The process of creating the NOMATEN Center of Excellence is entering a decisive phase: Professor Mikko Alava has assumed the position of director and will soon start completing research teams. CoE NOMATEN is to explore new functional materials. It was created thanks to a grant in the Teaming for excellence competition and thanks to the support of the Foundation for Polish Science. 

On Monday, October 7, Professor Mikko Alava assumed the position of Director of the NOMATEN Center of Excellence. This new scientific institution was created at the National Center for Nuclear Research in Świerk as a result of the European Union granting funds in the prestigious Teaming for excellence competition and as a result of national support from the Foundation of Polish Science (FNP). Professor Alava was recommended as the director of the NOMATEN Center by the International Scientific Committee of the project. His candidacy was selected from among many proposed by renowned scientists from around the world and gained recognition of the FNP.

“I am excited of being able to enter this position and to steer the course of NOMATEN towards a widely recognized hub of research in functional materials” – says Professor Alava. “NOMATEN is strongly supported by actors in Polish research funding, in particular the Foundation for Polish Science and the hosting NCBJ but we also have access to the wider European and international research networks due to our Teaming project consortium partners CEA and VTT. I am looking forward for the start-up phase of the CoE and for the first scientific milestones and achievements.”

Professor Alava is a world-famous specialist in material physics and computer physics. The scientific achievements of the new director NOMATEN include over 250 scientific papers. Professor Alava also has experience in managing centers of excellence, gained while working as deputy director of the COMP Center of Excellence in Computational Nanoscience at Aalto University in Finland. The first weeks of work of the new director promise to be very busy, because soon scientific leaders should be selected and research teams should be completed. The recruitment process will take place in an open competition procedure that guarantees the recruitment of the best specialists.

Short scientific biography of Professor Alava:

Mikko Alava holds a PhD in nuclear engineering (Helsinki University of Technology) in fusion plasma physics theory, from 1993. He is since 2009 a full professor of physics at Aalto University, Finland. Alava has worked after a research direction change from fusion to materials on statistical physics applications to the physics of materials and on challenging computational problems in understanding fracture, friction, plasticity and other complex properties, typical of functional materials. Lately, for 2012-17 he has been a vice-director of a national Center of Excellence in Computational Nanoscience (COMP).