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.

One Year In

Posted on 5 February 2018 by Nicola Spaldin

It’s hard to believe that it is now more-or-less a year since our kick-off workshop to launch our curriculum revision project. Right on schedule, we celebrated the occasion with our planned second all-lecturer workshop, this time with the goal of … Continue reading →

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The Alumni Sounding Board

Posted on 30 December 2017 by Nicola Spaldin

As a no-longer-very-junior Professor, who is (I think) not entirely unreasonable in meetings, I spend a large and increasing fraction of my time serving on scientific advisory and steering boards. If you will permit me one small grumble, I’m convinced … Continue reading →

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Long Silences and the BSc Profile

Posted on 28 November 2017 by Nicola Spaldin

Every summer I promise myself that I will start the Fall Semester so well prepared that I will not reach Christmas in a state of organizational meltdown, surrounded by backlogs of reviews, student projects waiting for feedback, unread literature, ungraded … Continue reading →

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What do employers want?

Posted on 1 October 2017 by Nicola Spaldin

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?

Posted on 3 September 2017 by Nicola Spaldin

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?

Posted on 28 July 2017 by Nicola Spaldin

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

Posted on 12 July 2017 by Nicola Spaldin

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

Posted on 25 June 2017 by Nicola Spaldin

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?

Posted on 14 June 2017 by Nicola Spaldin

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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