Researchers
MEED
Junior researchers and PhD Students
Raül Acosta Suné obtained his Master's degree in Industrial Engineering, with a specialization in mechanics, at the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (UPC) in 2017, Barcelona. At the end of his degree, he did his mater thesis at UCLouvain as part of the WholeTrack industrial project. In 2019, he returned to Belgium to join the MEED department as a junior researcher for the CRAMIC project, a MecaTech program funded by the Walloon Region and integrated by 4 partners whose aim is to develop a new technology for the rail tracks of cranes used in international ports.
Nowadays, the cranes of the ports are assumed to be static or cyclical but, because of the increases in speed and loads, they are becoming more and more dynamic. As a result, wear on the rail tracks is increasing and they are becoming insufficiently controlled. As one of the partners of CRAMIC global project, through multibody and granular analysis of the system crane-railway, we focus on identifying and studying the present dynamic effects, participating in developing new track technologies and helping monitoring cranes to organize a future maintenance.
raul.acostasune@uclouvain.be
Kaveh Ahookhosh
kaveh.ahookhosh@uclouvain.be
Tim Balcaen Tim obtained his BSc degree in Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the KU Leuven in 2017. Being more attracted towards the chemical aspects of biology, he decided to perform a MSc in Chemistry and obtained his degree in 2019. During this master he spend five months at the Freie Universität Berlin as an Erasmus student. For his master thesis, he joined the De Borggraeve lab and investigated novel methodology for the synthesis of indenones starting from propynones using photoredox chemistry and radical chemistry. His passion for both chemistry and biochemistry is reflected in the subject of his PhD studies. Tim develops novel contrast-enhancing staining agents for the non-destructive ex vivo visualisation of soft tissues using computed tomography. In particular, he focuses on the development and fundamental evaluation of known and new contrast-enhancing staining agents.
tim.balcaen@uclouvain.be
Louis Beauloye
louis.beauloye@uclouvain.be
François Boulanger
francois.boulanger@uclouvain.be
Alexandre Buset
alexandre.buset@uclouvain.be
Guillaume Colinet Guillaume Colinet received the Master degree in electromechanical engineering from the Ecole Polytechnique de Louvain (UCLouvain) in 2019.
He is currently working toward the Ph.D degree at the Institute of Mechanics, Materials and Civil Engineering under the supervision of professor Bruno Dehez.
guillaume.colinet@uclouvain.be
Victor Colognesi is working on the numerical simulation of bird flight. The flight kinematics is obtained via an optimization of the birdâs movement in order to reach an optimal flight regime considering both biomechanical and aerodynamic factors. This study will lead to a deeper understanding of the principles underlying avian flight and might lead to the discovering of flight regimes different from those of actual birds, if we use different mechanical properties for the compliance and actuation of the skeleton. The obtained mechanical and aerodynamic models can then be used to perform simulations of a flock of birds and to investigate the self-organization of such a group in order to reach a global optimum in efficiency.
victor.colognesi@uclouvain.be
Quentin d'Aspremont Lynden
q.daspremont@uclouvain.be
Christophe De Gréef obtained his Master's degree in electromechanical engineering at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) in 2017. Since then, he is invovled as PhD student in a industrial research project funded by the Region Wallonne. This latter aims at improving the efficiency of the powertrain of railway vehicles by replacing the induction machines by synchronous reluctance machines and the mechanical gears by magnetic gears. Christophe is contributing to this project by providing new modeling and optimization tools to ensure the optimal design of these elements.
christophe.degreef@uclouvain.be
Quentin Delhaye
q.delhaye@uclouvain.be
Sophie Dethy
sophie.dethy@uclouvain.be
Louis Devillez Louis Devillez obtained his masterâs degree in electromechanical engineering from the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain, Belgium) and from Ecole Centrale Paris (ECP, France) in 2021. At the end of his degree, he completed a master thesis in bio-inspired mechanical design and control for an eel like robot. Since then, he joined the team of Professor Ronsse (UCLouvain, Louvain Bionics) as a PhD student. His research project in the field of electromechanical design for medical devices aims at designing a new bionic prosthetic hip with the objective of building the first full bionic leg. This project also includes the control of such a prosthesis with bio-inspired control.
louis.devillez@uclouvain.be
Gianmarco Ducci received the Masterâs degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Pisa. In September 2018, he joined the MEED division as a PhD student within the RevealFlight ARC consortium. RevelFlight is a multi-disciplinary project that aims to synthesize the flight mechanics of birds into a unified framework, combining biomechanical, sensory, aerodynamic and social interaction models, in order to reproduce the flying gaits and the interactions within a flock.
His research focuses on the development of both, analytical and numerical model to study the flight dynamics of flapping wing, at the scale of migratory birds. Those models will also be employed to address the bird flight behavior within the flock.
gianmarco.ducci@uclouvain.be
Jeanne Evrard
jeanne.evrard@uclouvain.be
Isabelle Gennart
isabelle.gennart@uclouvain.be
Julien Guiaux Brinon Julien Guiaux Brinon obtained his Master's degree in electromechanical engineering from the Universite Catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain, Belgium) in 2022. At the end of his degree, he completed a master thesis in rehab robotics dealing with the characterization of upper-limb rehabilitation robot actuated with pneumatic artificial muscles. Since then, he joined the team of Professor Ronsse (UCLouvain, Louvain Bionics) as a PhD student. His research project in the field of electromechanical design for medical devices aims at designing a new bionic prosthetic knee while providing a framework having the potential to drastically change the way bionic lower-limb prostheses are designed.
julien.guiaux@uclouvain.be
Aurélia Hernandez
aurelia.hernandez@uclouvain.be
Simon Hinnekens obtained his Masterâs degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain, Belgium) in 2018. He then joined the iMMC institute to start his PhD in biomechanics under the supervision of Pr. Paul Fisette (UCLouvain/iMMC/MEED) and Pr. Christine Detrembleur (UCLouvain/IREC/NMSK).
The aim of his PhD is to determine the forces of human back and abdominal muscles in movement, using a biomechanical model coupled with non-invasive electromyographic measurements. This project aims at improving current treatments in spine diseases, such as lower back pain, spondylitis and scoliosis.
simon.hinnekens@uclouvain.be
Henri Laloyaux obtained his master's degree in electro-mechanical engineering, with a specialization in mechatronics, in 2018 from the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium. He then joined the MEED division to start a PhD in rehabilitation robotics under the supervision of Prof. Renaud Ronsse.
henri.laloyaux@uclouvain.be
Lisa Leyssens obtained her Masterâs degree in Biomedical Engineering from the UCLouvain in 2018. She then joined the MEED division of iMMC to start her PhD under the supervision of Pr. Greet Kerckhofs and Pr. Pascal Jacques.
lisa.leyssens@uclouvain.be
Régis Lomba
regis.lomba@uclouvain.be
Arne Maes
arne.maes@uclouvain.be
Lara Mazy
lara.mazy@uclouvain.be
Thomas Mercier
thomas.mercier@uclouvain.be
Emile Moreau
emile.moreau@uclouvain.be
Erzen Muharemi
erzen.muharemi@uclouvain.be
Thuy-hai Nguyen
thuy-hai.nguyen@uclouvain.be
Virginie Otlet obtained her Master degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2019 from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain, Belgium). She then started a PhD in medical robotics at the iMMC institute under the supervision of Prof. Renaud Ronsse.
The goal of her PhD is to develop and validate a haptic assistive method in order to support walking in patients with Parkinsonâs disease, provided to the patientâs hips through a wearable pelvis orthosis. This project aims at assessing the assistive and rehabilitative effects of the protocol on the patientâs gait. Therefore, several gait metrics will be analysed both during and after the therapy.
virginie.otlet@uclouvain.be
Camille Pestiaux
camille.pestiaux@uclouvain.be
Maïté Pétré
maite.petre@uclouvain.be
Thomas Pomponio
thomas.pomponio@uclouvain.be
Adrien Robert
adrien.robert@uclouvain.be
Arthur Van Geersdaele
arthur.vangeersdaele@uclouvain.be
Sarah Vangrunderbeeck
sarah.vangrunderbeeck@uclouvain.be
Eduardo Rene Vasquez Mayen Eduardo Vasquez obtained his Master's degree in electrical engineering ,with specialization in electrical energy, from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) in 2020. From then on, he joined the MEED division and is working on the control of DC microgrids in the frame of the project MIRaCCLE.
eduardo.vasquez@uclouvain.be
Nicolas Verbeek
n.verbeek@uclouvain.be
Guy Wanlongo Ndiwulu received the Masterâs degree in electromechanical engineering, energy, in 2015 from Université Catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), Belgium. He also MSc Electromechanical Engineering, from Université Kongo, in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Since December 2015, he joined the iMMC/MEED as Ph.D. student. His research focuses on the control and the dynamic operation of islanded microgrids, in African context. The hybrid microgrids are considered. They are composed of multiple and miscellaneous micro-sources (photovoltaic, small hydropower and diesel generator), and energy storage devices such as a battery.
guy.wanlongo@uclouvain.be
Senior researchers and post-docs
Nicolas Docquier obtained is master in Mechanical Engineering in 2005 from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) and his PhD from the same university in 2010 thanks to a doctoral fellowship of the F.R.S-FNRS. For the last ten years, he has been working on the modelling of multi-body systems (MBS), focusing on applications related to railway and road vehicle dynamics. He participated to many research projects, in collaboration with several industry partners.
In particular, his PhD was dedicated to the modelling of railway vehicles equipped with pneumatic suspensions, in collaboration with a major train manufacturer. In 2014, he did a postdoc stay in Mechanical and Civil Engineering Lab (LMGC, Université de Montpellier, France) where he worked on the coupling between MBS and the Discrete Element Method for modelling interactions between mechanical device and granular media such as the railway ballast.
He is now working on the WholeTrack research project, a Mecatech cluster program funded by the Walloon Region. This project aims at developing new railway track components based on both experimental test and simulation models of the whole railway system. He also coordinates the development of the Robotran software dedicated to MBS.
He is invited lecturer at UCL where he teaches multibody dynamics via a project based approach and at the CIEM where he introduces railway technologies to students of the specialized master in transport and logistics.
nicolas.docquier@uclouvain.be
François Heremans obtained his master in Electromechanical Engineering at the Universite catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) in 2015 and then started a PhD with iMMC/MEED/Louvain Bionics on the design of energy efficient prostheses.
Nature has evolved over millions of years to achieve the highly efficient and powerful "machine" that we are. Understanding and replicating the human body is a fascinating and definitely a challenging task. Our research focuses on the development of a lower limb, transfemoral prosthesis for amputees. The use of smart materials is combined with advanced mechatronics to produce a novel device being light, energy efficient and highly performing. The ultimate goal is to help patients regaining normal mobility in daily life activities.
francois.heremans@uclouvain.be
Virginie Kluyskens Virginie Kluyskens obtained her master in Electro-mechanical Engineering in 2004 from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) and her PhD from the same university in 2011. She has been mainly working on research projects including passive magnetic bearings, for academic research or for research in collaboration with industry partners.
During her PhD, she developed a lumped parameter model, in which the electromagnetic forces acting inside an electrodynamic bearing are modelled by their mechanical equivalents. This model is particularly well suited to centering homopolar electrodynamic bearings in which the magnetic field presents a rotational symmetry. After her PhD, she collaborated to research projects enlarging the topic to heteropolar centering electrodynamic bearings (characterized by a magnetic field presenting numerous poles along the rotation), to thrust electrodynamic bearings, and to self-bearing motors including an electrodynamic bearing.
She is now working on the Ecoptine project, aimed to develop a flywheel energy storage system for railway systems, and more particularly on the design of the permanent magnet bearing which will be included in the system. She is also involved in the TR2020 project, to develop optimal magnetic gearing systems and synchronous reluctance motors for traction applications.
virginie.kluyskens@uclouvain.be
Olivier Lantsoght
Olivier.lantsoght@uclouvain.be
Grzegorz Pyka
grzegorz.pyka@uclouvain.be
Joachim Van Verdeghem received the electromechanical engineering Master and Ph.D. degrees from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) in 2016 and 2020 respectively. Since then, he is a research fellow in the department of Mechatronic, Electrical Energy, and Dynamic Systems (MEED). His research interests include self-bearing machines, magnetic bearings and, generally, electromechanical converters and actuators.
joachim.vanverdeghem@uclouvain.be