Victor Torres Company, Associate Professor at the Photonics Laboratory at MC2, has been awarded a consolidator grant from The Swedish Research Council (VR). He is funded with 12 million SEK for the years 2020-2026. "It feels awesome", he says. The grant is funding his project "Multidimensional coherent communications with microcombs" and will strengthen Victor Torres Company's group and help them establish a creative research environment.
"The great thing about this grant is that it covers a 6-year period. The grant will be used to ensure a smooth transition to the next generation of researchers of the knowledge that my team and I have created and take a bit of risks with a longer perspective in mind", he says.
Victor Torres Company is one of the most talented and successful young researchers at MC2. He was recruited to Chalmers in late 2012 after a couple of postdoc stints in the US and Canada. Victor's expertise is on laser frequency comb science and technology, nonlinear integrated optics and fiber-optic communications.
In 2017 he was awarded a prestigious Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council, as one of only 14 Swedish researchers and the only one at Chalmers to receive the grant.
The purpose of the consolidator grant is to give the most prominent junior researchers the opportunity to consolidate their research and broaden their activities as independent researchers. Two researchers at Chalmers received funding in this round. Beside Victor Torres Company, also Kasper Moth-Poulsen at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering was awarded.
The total grant amount for 2020-2026 is almost 217 million SEK. Chalmers gets 24 million SEK. 288 researchers from all over Sweden applied for a grant. Only 20 were successful; seven women and 13 men.
Text and photo: Michael Nystås
