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Tom Hauffman has been part of the SURF group since 2006. He obtained his PhD in engineering sciences in 2012. Hereafter, he had a postdoctoral position, with a part time assignement at the Technical Unversity of Eindhoven. Since 2016, Tom is a part time professor in the Faculty of engineering at VUB. He is teaching the course of Surface Analysis to the students of materials engineering in the BRUFACE program (VUB and ULB). Furthermore, he is responsible for the interactive workshops in materials science for the bachelor students in engineering. In the faculty, Tom is member of the facultary PhD commision and educational board of materials and chemistry.
Tom's research focus is on hybrid interfaces between nanotuned metal oxides and organic overlayers. As such, he is promotor of several PhD students, working on the molecular understanding of the interaction between organic coatings and metal oxides. In this context, he is exploring novel surface analysis techniques, going beyond traditional vacuum equipment. For that reason, a lot of effort is put in the characterisation of interfaces by Near Ambient Pressure XPS and Nano Infrared Spectroscopy.
Tom organises every year an international doctoral school: "Corrosion: from analysis to modelling", attracting every year a vast amount of early years international PhD students and industrial researchers. He is also involved in the organisation of several international symposia and workshops (EMNT 2016, chairman EFNS 2017,...) and international reviewer for European projects (M-ERANET,...).
Yves Van Ingelgem obtained a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2009. Since 2012 he is a part-time professor at the Faculty of Engineering of VUB. His focus is mainly on converting research results into products ready for the market. As a result Yves was since 2009 the driving force behind the Zensor project, back then a spin-off in the making offering to industry a corrosion sensor based on a novel and unique concept. Around this project a dynamic team was gathered and in collaboration with industry a number of applications was developed covering the corrosion of buried pipelines as well as the broader integrity monitoring for offshore wind turbine foundations and other large infrastructure. Zensor was established in 2013 as an independent Spin-Off company of Vrije Universiteit Brussel and is currently offering full integrity management solutions for large infrastructure such as (offshore) wind turbines, bridges, dams, tunnels, (petro)chemical plants...
Next to his position in Zensor Yves is a part-time professor at the SURF group. His research focuses on multiple domains in corrosion, (bio) sensors and nanoparticles. The research is mainly based on the use of Multisine EIS as well as surface analysis equipment. Examples are a new method for non-invasive blood-glucose measurements, new approaches for drug development and the monitoring of the state-of-health of batteries. A profound interest lies in the construction of setups for the combined (in-situ) use of electrochemical and other (surface-) analytical techniques.
- Yves is project leader of the SIM SBO DeMoPreCI-MDT within the MaDurOS consortium focussing on material applications in harsh offshore conditions such as offshore wind, dredging and oil and gas.
- He was the promotor of 2 successful PhD's
- Is, together with colleagues at VUB, KULeuven and Unitron, working on the preparation of Cellsine to become a next succesfull spin-off company of our university. Cellsine will be revolutionizing drug research by offering a robust high-throughput screening technology for applications in drug development.
- In the Faculty of Engineering / Bruface Yves provides a course on Corrosion to the 2nd year master students within the framework of the 'Sustainability' course.
