The Team

Virginie Sterpenich is a biologist who completed her studies at the University of Liège in Belgium. She earned her PhD while working in Pierre Maquet’s laboratory, focusing on the role of sleep in emotional memory consolidation. Following her doctoral work, she relocated to Geneva, Switzerland, where she embarked on a post-doctoral research position in Sophie Schwartz’s lab, concentrating on the regulation of emotions during sleep.

In 2022, she was awarded a Privat-docent at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva. In addition to her academic achievements, she serves as the manager of Clinical and Sleep Research at Campus Biotech. Her research endeavors revolve around unraveling the brain mechanisms through which sleep reactivates emotional memory traces, employing a combination of EEG and fMRI techniques. Furthermore, Virginie’s interests extend to the study of the quality of sleep in adolescents, a critical developmental period. She conducts classroom-based studies to investigate the impact of screen usage on sleep patterns among adolescents, contributing to our understanding of this vulnerable phase of life

Gabriel Hinnen completed a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology in 2021 and a Master’s degree in Neuroscience in 2023, both at the University of Geneva. His Master’s degree project, conducted in Sophie Schwartz’ lab, focused on reinforcement learning biases in narcoleptic and Parkinson’s disease patients, allowing him to gain experience in multimodal fMRI data analysis.

In January 2024, he started a research assistant position under the supervision of Dre. Virginie Sterpenich due to his high interest in sleep research and promotion as well as in scientific communication. In this project, the aim is to help adolescents sleep better through group workshops and thus enhance their emotional and cognitive everyday functioning. Gabriel is now enthusiastically working on this project as a PhD student at the SEDLab.

Alicia Milloz is a PhD candidate in the Lab with a background in neuroimaging and computational neuroscience. She completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Life Science Engineering at EPFL, where she developed a strong interest in combining machine learning, functional MRI analysis, and computational modeling to explore brain dynamics. Her previous work includes developing methods for medical imaging analysis.

At the SEDLab, her research focuses on high-resolution imaging of hippocampal-cortical interactions during sleep, using fMRI and EEG to study neural reactivations and their role in memory consolidation. Enthusiastic about her PhD research, Alicia values interdisciplinary collaboration and enjoys exchanging ideas with researchers from diverse backgrounds to deepen our understanding of the brain.

Laure Colin completed a Bachelor’s degree in Life sciences in 2022 at ESTBB, Lyon, France. She obtained her Master’s degree in Neuroscience in 2024 at UNIGE. Her Master’s project, conducted in Sophie Schwartz’ lab under the supervision of Virginie Sterpenich and Alison Montagrin, focused on the importance of sleep structures for emotional episodic memory consolidation. Targeted drug-induced sleep stages deprivation was used to investigate the differential yet complementary roles of Rapid and Non-Rapid Eye Movement Sleep. This enriching project involved behavioral, fMRI and EEG data analyses. 

Since September 2024, she continues her work on this project as a Research Assistant at the SEDLab. She is now focusing on the use of an antidepressant to better understand the intricate relationship between Sleep, Emotion and Memory. She aims at pursuing her carrier with a PhD position in affective and/or clinical neurosciences.

Paola Soulié is a second-year Master’s student in Neuroscience at the University of Geneva, where she also completed her Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences in 2023. During her Bachelor’s, she developed a strong interest in brain functions, and more specifically in sleep and well-being. 

As part of her Master’s degree in Neuroscience, Paola is working in the SEDlab on the project about sleep in adolescents under the supervision of Dre. Virginie Sterpenich. Mostly interested in clinical research, Paola is passionate about her project, which combines investigating the role of sleep in cognitive functions, measuring several parameters observed in sleep disorders and improving adolescents’ sleep and mental health through the workshops.