On 27 October 2026, we had the pleasure of welcoming Prof. Rachel Grange from ETH Zurich to our latest atom*innen lunch. Fifteen Master’s students, PhD students and postdocs joined us for 90 minutes of open conversation.
About Prof. Rachel Grange
Rachel Grange is Full Professor of Photonics at ETH Zurich. Her research covers material investigations at the nanoscale and nanostructures made by top-down and bottom-up fabrication, mainly thin-film lithium niobate and solution-processed barium titanate, for classical and quantum devices. Recently, she has worked on integrated electro-optic spectrometers, random quasi-phase matching in complex assemblies of nanocrystals, and parametric down-conversion signals for quantum information processing.
She led a junior research group at Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena from 2011 to 2014 before joining ETH Zurich in 2015, first as Assistant and then as Associate Professor. In 2025, she was appointed Full Professor.
Time to connect
Rachel generously shared her own experiences with us throughout the lunch. Our Master's students PhD students, and postdocs discussed many topics with her, for example how to plan the next career step, when to apply for grants, and how to balance research with life outside the lab. Her practical advice, drawn from every stage of her own academic path, made the exchange very valuable for our early-career researchers.
Throughout the discussion, we kept checking the recently updated data on atominnen.at. How does the situation in Switzerland compare to Austria? Whenever such a question came up, we could look up the numbers right away and connect them directly to the conversation. It was great to see how well the platform works as a tool in exactly these moments :-)
We warmly thank Prof. Grange for her time, her openness and the inspiring exchange, and everyone who joined and brought their questions and experiences to the table!