Speakers

Christopher Bettinger is a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. He directs the laboratory for Biomaterials-based Microsystems and Electronics at CMU, which designs materials and interfaces to integrate medical devices with the human body. Chris has published over 90 articles and has been issued over 10 patents. Chris has received honors including the National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research, the MIT Tech Review TR35 Top Young Innovator under 35, and the DARPA Young Investigator Award. Prof. Bettinger is also a co-inventor on several patents and Co-Founder and CTO of Ancure, an early stage medical device incubator. Prof. Bettinger received an S.B. in Chemical Engineering, an M.Eng. in Biomedical Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering as a Charles Stark Draper Fellow, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He completed his post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University as a NIH Ruth Kirschstein Fellow.

Eric D. Glowacki is currently a professor at CEITEC BUT, where he moved after winning an ERC Grant. He completed his PhD in 2013 under the guidance of Serdar Sariciftci and Siegfried Bauer at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria on hydrogen-bonded semiconductors and soft electronic devices, followed by a postdoctoral stay in Linz. In 2015, he was appointed assistant professor of physical chemistry at Johannes Kepler University, with research focused on nanoscale organic crystalline materials for bioelectronics and photochemistry applications. In 2016 he moved his group to Linköping University in Sweden as a Wallenberg Center for Molecular Medicine fellow, and then at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics. The foundation of his group is materials science, but research efforts in his group ultimately aim at applications in biomedical technologies and developing bioelectronic research tools for electrophysiology and broader biological sciences.

Chris joined the Kohler group at The Ohio State University in 2017 as a postdoctoral scholar studying the structure and ultrafast photochemistry of synthetic eumelanins. Chris earned a PhD in Chemistry at Penn State University where he worked with Prof. John Asbury studying exciton and charge carrier dynamics in organic molecules and semiconducting polymers for solar cells. Chris’ current research interests are in applying laser spectroscopy methods for probing structure-function relationships in ionic-electronic conjugated polymers for applications ranging from bioelectronics to batteries.

Gianluca M. Farinola is Full Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Bari Aldo Moro (Italy) where he is also vice rector for research and innovation. He is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering of Tufts University (USA, Boston). He has been appointed Chemistry Europe Fellow class 2018-2019. Gianluca is presently serving as the President of the EuChemS Division of Organic Chemistry and as one of the Vice-Presidents of Società Chimica Italiana. His research focuses on synthetic methods for photo/electro active organic materials and, more recently, on the use of molecules, biopolymers and nanostructures from living organisms in optoelectronic devices.

Paola Manini is an Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Naples "Federico II", where she also obtained her PhD. Her Research interests include the design, synthesis and characterization of new nature-inspired materials for bio-(opto)electronic devices; the synthesis and reactivity of dihydroxyindole derivatives and other melanin precursors; the characterization and processing of bio-inspired soft materials; and the chemical modifications of biologically relevant molecules.

Toby Nelson is an Associate Professor at Oklahoma State University. He was awarded his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of South Carolina in 2007. From then until 2011, he designed and synthesized conducting polymers for printable electronics as a UNCF Merck Postdoctoral Science Research Fellow with Professor Richard D. McCullough at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. Professor Nelson then joined the chemistry faculty at Oklahoma State University in 2011. Professor Nelson’s research emphasizes the development of new organic semiconductors-electronic materials and their application in organic electronics, sensors and bioelectronics. His program covers design and synthesis of organic semiconductors, polymer chemistry, supramolecular materials, sustainable chemistry and development of bioinpired materials, biosensors and materials for energy applications. His current research interest emphasizes on the development of new bioinspired organic semiconductors based on the natural pigment, Eumelanin.

Clara Santato is Full Professor in the Department of Engineering Physics at Polytechnique Montréal. She earned her PhD degree in chemistry in 2001 from the Université de Genève and her MSc degree in chemistry in 1995 from Università degli Studi di Bologna. The experimental work was carried out in collaboration with Université J. Fourier. She was a (permanent) research scientist at the Institute for Nanostructured Materials, part of the Italian National Research Council, from 2001 to 2011, and a visiting scientist (2007–2010) at Cornell University, Department of Materials Science and Engineering (Malliaras Laboratory for Organic Electronics). In 2006, she was a visiting scientist with a cross-appointment between the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique and McGill University (Chemistry), and in 2005, at Purdue University (Chemistry). Santato's research focuses on semiconducting films and their interfaces with metal electrodes and electrolytes, for applications in transistors and energy conversion/storage, and has been recently recognized by her elevation to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) senior membership. With her group, she recently expanded her research interests to green electronic and energy-storage devices.