Happy holidays and best wishes for 2026!

Taking a moment from the last weeks’ usual rush, to look back at the year passed, the hours spent in the lab, behind a laptop, at all the achievements accomplished…
And what is better than wrapping up 2025 like this? Amazing group dinner at Rossi Leuven! 🍝 🎄

Kuhn Group wishes you all already happy holidays, and a joyful New Year! ✨

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Boaz joins the team!

Let’s welcome our latest member of 2025, Boaz Kuizenga! 🎉 hashtag#meettheteam

Boaz earned his BSc and MSc Environmental Sciences (specialisation Environmental Technology) at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. After specializing and working on bioelectrochemical systems for his master thesis and internship, he started his PhD at KU Leuven in our group in December 2025. His research focusses on electrochemically oxidizing alcohols in a microfluidic reactor.

Best of luck! ☘️

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Mario joins the team!

Welcome to the group Mario (or better, Marios) Sallo! 💪🏽

Mario earned his MSc. Degree in Chemical Engineering from the National Technical
University of Athens (NTUA) on February 2025, focusing mainly on Chemical Reaction
Engineering and computational fluid dynamics.
As of September 2025 he began his PhD in Ku Leuven in the Kuhn group as part of the MSCA PROSPER Doctoral Network. His current research focuses on the design of industrial photocatalytic reactors for gas-liquid mixtures.

If you want to know more PROSPER: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101226678

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Kuhn Group goes to AIChE 2025

What a week! It was great to be at AIChE Annual Meeting 2025 in Boston, Massachusetts.

A delegation of our group showcased the work we are currently busy with:
Elena Brozzi presented two works: “Fine-tuning SSZ-39 zeolite properties for catalytic applications via ultrafast mixed interzeolite conversion” and “Overcoming the solid deposition/residence time trade off: a modular ultrasound-integrated flow reactor for continuous FAU-to-MFI interzeolite conversion”
Huiyu Chen was also involved with two presentations: “Enabling porous nanospheres with highly efficient drug
loading and sustained release through a thermal-controlled continuous stirred-tank reactor (CSTR) cascade”, and “Optimizing PLGA nanoparticle synthesis in an ultrasonic microreactor: a Design of Experiments and Machine Learning joint approach”
Lorijn De Vrieze with his work: “Fluid shear-induced secondary nucleation in the context of solution crystallization: fact or fiction?”

But above all, we could also reunite for a few days with former group members and current MIT postdoctoral associates, Cedric Devos, Aniket Udepurkar, Joana Ferreira, and also collaborators, with whom we could share awesome after conference moments! 🏀 Thank you to everyone who filled this meeting with so many high quality works, engaging conversations, and sparking ideas 💥

Related LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7393027134706946048

New publication from Xiaotong Luo

Our latest paper, co-authored by Yin Jun, Simon Kuhn and Xiaotong Luo, has just been published in Chemical Engineering Research and Design (Elsevier) ChERD Journal 🔥
 
This work integrates Machine Learning with Computational Fluid Dynamics to correct mesh-induced errors in coarse-grid simulations.
By training a Random Forest model on multi-fidelity CFD data, we significantly improved prediction accuracy while reducing simulation time by over 90% for simulating flow fields in stirred tanks. 💻 📖

Maryam, one more team member in the Kuhn Group

Another fresh start in Kuhn group! Welcome Maryam Radpour 😊

Maryam earned her Master’s degree in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Milan. Her thesis focused on the generation of N-radicals through novel photochemical pathways.

She joined our research group on September 5, 2025, as a PhD researcher, and she will be working on the synthesis of nanoparticles for drug delivery.

Best of luck in this new journey, Maryam! 🍀

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Welcome Youcef, new PhD student

One more team member from the PROCRYSTAL MSCA-DN Network, Youcef Leghrib 😊

After completing an Engineering degree in Biotechnology at the higher national university of biotechnology in Algeria, followed by an MSc inAdvanced Pharmaceutical Manufacturing at the University of Strathclyde defending his thesis about Leveraging Bayesian Optimization in Design of Experiments (DoE) for Enhanced Crystallization Process Development, Youcef recently joined the Kuhn Group at KU Leuven as a doctoral researcher as part of the PROCRYSTAL Doctoral network. His current work focuses on the crystallization of therapeutic biomolecules using droplet-based microfluidics. He is particularly interested in combining experimental platforms with computational modeling to accelerate process development.

Welcome Youcef and best of luck in your challenging project!

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Louise joins the team!

We would like to introduce one of the new team members of the Kuhn Group, welcome to our group Louise Fonné! 🤗

Louise earned an Engineering Degree in Chemistry from Toulouse National Polytechnic Institute and a MSc in Production Processes and Quality of Health Products in 2024 from Toulouse Faculty of Pharmacy. She completed her master’s thesis at Roche, focusing on understanding amorphous phases in crystalline active pharmaceutical ingredients.
In May 2025, she joined Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine and KU Leuven as a PhD candidate in our group. Her PhD is part of the PROCRYSTAL MSCA-DN Doctoral Network, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions project, and focuses on the crystallization of industrially relevant peptides.

Related LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7382402201308033024

New visiting student from Tsinghua University

Welcome Xiaohui!

Xiaohui Zhang earned his BEng in Chemical Engineering from Beijing University of Chemical Technology (BUCT) in 2022. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Chemical Engineering at Tsinghua University (THU), under the supervision of Prof. Jianhong Xu and Prof. Jian Chen. As of September 2025, Xiaohui joins the Kuhn Group as a visiting Ph.D. researcher, working on gas-liquid-solid slurry reactors.

Looking forward to working together! 🔥

Related LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7382400876063301632