Andrea Marino

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
Wait, wait. I mean, it was just 3 years ago, and even not so far away:
It all began in the late 2010 in Rome. It was a usual sunny day, and as usual I was working on my bachelor thesis, when suddenly my supervisor gave me a flyer… The flyer that changed my life! But if you are surfing on this website, you may already know what I am talking about: the evergreen MAMASELF flyer!
During my bachelor degree I have matured the desire to travel and discover new ways, to be independent from my parents and to continue being deep involved in the scientific world hidden besides the books. MAMASELF gave me all this opportunities together!

So in September 2010 I made my luggage… I actually didn’t move so much for the first year, just 800 km as destination Torino! While in the second year my choice fell on Rennes.
In these two years I had time to approach a total new life, both in academic by the introduction of a new dark concept: the chemistry!, either in hobbies, by discovering new interests. For example once in Torino I started to play rugby, and after in Rennes I joined the university rugby team with which I travelled in all France for the national championship till reaching the final in Toulouse. Unfortunately we lost the final, but I can say I am vice-champion of France of university rubgy tournament. I have to thanks MAMASELF for its support toward our university team by sponsoring us with new awesome team wear. You can find the pictures on this website…I find quite important to couple in one program both physics and chemistry at the same time. And MAMASELF succeeded, even if still with sometimes some organization problems between the totally different mechanisms between the different universities. Coming from a purely physics background, it was really interesting acquire new knowledge in field I didn’t know before. Now I feel myself comfortable during meetings and I can space over several different topics without big problems. In my personal opinion, most of the courses I attended in the University of Rennes were of good level, and I enjoyed them a lot. The real strength of MAMASELF is the connection between several universities and scientific centers, as well as industries, which offers to the students a broad selection of opportunities for future carriers in highly specialized research centers.
Currently I have a good PhD position in the physics department of Rennes, working in the “femtosecond team” headed by Prof. Eric Collet. Without entering in details, our research is focused on the processes of the light control of matter properties: we investigate the dynamics of phase transitions in the solid states at the femtosecond time scale () by using both optical and X-ray pump-probe techniques. The team who welcome me is well known in this topic all around the world, where it has several important collaborations: Switzerland, Japan, USA and many more. By the way, the majority of my colleagues got really good PhD position: ETH, PSI, SOLEIL, ILL and ESRF just to mention some ones.
MAMASELF is not just a master program. It is also life experience! I could meet funny people from all over the world, to strictly interact with them, getting in touch with different cultures and nicely exchange scientific knowledge. With some of my colleagues it also born really good friendship. Nowadays we still keep in touch, may travelling one to each other if possible in time and economic way…I think that MAMASELF experience strongly enriched my personal background from all points of view. I feel definitively grown!