Postdoctoral researchers

Yaroslava Lopatina

2022 - present

Yaroslava Lopatina was born in Kyiv, Ukraine in 1990. She finished her BSc and MSc in physics at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv studying photonics. In 2020 she obtained her Ph.D. in physics for the work “Self-organization of organic molecules on atomically flat surfaces” at the Institute of Physics of NAS of Ukraine. She joined Prof. Kudernac’s group as a temporary postdoctoral fellow in June 2022, and again in April 2023 as a MSCA4Ukraine fellow working on atomic force microscopy measurements of force exerted by supramolecular polymerization motors.

Luis Pantaleone

2020 (PhD) - present (PostDoc)

Luis Pantaleone was born in Rome (Italy) in 1994. He studied at Sapienza University of Rome where he received his Bachelor's (2017) and Master's (2019) degrees working in the field of supramolecular chemistry in the group of Prof. Di Stefano. As an undergraduate, he first visited the University of Groningen participating in the Erasmus project and returned to the Netherlands as a PhD candidate under the supervision of Prof. Dr. T. Kudernac. His research project is currently focused on the chemo-mechanical transduction in microcrystalline materials.

PhD students

Baptiste Vial

2021 - present

Baptiste was born and raised in Paris (France). He obtained his MSc degree from CPE-Lyon (France) and Durham University (UK), at which he researched Langmuir-Blodgett films based on amphiphilic DADQ's for sensing applications, after which he joined the Kudernac group in 2021. His current research focuses on synthetic catch bonds (supramolecular bonds of which the lifetime increases when subjected to a pulling force).

Victor Bernhard Verduijn

2022 - present

Victor was born in Sappemeer (The Netherlands) in 1998 and obtained his BSc (2020) and MSc degrees in Chemistry (2022 - cum laude) from the University of Groningen (NL). In addition to several extracurricular projects, he finished his studies with two MSc projects on supramolecular fibrillar systems. His final project was under the supervision of Prof. dr. T. Kudernac working on mechanical work production using reversible bundle formation of a supramolecular hydrogelator; currently the topic of his research.

Jacopo Martinelli

2022 - present

Jacopo was born in 1996 in Clusone (Italy) and moved to Groningen in 2015. There, he obtained his BSc (2018) and MSc (2021). His research was centred on spectroscopy, electrochemistry and computational chemistry. He joined the Kudernac group in 2022 for his PhD, where he is focusing on photo- and electro-responsive peptide-based supra-molecular polymers for force production at the nanoscale.

Bente Reus

2025 - present

Bente was born in Hoorn (The Netherlands) in 2000 and obtained both her BSc (2022) and MSc (2025) degrees in Chemistry cum laude from the University of Amsterdam and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (joint degree). Besides a MSc thesis focusing on automated reaction optimization under the supervision of Prof. Timothy Noël, she completed research projects in electrochemistry and supramolecular chemistry as part of the HRSMC Class of Excellence program. Starting January 2025, Bente joined the Kudernac Group as a PhD candidate working on supramolecular strategies for RNA stability.

Julien Smith

2018 - present

Julien grew up in Paris, France where he attended Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) and Sorbonne-Université. During his Masters in Chemistry (Materials) he worked with Benoit Fleury at IPCM on the functionalization of quantum dots and wells with transition metal complexes for spintronics. His current PhD research, soon to be defended, explores several types of hierarchical supramolecular materials with novel life-like properties.