The LAAAMP Executive Committee welcomes two new members

Congratulations to Özgül Öztürk and Marielle Y. Agbahoungbata on being nominated members of the LAAAMP Executive Committee

In appreciation of the enthusiasm and continuous dedication to supporting the activities of LAAAMP and commitment towards the development of science and education in their respective Regions, LAAAMP Executive Committee and founding members (M. Zema, S. Mtingwa and S. Scandolo) were pleased to invite Özgül Öztürk and Marielle Y. Agbahoungbata to serve on the LAAAMP Executive Committee.

Özgül and Marielle have started to act in their now role on 21 April 2020, and we look forward to their contributions. Their short bios are reported below.

Inclusion of new members from Africa and from the Middle-East provide a better geographical representation to the board of the Executive Committee and their membership also responds to the policies of IUPAP and IUCr in terms of gender equality. See for example:

• IUPAP resolution No. 5 adopted by the 24th IUPAP General Assembly
• Code of Conduct of the IUCr Gender Equity and Diversity Committee
  

 

Özgül Öztürk

Chair of the User Committee of the SESAME synchrotron since 2012, she has been representing SESAME users in European Synchrotron and FEL User Organisation (ESUO). Since 2017, she has served as Chair of the Usage and Strategic Plan Committee for the Middle East region of LAAAMP.

Researcher at the Physics Department, University of Siegen, Germany, Özgül Öztürk received her Ph.D. and B.Sc. degrees in physics from Boğaziçi University, Turkey. Her research focuses on structural analysis of nanomaterials and the interaction of these nanomaterials with smart materials like graphene to develop highly efficient sensors. She uses synchrotron radiation for the analysis of structure-to-property relations of nanomaterials.

Between 2008 and 2016, she worked as Assistant Professor at Doğuş University and took the initiative for the development of a synchrotron user community in Turkey. She worked as the coordinator of synchrotron radiation laboratories of Turkish Accelerator Center Project.

Marielle Y. Agbahoungbata

Coordinator of the X-TechLab, the first X-ray techniques platform at the service of the scientific community of the Western African region, established in Benin thanks to an interaction between LAAAMP and the Government of Benin, she is involved in a number of actions for supporting the development of research and education in the African continent. Presently, she serves on the Steering Committee of the African Crystallographic Association. She is also a member of the West African Chemistry Society. In 2014, she initiated a crystal growing competition for schoolchildren with the support of UNESCO and the International Union of Crystallography.

BSc and PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from University of Abomey-Calavi (UAC) in Benin, she was teaching assistant for a crystal-chemistry course at UAC and spent a period as post-doc researcher at the University of Zurich thanks to a Swiss Government Excellence scholarships. She was awarded several grants for internships and for participation in conferences in Senegal, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Romania, Japan, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and India. In September 2017, she was awarded with the first prize of the International Competition “Ma These en 180s”.

Her research activity focuses on the development of clays-based material for environmental remediation. She uses X-ray diffraction as the main technique in her studies, and works on the structural analysis of different types of clays and their use in the synthesis of functionalized materials such as adsorbents and photocatalysts for applications in wastewater treatment.