tampere University. His research lies at the intersection of micro/ nano-electronics, advanced materials, and intelligent hardware systems. He has contributed to physiological/ bioelectronic sensors, energy harvesting technologies, emerging memory devices, and next-generation semiconductor platforms.

His work focuses on the development of advanced materials and devices through innovative atomic layer deposition (ALD) approaches, including atomic layer annealing ALD (ALA-ALD) and laser-assisted ALD (LA-ALD). By integrating advanced manufacturing with device engineering, he develops flexible and wearable sensors, neuromorphic electronic systems, ferroelectric devices, and energy-efficient hardware for future computing and healthcare technologies. His current research aims to advance sustainable, intelligent, and adaptive electronic systems that bridge fundamental materials science with real-world healthcare applications.

 

(Photo forthcoming)

Aino Tiihonen, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2026-2028

Personal profile page | Research activities | Aino and her research (video)

Partners in Politics: Political Homogamy, Parenthood, and Polarization in Contemporary Societies (POP-GAP)

Aino Tiihonen (DSocSc) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Tampere Institute for Advanced Study (Tampere IAS), in the Politics Unit of the Faculty of Management and Business. She is part of the Political Engagement Research Group (POENG) at Tampere University. Her research explores the mechanisms of political socialization, focusing on how political values, attitudes, and preferences develop over the life course and across generations. She is particularly interested in the role of close relationships, family contexts, and intergenerational transmission in shaping political orientations and political engagement. Her research combines survey data, including dyadic panel surveys, with population register data and qualitative interviews.

In her IAS project “Partners in Politics: Political Homogamy, Parenthood, and Polarization in Contemporary Societies” (POP-GAP) she investigates how societal and political homogamy within couples, together with parenthood, shape political attitudes and preferences over the life course. The project extends existing perspectives on political socialization by examining how political orientations are shaped not only by early-life experiences but also by couple relationships, parenthood, and everyday interactions within households. Through this work, she aims to generate new knowledge on the mechanisms of political socialization and political inequality, while advancing understanding of the role of family life in shaping individuals’ political development and political divides in contemporary democracies.

 

(Photo forthcoming)