Sylvie Roke

Roke is the winner for several ERC grants: ERC Synergy Grant (2020; with Aurélien Roux, University of Geneva), ERC Proof of Concept Grant (2020), ERC Consolidator Grant (2014), ERC Startup Grant (2009)

She is an elected fellow of the American Physical Society (APS; 2020). She is a fellow of the Young Academy of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2010) and the German Academy of Natural Scientists, Leopoldina (2010), a young fellow at the Werner von Siemens Ring, and was selected for the Excellence Network of the Robert-Bosch Foundation.

In 2011, she joined EPFL first as an assistant professor and was promoted as full professor in 2015. She is the holder of the Julia Jacobi Chair in Photomedicine, and the director of the Laboratory for fundamental BioPhotonics with affiliations both at the Institutes of Bioengineering and Materials (IMX) at the Schools of Engineering and of Life Sciences. In 2021, she became the director of the Institute of Bioengineering.

She is the recipient of the Hertha-Sponer-Preis of the German Physical Society (2008), the Minerva Prize by the Dutch Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (2006), and the L. J. Oosterhoff prize by the Leiden University.

As a postdoctoral student she joined first the FOM Institute for Plasma Physics in Nieuwegein, and thereafter she worked as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow with Michael Grunze at the Institute of Applied Physical Chemistry at Heidelberg University. In 2005, enabled by a Floating Research Group Leader position and the opportunity to set up her own laboratory from the Max-Planck Society, she moved to the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart.

Roke studied chemistry and experimental physics at Utrecht University and graduated in 2000 with honors. Roke studied in Utrecht, graduating from Utrecht University with degrees in chemistry (1995-2000, highest honors) and experimental physics (1997-2000, highest honors). She joined Aart W. Kleyn's Molecular Beams Group at the Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics (AMOLF) to work on her extended master research project studying the interactions of small molecules with metal surfaces under ultrahigh vacuum conditions. Alfons van Blaaderen (chemistry) and Albert Polman (physics) where her thesis supervisors from Utrecht University. She continued as a PhD student in the Kleyn group moving to Leiden University. In 2004, she graduated with highest honors with thesis co-supervised by Mischa Bonn on "New light on hidden surfaces."

Sylvie Roke (born 1977 in De Bilt, Netherlands) is a Dutch chemist and physicist specialized in photonics and aqueous systems. As a full professor she holds Julia Jacobi Chair of Photomedicine at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) and is the director of the Laboratory for fundamental BioPhotonics.