Gil Georges is driven by the quest for knowledge and strives to have a real impact, beyond publications. The Luxembourg national has just made the jump from early-career researcher to lecturer and group leader at the IET-LAV at ETH Zürich in Switzerland, where the data analyst and modeller gets to use one of Europe’s most powerful super computers when it is time for some serious number crunching.
“The exciting part is that my work is highly interdisciplinary,” says Gil Georges, whose research is part of Switzerland’s action plan for coordinated energy research. He explains that he on the modeller side of his work gets to work on anything from mobility demand to vehicle technology and energy provision, which brings with it extremely large datasets – hence Gil gets to use the famous super computer when real datasets of vast proportions have be to analysed.
“On the other hand”, Gil adds “we participate in – and most of the time lead – many collaborative research projects. Therefore, I get to interact with many people, from researchers in other disciplines, over administrations to get data to decision makers in industry and administration to identify interesting research questions.”
Taking into account what effect charging one electric car has on energy demand
So what exactly does Gil and his group work on? Gil explains:
“I work on how alternative propulsion technology creates an additional energy demand from mobility, how this changes when and where we consume energy, and how to cover this with increasing shares of fluctuating renewable production.”
The primary focus of the work is Switzerland – Gil’s work is funded entirely by the Swiss Government’s Competence Center for Energy Research in Mobility. Gil explains that the country’s large hydro and nuclear capacities give it one of the least CO2-intense production mixes of Europe but that it is yet an open system electrically due to its grid connectivity to its neighbouring countries.
“If we add one charging electric vehicle on top of the already existing demand from buildings, industry, etc.,” Gil says, adding “then this electricity is not necessarily generated in Switzerland; it can come from anywhere on the European continent — worst case from a coal or oil powerplant.”
“It thus matters when a vehicle charges, and how the Swiss energy system evolves as a whole. Now there is a whole bunch of options to address this situation, ranging from influencing the demand for mobility, over ‘smart charging’, to complex storage systems like ‘power to gas’. We develop tools and use them to explore the feasibility and ramifications of the different options under different scenarios.”
Hoping for a fact-based emissions debate
Gil points out that if Luxembourg does go ahead with pushing for electric mobility, his research would also become highly relevant to the Grand Duchy “in particular because Luxembourg currently only produces about 1-2 TWh of its roughly 8 TWh electricity consumption; that means that the added electricity demand from mobility is likely to be imported.”
In terms of what he hopes to achieve with his work as a researcher, Gil explains that he hopes his work will have a real-life impact, for example on emissions:
“I do not mean publications — although I would not mind them either. I mean the public discourse. If I can contribute to the debate becoming just a little more fact-based, perhaps change a few minds or even bring about some minimal course correction that actually reduces CO2 emissions, then I guess it will have been worth it.”
About Spotlight on Young Researchers
Spotlight on Young Researchers is an FNR initiative to highlight early career researchers across the world who have a connection to Luxembourg. This article is the 19th in a series of around 25 articles, which will be published on a weekly basis. You can see more articles below as and when they are published.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Christof Ferreira Torres
Can we truly trust current blockchain technology to securely automate important processes in the financial sector? Christof Ferreira Torres wants to answer this question. In the framework of his Industrial Fellowship PhD with the University of Luxembourg and the bank Spuerkeess (BCEE), the Portuguese national works on the security of smart contracts and the detection of fraudulent transactions – because gaps in security can quickly mean high costs for thousands of people.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Yamila Mariel Omar
As part of her Industrial Fellowship – a collaboration between the University of Luxembourg and company Husky – PhD candidate Yamila Mariel Omar helps industry to monetize their proprietary data by means of big data analytics. We speak to the Argentinian national who also became a mother during her PhD.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Amy Parrish
During her Master’s studies, Amy Parrish found her passion for research with a clinical aspect. Having come from London to Luxembourg to pursue her AFR PhD at the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) in the research group of Mahesh Desai, the American national studies the bacteria that inhabit our gut, to shed light on the development of diseases such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Empowering critical digital humanities practice
Digitisation has had a significant impact on humanities research: not only has it changed how many scholars conduct their research, it has also led to completely new fields of research, such as digital humanities, a highly interdisciplinary science. Linguist Lorella Viola is interested in how software can enable critical digital humanities practice.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Lucas Oesch
Luxembourg is one of many countries experiencing the arrival of asylum seekers and refugees that have been displaced for reasons such as conflicts or instability in their own country. Managing a research team for the first time, CORE Junior PI Lucas Oesch leads the project ‘REFUGOV’ at the University of Luxembourg, which looks at the accommodation of asylum seekers and refugees in cities and camps.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Increasing the diversity of plant species used for vegetable oil
Vegetable oil – mainly palm oil – is heavily relied upon in the production of food, cosmetics, and biofuel. The increase in droughts also affects the standard cultivation of palm oil – alternatives are needed. Agricultural scientists are investigating the potential of a new alternative drought-resistant source for the most widely-used kind of vegetable oil.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Alex Gansen
Alex Gansen first dabbled in research during his Masters studies in physics at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), and then decided he wanted to take on the challenge of a PhD, so the Luxembourg national returned to his home country. Alex has just submitted his thesis at the end of the 4th year of his AFR PhD in computational electromagnetics at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) in collaboration with the College of Engineering in Swansea. He sees the close links between local industry and research in Luxembourg as a great advantage for the future of research in the Grand Duchy.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Understanding drug resistance in skin cancer
Melanoma is a rare type of skin cancer, but it is the deadliest type – and incidence is on the rise. Metastatic melanoma has seen a rapid emergence in drug resistance: After a few months, treatment stops working and tumours begin to grow again. Molecular biologists are working to understand why this happens.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Turning up the heat on solar absorbers
Using solar absorbers for collection and storage of heat from the sun is an environmentally friendly way to generate heat, yet only 16% of heating is generated from renewable energy. Material scientists are looking for ways to boost this number by making the solar absorber coatings more efficient.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Are you what you eat?
Cardiometabolic complications threaten health and reduce life expectancy. In Luxembourg, 1 in 3 people have metabolic syndrome, as a risk factor for cardiometabolic complications such as obesity, high blood sugar and cholesterol, as well as hypertension. Science has shown a link between what we eat and our health – nutritionists are now investigating how dietary strategies could prevent these health complications.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Ramping up carbohydrates production
Carbs are all around us: a major constituent in food, they also play a role in many biological processes such as intercellular communication; they are in demand in the pharmaceutical industry, where they are currently used as anticoagulants and in skincare. With the goal of no longer having to rely solely on nature’s production of carbs, scientists have been working on ways to ramp up production. A case for chemistry!
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Anna Schleimer
In high school, Anna Schleimer thought everything there was to know in science was already known. When she discovered how many unanswered questions there still are, curiosity drove her to become a researcher. The Luxembourg national is now in the 1st year of her AFR PhD, in what is not your most common topic: As a marine biologist, Anna studies fin whales as part of her joint PhD at University of Groningen and University of St Andrews.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Adham Ayman Al-Sayyad
Adham Ayman Al-Sayyad is a PhD researcher working on multidisciplinary cross-border project. In our article, we explore the Egyptian national’s research around the topic of laser beam joining; why his next step post-PhD would be to spend some time working in industry to understand his research topic from new angles; and his passion for bridging cultures to bring people together.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Isabel Z. Martínez
Isabel Z. Martínez has been interested in how policies are put in place and how they affect people’s lives for as long as she can remember. After completing her Masters in Economics, she realised that academia was the ideal way to quench her thirst for analysing large data sets and finding answers to questions addressing people’s well-being and policy decisions. The Swiss-Spanish national has been studying income and wealth inequality in Switzerland for years and has now come to Luxembourg as a Postdoc at LISER to expand her research to the Grand Duchy. We spoke to Isabel about life as a research economist, and how it has already enabled her to travel across the globe, as well as work with some of the foremost researchers in her field.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: An algorithm to allocate satellite resources
When the first satellite was launched in the 1950s, earth orbit was a lonely place. Since then, more than 11,000 satellites have been launched into space and over 3,000 are still in operation. Estimates suggest an exponential increase in satellites in the next years, creating a challenge for the effective allocation of the needed bandwidth and power. Researchers are developing algorithms to more effectively allocate the resources where and when they are needed.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Dementia in neurodegeneration – defining the role of microglia, the brain’s immune cells
An estimated 55 million people in the world suffer from dementia, with the number estimated to increase to 78 million by 2030. In Luxembourg, more than 10,000 people suffer from dementia, including patients affected by Alzheimer’s disease and Dementia with Lewy Bodies. These incurable diseases have an increasing socio-economic impact along with the burden on patients and caregivers. One of the approaches researchers are taking is studying microglia, immune cells in the brain.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Identifying environmental pollutants
Nobody is untouched by environmental chemical pollution, but most are unaware of how they are exposed, what to, and the possible health consequences. With over 350,000 registered chemicals in use, an important first step towards assessing their environmental impacts is to make chemical information more machine-readable and open. Environmental Cheminformatics is on the case.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: How is scientific quality fostered by research collaboration?
In the last decades, how research is conducted has been profoundly changed by ICT, and there has also been a shift from the ‘sole genius’ towards teamwork and especially interdisciplinarity: Today, millions of researchers worldwide collaborate across organisational, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries, extending the possibilities of new scientific discovery. This, and the associated data, has paved the way for the scientific field Science of Science, where one key question is understanding exactly how scientific quality is fostered by research collaboration.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Michel Summer
For his AFR PhD at Trinity College Dublin, historian Michel Summer is re-assessing the political activity of medieval Anglo-Saxon missionary Willibrord, who in addition to being a landowner, scholar and ambassador, founded a monastery in Luxembourg. We spoke to the Luxembourg national about how history promotes critical thinking, and why he believes historians are needed more than ever.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Toward a risk assessment system for natural and biological systems
Is it possible to use mathematical indicators to alert about natural disasters and help in the early detection of disease and health issues? Over the past 15 years, scientists have been working on bridging mathematical theory and empirical evidence to do just that. To move the science forward, a key challenge is the underlying mathematical problem, as well as determining how the indicators should be applied.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Measuring the environmental impact of investment funds
Sustainable capital market investments are expected to reach 53 trillion USD – about 1 in every 3 dollars invested – by 2025. Meanwhile, a much lower level of funds are going directly into climate-related projects, leading to an increasing concern of greenwashing in the market. Researchers are developing science-based tools to measure the environmental impact of financial investment decisions.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Damien Brevers
Postdoc Damien Brevers has a passion for studying self-control abilities in humans. Having spent time in Belgium and the US building expertise in areas including clinical psychology, sport psychology and brain imaging, the Belgian national has just joined the University of Luxembourg and embarked on a project looking at gambling addiction in the age of online betting.
Spotlight on Young Researchers: Anna Monzel
Anna Monzel cites her thirst for new knowledge and discoveries as a key contributor in her choosing to follow the path of science. Drawn to Luxembourg because of its interdisciplinary approach, the German national developed a 3D model of the human midbrain for her PhD at the LCSB at the University of Luxembourg – which earned her a Lush Young Researcher Prize.
Spotlight on Young Researchers – revisited 5 years later: From drones to space robotics
When we wrote about Miguel Olivares Mendez in the 2017 edition of Spotlight on Young Researchers, the researcher was working on an FNR JUMP project, focussing on developing algorithms for autonomous drones. The robotics scientist has continued to build his research career in Luxembourg – 5 years later, Miguel is a Professor leading a research group with a focus on space robotics.
A system to support forest ecosystem decision-making
Industry and research join forces on many fronts, including the sustainable use of natural resources. Postdoc Claudio Petucco works on developing a decision support system for enhancing and assessing the provision of forest ecosystem services. The goal: improving the sustainable use of natural resources in Luxembourg.