Valentina Emiliani is an Italian physicist and CNRS Research Director at the Institut de la Vision in Paris. She heads the Photonics Department and the Wavefront Modulation team at the institute.
Early life and career Emiliani studied physics at Sapienza University of Rome, graduating in 1991. She completed her doctorate in physics at the same university in 1997, with a thesis on the optical properties of quantum structures. She then undertook postdoctoral research at the Max Born Institute in Berlin, followed by a period at the European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy in Florence.
In 2002, Emiliani joined the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris as a postdoctoral fellow. In 2004, she was recruited as a researcher at the CNRS. In 2005, she received a European Young Investigator grant and established the Wavefront Engineering Microscopy group at Paris Descartes University. She was promoted to CNRS Research Director in 2011.
In 2014, she became director of the Neurophotonics laboratory at Paris Descartes University. In 2018, she joined the Institut de la Vision with her team and took over the Photonics Department.
Research Emiliani's research focuses on the application of wavefront modulation techniques to neuroscience. Her research has developed methods combining computer-generated holography and temporal focusing with optogenetics to control neuronal activity. In 2020, she received an ERC Advanced Grant for the HOLOVIS project, aimed at the optical manipulation of visual circuits.
Awards Year Award Awarding body 2005 European Young Investigator Award European Science Foundation 2015 Coups d'élan pour la recherche française Bettencourt Schueller Foundation 2018 AXA Chair in Research AXA Research Fund 2020 ERC Advanced Grant (HOLOVIS) European Research Council 2021 Médaille d'argent CNRS 2021 Maxime Dahan Prize French Physical Society 2022 Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award Optica (formerly OSA) 2025 Irène Joliot-Curie Prize, Woman Scientist of the Year French Ministry of Higher Education
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