Appointment and promotion in the Faculty of Science

Professor Murielle Delley has been a research group leader at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Basel since 2020. She studied chemistry at ETH Zurich, where she received her PhD in 2017. In her dissertation, she deepened our understanding of how certain catalysts, such as those used in polyethylene production, work. For her findings, the Swiss Academy of Sciences awarded her the Prix Schläfli in Chemistry in 2019.

She then conducted postdoctoral research at Yale University in New Haven (USA) before being awarded both a PRIMA grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation and a Branco Weiss Fellowship in 2020. Both funding programs enabled the researcher to implement her own projects in the field of surface chemistry and catalysis for five years – now as an assistant professor of chemistry (without tenure track) at the Faculty of Science of the University of Basel.

Through her research, Delley is working towards more sustainable chemical technologies by developing abundant materials as catalysts in chemical transformations and by exploring new controls on catalysis.

Professor Randall J. Platt has been promoted to Associate Professor of Biological Engineering by the University Council of the University of Basel and the ETH Board. Platt has already been a Tenure Track Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Science of the University of Basel and in the ETH Zurich Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering since 2016. Randall Platt will continue to hold a dual professorship at ETH Zurich and the University of Basel.

His main research interest is the analysis of genetic defects with the potential to cause disease. The relevance of his research to the pharmaceutical industry has already led to successful partnerships with pharmaceutical and biotech companies. He has won a number of awards, including the 2019 Latsis Prize from ETH Zurich and an ERC Starting Grant.