Interviews with Shobhana Narasimhan and Michele Kotiuga

We continue to publish the interviews filmed during the Psi-k conference in Lausanne in August 2025, where we asked top experts in the field to reflect on the state of the art and the future of computational materials science, and we invited current or former MARVEL members to assess the impact and legacy of the project. This time we present the interviews to Michele Kotiuga and Shobhana Narasimhan. 

Michele Kotiuga is a great example of a MARVEL junior member who went on to build a career in the industry. Formerly in the THEOS group at EPFL, where we worked with Nicola Marzari and Giovanni Pizzi, she is now Support and Application Scientist at Materials Design, a company that provides software and services for atomistic simulations of materials to industries such as energy, transportation, chemistry and microelectronics.

In the interview she reflects on how her time with MARVEL prepared her for a career in the private sector, and reflects on to create bridges between academic research and industrial applications.

Shobhana Narasimhan is a professor of theoretical sciences at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bengaluru, India and a member of the SNSF's MARVEL Review Panel. Speaking to the MARVEL team during the 2025 Psi-k conference in Lausanne, she comments on the challenges of integrating machine learning in materials prediction without sacrificing actual understanding of physical systems, of improving the interface between industry and academia, and how the computational materials science community should continue its efforts towards more diversity.