Faculty of Medicine: two new professors

Professor Ece Özkan Elsen will take up her assistant professorship (with tenure track) at the Basel Research Center for Child Health (BRCCH) on 1 July 2025. This is the first structural professorship at the BRCCH at the University of Basel, which is jointly supported by the University of Basel and ETH Zurich.

Ece Özkan Elsen obtained her doctorate from the Department of Electrical Engineering at ETH Zurich in 2018, specializing in medical imaging. Before that, she studied natural sciences at ETH Zurich and completed an Erasmus semester at KTH Stockholm. From 2019 to 2021, she worked as a data and analytics consultant at Deloitte. She then returned to academic research and worked as a postdoc at the Institute for Machine Learning at ETH Zurich. In 2023, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. She has been a senior research assistant at the Institute for Machine Learning at ETH Zurich since 2024.

Her research focuses on the development of interpretable and efficient algorithms for medical data analysis, in particular using neural networks. She works on AI models that integrate medical images, clinical data and other modalities such as physiological signals to support clinical decision-making processes in pediatric care. The 36-year-old aims to integrate machine learning into medical diagnostics in line with real-world practice to improve the efficiency and accuracy of clinical decision-making processes while addressing key challenges such as data scarcity, variability between data sets, and algorithmic fairness.

On 1 July 2025, Professor Sebastian Ludyga will become Professor of Sport Pedagogy and Health Development at the Department of Sport, Exercise and Health (DSBG). Sebastian Ludyga studied sports science and English studies at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg and earned his doctorate in sports science at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in 2014. He has been working at the DSBG since 2015, initially as a postdoc and, following his habilitation, as a research group leader from 2022 on.

The 39-year-old’s research focuses on the interactions between physical activity in a school setting, cognitive functions, and various health aspects in children and adolescents. One particular focal point is the analysis of the neural mechanisms underlying the effect of movement on cognitive processes. He uses methods such as electroencephalography, functional near-infrared spectroscopy and heart rate variability measurements to capture changes in brain activity and physiological responses to physical activity.

He also deals with the role of exercise in the context of developmental disorders and researches how sport can support prevention and treatment in children affected by these issues. Here he uses innovative approaches such as digital exercise programs, which can be individually tailored to the needs of the target group. His work thus makes an important contribution to the further development of evidence-based interventions for promoting cognitive and mental health in the development process.

The University Council has promoted Professor Ilaria Zardo to full professor with retroactive effect from 1 February 2025. She has been professor of experimental material physics in the Department of Physics of the Faculty of Science since 2015. Her research focuses on the study of phonons.