Biography

Dr. Giulia Tagliabue is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Mechanical Engineering (IGM). She obtained her B.S. and M.S degrees cum laude in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Udine in Italy. Concurrently she also obtained the diploma from the Scuola Normale Superiore of Udine. In 2015 she obtained her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from ETH Zurich with a thesis on nanophotonic design for light-to-heat and light-to-charge conversion devices. In 2015 Dr. Tagliabue was awarded the Early Mobility Fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation and moved to Caltech as a PostDoctoral fellow. In 2017, thanks to the award of an Advanced Mobility Fellowship, she prolonged her stay at Caltech. Here, in collaboration with the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) she investigated coupled light, heat and charge transfer processes in nanophotonic structures and low-dimensional materials for photoelectrochemical and photovoltaic sustainable energy conversion.

Mission

The ability to work and “engineer” with matter at the nanoscale guided by rational scientific principles enables unprecedented control of heat, mass and charge transport, paving the way to radically new technologies. Notably, nanoscale design links diverse processes across multiple scales in time and space and transforms traditional approaches to transport engineering and thermal management.

The Laboratory of Nanoscience for Energy Technologies (LNET) aims at exploring innovative mechanisms and concepts for light harvesting, conversion and storage by exploiting non-equilibrium (ballistic) transport processes and by leveraging on strong light/solid/liquid coupling at the nanoscale. In particular, research at LNET will strive to develop integrated nanophotonic systems enabling nano-scale control over individual chemical interactions as well as mass-transport processes, in order to provide new solutions to pressing technological and societal problems such as renewable energy storage (i.e. solar fuels) and water filtration/desalination.