Meeting Chairs

Philippe Bergonzo
SEKI Diamond USA

Philippe Bergonzo obtained a PhD degree from University College London in Electronic Materials in 1994. He joined SEKI Diamond USA in 2018 to promote diamond synthesis and equipment distribution, toward the promotion of diamond technology. He maintains academic visibility as a Visiting Professor at University College London (UCL).

Formerly, Bergonzo was a research director at the Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) where for more than 20 years he led one of the largest teams in Europe on diamond sensing technologies, developing a broad activity on diamond for devices and sensor fabrication, with special extents on radiation detectors as well as on diamond sensors and electrodes for neural interfacing.

Bergonza plays a very active role in the diamond community as co-organizer of many international conferences and symposia and has authored over 300 peer-reviewed journal articles with over 8,000 citations, patents and book chapters. He has proven industrial innovation skills as co-founder of four start-up companies from 2012 to 2016, including PIXIUM-Vision, which fabricates retina implants for blind people.

Ageeth Bol
University of Michigan

Ageeth Bol is both a professor of chemistry and of material science and engineering at the University of Michigan. Her main research interests are in the areas of large-area synthesis and integration of 2D materials for electronics and catalysis. She received her MSc and PhD degrees in Chemistry from Utrecht University. After obtaining her PhD in 2001, she worked for Philips Electronics and the IBM TJ Watson Research Center in the U.S. From 2011 to 2021, she was a professor of applied physics at Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. In 2014, Bol received a prestigious Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council (ERC), and in 2019 she accepted a vici grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). 

Keith A. Brown
Boston University

Keith A. Brown is an associate professor of mechanical engineering, materials science & engineering, and physics at Boston University. He earned an SB degree in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later a degree in applied physics at Harvard University under the guidance of Robert M. Westervelt. 

Following his doctoral work, he was an International Institute for Nanotechnology postdoctoral fellow with Chad A. Mirkin at Northwestern University. Brown started at Boston University in 2015 and currently leads the interdisciplinary KABLab, which studies polymers and smart fluids to determine how useful properties emerge from the interplay between composition, processing and hierarchical structure. To do this, the team develops approaches that increase the pace of experimental materials research using autonomous experimentation, miniaturization, parallelization and machine learning.

Brown has co-authored over 90 peer-reviewed publications, six issued patents, and his work has been recognized through awards including the Frontiers of Materials Award from The Minerals, Metals, & Materials Society (TMS), being recognized as a “Future Star of the AVS,” the Omar Farha Award for Research Leadership from Northwestern University, and the AVS Nanometer-Scale Science and Technology Division Postdoctoral Award. Brown served on the Nano Letters Early Career Advisory Board and currently leads the MRS Artificial Intelligence in Materials Development Staging Task Force.

Alessandro Molle
National Research Council of Italy

Alessandro Molle is a research director at the Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems in the National Research Council of Italy. He earned an MSc degree in physics and a PhD degree in materials science from the University of Genoa and currently leads MSc and PhD courses at the University of Milan-Bicocca. 

Molle was guest editor of special issues in Elsevier and MDPI journals, co-editor of one book about 2D materials for nanoelectronics published by CRC press (2016) and one book about the Xenes published by Elsevier (2022), and serves as Deputy Editor of Research, an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) partner journal.

He has published more than 130 peer-reviewed publications, five book chapters, and he has given over 40 invited talks. His research interests have included nanomaterials and electronic materials in the field of semiconductor science for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology, and his main research subject is currently on the synthesis of two-dimensional (2D) materials beyond graphene, like Xenes and transition metal dichalcogenides, and their integration in nanotechnologies with focus on nano and optoelectronics. Molle has been awarded two grants from the European Research Council (ERC) and served as a symposium organizer at Materials Research Society and European Materials Research Society meetings. 

Winston Tumps Ireeta
Makerere University

Winston Tumps Ireeta is an associate professor of physics at the Department of Physics, School of Physical Sciences, Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. He received his BS degree in physics and mathematics from Makerere University and an MSc degree in physics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. He later received his PhD degree in physics from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, graduating cum laude. His research focus included optoelectics, electromaterials, optical fiber communications and materials science. Currently, Ireeta is working on thin films synthesis, characterization and fabrications with a special focus on materials sourced locally in Uganda.

He has published over 40 peer-reviewed publications and has given over 30 invited, plenary or keynote talks during his career. In December 2018, Ireeta and his colleagues organized the Joint Undertaking for an African Materials Institute in Kampala, Uganda. The school's main focus explored materials for sustainability ranging from perovskite solar cells to flow batteries and challenged a cohort of 62 African and U.S. graduate students. He is a current member of the Institute of Electronic Engineers (IEEE), Optica, and a board member of the African Materials Research Society since August 2019.