Biography

Dr. Mario Lanza is an Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the National University of Singapore, since August 2024. He got the PhD in Electronic Engineering in 2010 at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where he won the extraordinary PhD prize. In 2010-2011 he was NSFC postdoctoral fellow at Peking University, and in 2012-2013 he was Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. On September 2013 he joined Soochow University (in China), where he promoted until the rank of Full Professor. Between October 2020 and July 2024 he was full-time Associate Professor at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (in Saudi Arabia), where he became known for his work in the field of nano-electronics. He has published over 200 research articles in top journals like Nature, Science and Nature Electronics, many of them becoming highly cited. He has been plenary, keynote, tutorial and invited speaker in over 150 conferences, and he and his students have received some of the most prestigious awards in the world (like the IEEE Fellow). He has been often consulted by leading semiconductor companies and publishers. He is an active member of the board governors of the IEEE – Electron Devices Society, and has been involved in the technical and management committee of top conferences in the field of electron devices, including IEDM, IRPS and IPFA. He speaks fluently five languages: English, Chinese, German, Spanish and Catalan.

Biography

Xabier Iturbe received his Master's degree in Telecommunication Engineering from the University of the Basque Country in 2007, and his PhD in Electronics Engineering from the University of Edinburgh (UK) in 2013. He is currently leading the development of the BEGI processor at IKERLAN, which is designed to passively detect 3D information, including the motion flow, in the surroundings using a unique neuromorphic Light-Field DVS sensor with minimal latency. In addition, Xabier coordinates the Horizon Europe project NimbleAI ( nimbleai.eu ) and chairs the neuromorphic technologies and AI working group at AESEMI ( aesemi.org/neuromorphic ). He is also the promoter of the SiliconBurmuin initiative in the Basque Country ( siliconburmuin.eus ). In 2014, he was awarded a Marie Curie grant to carry out research at NASA-JPL (USA) and Arm (UK), where he worked on enhancing the fault tolerance of Arm Cortex-R CPUs for space missions. Between 2016 and 2018, Xabier served as the University Program Manager EMEA at Arm, where he managed the company's academic and research initiatives across the EMEA region. He has co-authored more than 40 publications and holds 10 patents.