SNF Nostos

STAVROS NIARCHOS FOUNDATION

Fiorenzo G. Omenetto


Director, Silklab; Director, Laboratory for Living Devices; Dean of Research, School of Engineering, Tufts University

Fiorenzo G. Omenetto is the Frank C. Doble Professor of Engineering, with appointments in Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Physics at Tufts University.

His research interests are at the interface of technology, biologically inspired materials and the natural sciences with an emphasis on naturally-derived materials and new manufacturing approaches for high-technology applications, global health, and carbon-footprint reduction. He has proposed and pioneered the use of silk as a material platform for advanced technology with uses in photonics, optoelectronics and nanotechnology applications, is co-inventor on >100 disclosures on the subject, and is actively investigating applications of this technology base in medicine, technology, climate change, along with art and design. He is co-founder of three startups and has active roles in their governance.

Prof. Omenetto was formerly a J. Robert Oppenheimer Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratories, a Guggenheim Fellow, and is a Tallberg Foundation Global Leader, Fellow of the Optical Society of America and of the American Physical Society and a Senior Member of SPIE. He was named one of the 50 top people in tech by Fortune magazine in a class including (among others) Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Shigeru Miyamoto. His research has been featured extensively in the press with coverage in the most important media outlets worldwide.