People

Managing Director

Paco Laveille holds a PhD in Materials Chemistry from ENSCM, France (2009). After a post-doc at the Institut Français du Pétrole – Energies Nouvelles, he worked as a Research Engineer at the KAUST Catalysis Center in Saudi Arabia, overseeing the high-throughput experimentation platform and participating in the design of various heterogeneous catalysts in the group of Prof. J-M Basset. In 2015, he joined the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company in the UAE as Senior Scientist and led projects related to hydroprocessing catalyst technology and sustainable fuels production. He was appointed Managing Director of the ETH Zurich Catalysis Hub – Swiss CAT+ on January 2021.

Administrative Assistant

Sandra Jacoma joined the team in October 2023 as the administrative assistant of the Swiss Cat+ East. Before joining the ETH Zürich, she was working several years in facility management for the global leader in commercial real estate services (CBRE) at Google Switzerland. In 2022, she was promoted to project coordinator, being responsible for various smaller and bigger project works across Google buildings in Zürich. Combined with her commercial background, she brings a wide range of experience to the role of administrative assistant. Sandra is taking over from Corinne Strässle, supporting the team in various administrative matters, organization, and corporate appearance.

Scientist - Chemical Data Management and Analysis

Erwin Lam received his Bachelor’s (2014) and Master’s (2015) degree in chemistry at ETH Zürich and carried out his PhD with Prof. Christophe Copéret at ETH Zürich (2015-2020), where he studied the understanding of heterogeneous catalysts by combining synthetic, spectroscopic and computational methods. In 2020, he joined the group of Prof. Erwin Reisner at the University of Cambridge UK, developing electro- and photocatalytic approaches for the valorization of waste chemicals. Since 2022, Erwin Lam joined Swiss CAT+ at ETH Zürich as a Scientist responsible for chemical data analysis and management, and developing automated high-throughput workflows in catalysis.

Senior Scientist - Automation and High-throughput Catalysis

Hou Yuhui received her PhD degree in Physical Chemistry from Xiamen University, China in 2015. After her PhD, she furthered her skills in heterogeneous catalysis at Hokkaido University, Japan. In 2017, she joined the research group of Prof. Peter Broekmann at the University of Bern and extended her research interests to electrocatalysis. In 2021, she joined Chemspeed Technologies AG in Switzerland as Automation Chemist. She was promoted to Workflow Architect and Project Manager before joining SwissCAT+ ETH Zurich in 2023. There, she leverages her knowledge of automation to provide technical expertise and support to help client organizations implement digital throughput. At Swiss CAT+, she is responsible for high-throughput experiments and implementation of high-throughput platforms for catalytic applications.

Scientist - Catalyst Characetrization

Hannes Frey obtained his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Bioengineering from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in 2015 and 2019, respectively, focusing on arsenic removal from water and wastewater processing. At ETH Zürich, he continued his studies jointly at the Department of Applied Biosciences and Chemistry (DCHAB) and Scientific Center of Optical and Electron Microscopy (ScopeM). Supervised by Prof. Jeroen Anton van Bokhoven and Prof. Marc Georg Willinger, his research in heterogeneous catalysis spotlighted the complex dynamics of noble metal particles under reactive conditions. Having earned his PhD in 2023, he joined SwissCAT+ as a Scientist where he specializes in catalyst characterization.

Technician - Laboratory Automation 

Mark Gerlach started his journey in the field of Chemistry in 2020. During a 3-year apprenticeship he worked mainly on the synthesis of metal-organic complexes in the group of Prof. Dr. Roger Alberto at the University of Zurich. After successfully graduating his apprenticeship, he started at the ETHZ Swiss Cat+ as Laboratorial Technician. His work includes operating and maintaining high-throughput and robotic equipment to support the daily research activities, validating analytical methods, and keeping the physical and electronic inventories up to date.

Research Engineer - AI-Enhanced Catalysis

Leo Chevalier's academic journey began with two years of intensive coursework in Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry in Bordeaux, France, from 2017 to 2019, preparing for national exams. Subsequently, he earned his place at Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, further specializing in Chemistry from 2019 to 2022. At ETH Zurich he continued his academic journey, where he pursues a Master of Science with a major in Chemical Engineering, specializing in Catalysis, Energy, and Machine Learning applied to Chemistry. In February 2023, he joined Swiss Cat+ to work on AI-driven discovery of CO2 hydrogenation catalysts, laying the foundation for his Master's thesis, which began in September 2023 in collaboration with the Copéret group and the LAS group led by Andreas Krause.

Data Management Developer

Tanguy Maury started his studies with two intensive years of Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science at Lycee du Parc in Lyon, to join in 2020 Ecole Centrale de Lille, a French engineering school. At Ecole Centrale de Lille, he specialized in Software Development and Data Management. He will do his five-month internship at Swiss Cat+ as a Data Management Developer to finalize his studies and will assist the team in digitizing and automating all data provided by the different machines.

Nicolas Volken 

Technician - Laboratory Automation 

Sebastian Preiss

Research Engineer - Machine Learning

Administrative Assistant

Dr. Adrian Galilea

Scientist - High-throughput and Automation Reseach