Group members

Shakil Ahmed, postdoc
Shakil completed his BSc from S. A. Jaipuria College (University of Calcutta, India) and obtained his MSc from IIT Hyderabad (India), conducting research on organometallic complexes for homogeneous catalysis. He was awarded a PhD in 2023 from IISc Bangalore (India) under the guidance of Professor Partha Sarathi Mukherjee. His doctoral research focused on the development of Self-Assembled Coordination Architectures for Fluorescence Modulation, Photocatalysis, and Light Harvesting.
Office: YE 301 | Lab: YO 311 | Email

Louise Miton, postdoc
Louise obtained a BSc in Chemistry in 2018 and a MSc in Molecular Chemistry in 2020 from Sorbonne University (France), conducting research on switchable molecular tweezers under the Guidance of Dr. Guillaume Vives. She was awarded a PhD in 2023 from “Ecole Centrale de Marseille” under the guidance of Prof. Alexandre Martinez, Prof. Vincent Robert and Dr. Yoann Cotelle. The work carried out in her thesis was based on the synthesis of new heteroditopic hemicryptophane receptors, combining electron-rich and electron-deficient units to exploit anion-π interactions for the recognition of anionic molecules, and their synergy with π-cationic interactions for the recognition of di-charged molecules (ion pairs, zwitterions) in confined environments.
Office: YE 301 | Lab: YO 311 | Email

Prachi Verma, postdoc
Prachi obtained a Bachelor´s degree in Science in 2011 & a Master´s degree in Chemistry in 2013 from the University of Lucknow (India), conducting research on total synthesis of natural product. She was awarded a PhD in 2019 from Centre of Biomedical Research (India) under the guidance of Professor Ganesh Pandey. Her doctoral research focuses on developing a unified approach for the enantioselective total synthesis of Amaryllidaceae class of alkaloids. Thereafter she joined Jubilant Biosys, a pharmaceutical company based in India where she worked as a research scientist for a year. Later in 2021 she joined the group of Prof. Petri Pihko at the University of Jyväskylä as a postdoc focusing on the total synthesis of marine natural products before joining the group in 2024.
Office: YO 517 | Lab: YO 419 | Email

Alice Gable, PhD student
Alice earned a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Strasbourg (France) in 2020. During this time, she spent one year at the University of Nagoya (Japan) as an international student (NUPACE program). Then she began a MSc in Molecular and Supramolecular Chemistry in Strasbourg. She did a six-month research internship in the group of Prof. Christoph Schalley at the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) before joining the group in 2022.
Office: YE 301 | Lab: YO 419 | Email

Kirill Geyl, PhD student
Kirill received a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry in 2020 and a Master’s degree in Organic Chemistry in 2022 from Saint Petersburg State University (Russia). He joined the group in 2023 to pursue his PhD degree in Supramolecular Chemistry.
Office: YE 301 | Lab: YO 419 | Email

Avijit Jaiswal, PhD student
Avijit obtained a Bachelor´s degree in Science in 2015 & a Master´s degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry in 2017 from the University of Lucknow (India). Thereafter he joined Jubilant Biosys, a pharmaceutical company based in India where he worked as a research associate for more than 4 years. Later in 2022 he joined the group of Prof. Petri Pihko at the University of Jyväskylä as a research assistant before joining the group in 2023.
Office: YO 517 | Lab: YO 422 | Email

Matteo Piro, PhD student
Matteo obtained a Bachelor’s degree in 2021 and a Master’s degree in 2025 from the University of Milan (Italy), where he completed a thesis on the sugar scaffold modifications for the development of antibacterial inhibitors. During his MSc, he also took part to an Erasmus program in Lille (France) focusing on spectroscopy. He joined the group in January 2026.
Office: YE 301 | Lab: YO 311 | Email
Former members

Post-docs
Nadège You, PhD (2023-2025)
Reguram Arumugaperumal, PhD (2022-2025)
Andrei Beliaev, PhD (2022-2024)
Dattatraya Ukale, PhD (2022-2024)
Rajanish Pallerla, PhD (2023)
Dávid Pál, PhD (2020)
Graduate students
Dimitri Delcourt, PhD (2021-2025)
Kenji Caprice, PhD (2016 – 2020)
Technicians
France Favarger – technician (2015 – 2020)
Pauline Perera – trainee technician (2017 – 2020)