Author Archives: Nicola Spaldin

About Nicola Spaldin

Nicola Spaldin is the professor of materials theory at ETH Zürich. She is a passionate science educator, former director of her department’s study program, and holder of the ETH Golden Owl Award for excellence in teaching. She developed the class of materials known as multiferroics, which combine simultaneous ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity, and when not trying to make a room-temperature superconductor, can be found playing her clarinet, or skiing or climbing in the Alps.

What do employers want?

Our studies coordinator, Andrea, had a busy summer interviewing the people who hire our graduates; she talked to industry representatives in both management and research and development roles, as well as human resources personnel, from a wide range of different … Continue reading

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What do other departments do?

Or Whenever you have a hard problem to solve, check first whether someone has already solved it.   Not wanting to reinvent the wheel (and hoping to benefit from the hard work of others) we decided to take a look … Continue reading

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So who is she then?

Well, here we are at the end of our promised series of “The Materials Scientist, Who is She?” workshops. Before I give you the answer to our eternal question, first let me tell you what worked well with the logistics: … Continue reading

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On Project Management

Like many academics I am woefully untrained for many aspects of my job. My route to my position, which I think is a fairly common trajectory, was to spend much of my life learning how to solve other people’s science … Continue reading

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Eternal Questions

My first tentative toe-dip into the Blogosphere turned out to be less scary than I imagined: No abusive messages or trolls, a little bit of enthusiasm via Twitter, email and the “Responses” section on the blog, and even an encouraging … Continue reading

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The Materials Scientist in 2030, Who is She?

Whenever I ask one of my Physics Department colleagues what it means to be a Physicist, while she might not be able to give me a straightforward answer, she usually has a very clear picture in her head of who … Continue reading

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