Principle Investigator

Yoeri van de Burgt

Yoeri van de Burgt obtained his PhD degree at Eindhoven University of Technology in 2014. He then briefly worked at a high-tech startup in Switzerland, after which he obtained a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University (USA) with prof. Alberto Salleo. 

Since November 2016 he has returned to Eindhoven University of Technology where he is leading the Neuromorphic Engineering group within the Mechanical Engineering department, and as part of the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems (ICMS) and the newly established Eindhoven A.I. Systems Institute (EAISI). He obtained his tenure in 2019 and was promoted to associate professor in 2021. Yoeri has been a visiting professor at the University of Cambridge (U.K.) in 2017 and to Georgia Tech (U.S.) in 2022.

Yoeri was a member of the Eindhoven Young Academy since 2019 and was the chair between 2021 and 2022. In 2019 he was selected as MIT innovator under 35 Europe. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Groningen Cognitive Systems and Materials Center at the University of Groningen and since 2021 he is the Focus Area co-chair for neuromorphic computing at the Henrik Casimir Institute of TU/e. Yoeri serves on the Editorial Board of IOP Neuromorphic Computing and Engineering and is an associate editor for Materials Science and Engineering R and Frontiers in Neuroscience: Neuromorphic Engineering.

More information: personal page at TU/e website.

Postdocs

Simone Spolaor

Simone Spolaor received his Master Degree in Molecular Biotechnology and Bioinformatics from the University of Milan, Italy, in 2016. Subsequently, he pursued a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy. During his Ph.D., he developed computational techniques to simulate and analyze complex biochemical systems, with a particular focus on methods based on fuzzy logic. He defended his Ph.D. thesis, titled “Fuzzy logic for the modeling and simulation of complex systems”, in 2020, after which he continued his research on bio-inspired algorithms as a postdoc at the University of Milano-Bicocca. In 2022, he joined the Neuromorphic Engineering Group at Eindhoven University of Technology. His scientific interests include Systems and Synthetic Biology, complex systems simulation, bio-inspired algorithms and intelligent matter.

Pei Zhang received her Master degree in Polymer Chemistry and Physics from South China Normal University, China, in 2019. Following this, she embarked on a new chapter at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) to pursue her PhD in the Chemical Engineering and Chemistry Department. Under the guidance of Prof. Albert Schenning, she has developed structurally colored liquid crystal polymer materials, which found applications in optical sensors, temperature-responsive reflective coatings, and color-tunable soft actuators. She successfully defended her PhD thesis, titled “Structurally Colored Liquid Crystal Elastomer Actuators”, in August 2023. Subsequently, she joined the Neuromorphic Engineering Group at TU/e. During this exciting journey, she seeks to expand her expertise by integrating “memory” and “learning” capabilities into the responsive polymer materials she has explored, harnessing the potential of organic neuromorphic systems.

Pei Zhang

PhD Students

Imke Krauhausen

Imke Krauhausen graduated with a Masters degree in electrical engineering from RWTH Aachen University (Germany). Her master thesis focused on unsupervised deep learning algorithms for the segmentation of tumors in brain MRI data. During her BSc she specialized in micro and nano electronics. Continuing this path she focused her semester abroad at Linköping University (Sweden) on learning about the physics behind nano electronics. Fusing her interests in micro-/nanoelectronics and neural networks she started her PhD as a joined project between the Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer research in Mainz and TU Eindhoven (NL) in November 2019. As part of the neuromorphic engineering group at TU/e she works on neuromorphic organic arrays for brain-inspired smart robotics and sensors.

Charles-Théophile Coen obtained his master degree at Swiss Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) in microsystem with a specialization in micro- and nanosystem. His interest in neural implants and neuroengineering started early on during his Erasmus exchange at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (KTH) and grew during his master degree where he mainly worked on flexible electronics for neural interface. For his master’s thesis at Stanford University, he worked on stretchable and photopatternable conducting polymer for high density electrophysiology and took charge of the design and fabrication of a device capable of recording surface EMG.
After his master degree, he worked at the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM) in the Life microtechnologies department and focused on the automation of skin graft production.
In May 2021, Charles-Théophile joined the Neuromorphic Engineering group at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). His main goal is to create artifical synapses that can detect neurotransmitters released by neurons and modulate their conductance accordingly.

Charles Coen

Benn Proper

Benn Proper obtained his Masters degree in mechanical engineering at the Eindhoven University of Technology with a specialization in dynamics and control. In collaboration with the Technical University of Munich (TUM), his master thesis focused on the development of a classification method for classifying the expectancy of measured simultaneous impact behavior using a computationally feasible prediction. Afterwards, he spent his internship abroad at TUM to validate the findings presented in his master thesis on an experimental setup. In May 2022, Benn started his PhD on a joint project between the Dynamics and Control soft robotics and Neuromorphic Engineering group. This project concerns the development of a hand-gripper system that can be locally optimized to form an optimized closed-loop connection between biological signals and artificial actuation using haptic feedback and neuromorphic control.

After getting inspired by his bachelor end project in the Neuromorphic Engineering group, where he designed a local feedback system for a hardware-based supervised neural network, Bob Huisman continued his master in Mechanical Engineering with a specialization in Microsystems at the Eindhoven University of Technology. For his internship he went to Linköping University to improve his feedback system and to try to locally train a physical weight array. For his graduation project he followed his interest in soft actuators and designed a light-actuated microvalve that could be used to actively control glaucoma drainage. In May 2023, he joined the Neuromorphic Engineering group. In collaboration with AMOLF, his aim is to develop smart and autonomous soft robotic systems with the help of organic neuromorphic devices that can improve their performance and are able to adapt to a changing environment.

Bob Huisman

Niels Burghoorn

Niels Burghoorn did a bachelor in Nanobiology and afterwards graduated in Biomedical Engineering at the Delft University of Technology (TUD), Netherlands, in 2022. During his studies he has always been interested in combining biology and engineering. Therefore, during his master degree he found a way to unite these multidisciplinary interests in the Bioelectronics group. Here he did his master thesis investigating the fundamental mechanisms of ultrasound neuromodulation by fabricating a high-bandwidth biosensing platform. In 2024, he joined the Neuromorphic Engineering Group at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Here his focus is on the interface between neurology and organic neuromorphics. He will be working on the creation of biohybrid interfaces, paving the way towards neuroprosthetics.

Alumni

2023 Setareh Kazemzadeh
2023 Eveline van Doremaele (Fortimedix)
2022 Gianmaria Matrone (postdoc at Northwestern University)
2022 Yanxi Zhang (professor at Xiamen University)

Masters and Exchange Students

2024

Bram van Boven

2024

Vito Franssen

2024

Michiel van der Wal

2023

Dirkje van Gastel

2023

Roy Schepers

2023

Shao-Kai (Jimmy) Huang

2022

Ibrahim Kurt

2021

Gijs van Muijden

2021

Tim Stevens

2020

Pranchu Shubham

2020

Joris Dijcks

2019

Ashuya Takemoto (visiting scholar Osaka University, Japan)

2019

Sjors Dankers

2019

Joey Hendriks

2018

Tom van der Pol (Department of Chemistry)

2018

Scott Keene (visiting scholar Stanford University, USA)