Plenary speakers

Professor A Barabasi
Northeasten University, USA

Albert-László Barabási is a Distinguished University Professor at Northeastern University, where he directs the Center for Complex Network Research, and holds appointments in the Departments of Physics, Computer Science and Biology, as well as in the Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women Hospital, and is a member of the Center for Cancer Systems Biology at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. A Hungarian born native of Transylvania, Romania, he received his Masters in Theoretical Physics at the Eötvös University in Budapest, Hungary and was awarded a Ph.D. three years later at Boston University. After a year at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, he joined Notre Dame as an Assistant Professor, and in 2001 was promoted to the Professor and the Emil T. Hofman Chair. Barabási recently released on April 29th his newest book "Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do" (Dutton, 2010) available in five languages. He has also authored "Linked: The New Science of Networks" (Perseus, 2002), currently available in eleven languages, is co-author of "Fractal Concepts in Surface Growth" (Cambridge, 1995), and the co-editor of "The Structure and Dynamics of Networks" (Princeton, 2005). His work lead to the discovery of scale-free networks in 1999, and proposed the Barabasi-Albert model to explain their widespread emergence in natural, technological and social systems, from the cellular telephone to the WWW or online communities. His work on complex networks have been widely featured in the media, including the cover of Nature, Science News and many other journals, and written about in Science, Science News, New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, American Scientist, Discover, Business Week, Die Zeit, El Pais, Le Monde, London's Daily Telegraph, National Geographic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, New Scientist, and La Republica, among others. He has been interviewed by BBC Radio, National Public Radio, CBS and ABC News, CNN, NBC, and many other media outlets.

Professor C Bechinger
University of Stuttgart, Germany

• 1999: Habilitation in Experimental Physics, University of Konstanz
• 1993: Doctoral degree in Physics, University of Konstanz
• 1990: Diploma in Physics, University of Heidelberg

Academic Career

• since 03/2003: Head of the 2nd Institute of Physics, University of Stuttgart
• 2000-2003: Lecturer at the University of Konstanz
• 1995 - 1996: Research Associate at National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Denver, USA (DFG fellowship)
• 1994: Research Associate at University of Konstanz

Research Interests

• Active Brownian motion
• Quasicrystals
• Critical phenomena
• Non equilibrium statistical physics
• Particle separation in mikrofluidic devices
• Transport through porous media
• Evanescent light scattering
• Surface plasmons

Scientific Awards

• 2007 Max Planck Research Fellow at the MPI for intelligent systems, Stuttgart
• 2000 Walter Schottky Prize for the investigation on structural properties and phase transitions with colloidal model systems
• 1997 LBS Environment Prize for the invention and realization of a self-powered, electrochromic window
• 1995 Dornier Research Award for the PhD thesis on photochromic thin films

Professor Y M Gupta
Washington State University, USA

Yogendra M. Gupta, Regents Professor in the Department of Physics and Director of the Institute for Shock Physics, has been a faculty member at Washington State University (WSU) since 1981. Prior to his appointment at WSU, he spent nearly seven years at the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) preceded by two years of postdoctoral research.

Since 1970, Gupta has been engaged in experimental and theoretical research related to shock wave and high pressure compression of condensed matter. His work has emphasized real-time examination and understanding of microscopic processes using a variety of time-resolved measurements and related analyses (optical spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction, and several continuum methods). Gupta and his collaborators have worked on a broad range of condensed matter
phenomena: structural transformations, chemical reactions, and deformation and fracture. These studies have resulted in over 260 publications. Since joining WSU, he has supervised the work of more than 90 graduate students and research associates. Professor Gupta is a Fellow of both the APS and the AAAS, and has served on numerous committees related to the U.S. national security programs. In 2001, he received the American Physical Society's Shock Compression Science Award, the premier award in the field. In 2005, he was the recipient of Washington State University's highest faculty recognition, the Eminent Faculty Award.

Professor B Keimer
Max-Planck-Institute for Solid State Research, Germany

Bernhard Keimer is currently Director at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research and Honorary Professor at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. He obtained his physics education from the Technical University of Munich and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received his Ph.D. degree in 1991. Before taking up his current position in 1998, he spent seven years on the faculty of Princeton University, where he was appointed Full Professor in 1997. His research group uses spectroscopic methods to explore quantum many-body phenomena in correlated-electron materials and metal-oxide heterostructures. Bernhard Keimer has received numerous awards for his research, including most recently the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Physical Society.

Professor A Mackenzie
SUPA, University of St Andrews, UK       

Andy Mackenzie is a materials physicist whose primary interest lies in the experimental study of correlated electrons in oxide metals and superconductors. His work in recent years has concentrated on ruthenates, which display a range of ground states from unconventional superconductivity to electronic analogues of liquid crystals. Following a BSc at the University of Edinburgh, his PhD and early research career were at the University of Cambridge. He then moved as a Reader to the University of Birmingham and, in 2001, to a Chair at the University of St Andrews, where he is Director of Research in the School of Physics & Astronomy. He has held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (1993-2001) and shared the 2004 Daiwa Adrian Prize for UK-Japanese collaboration with Prof. Y. Maeno of Kyoto University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Institute of Physics, and currently the holder of a Royal Society / Wolfson Research Merit Award.

Professor C Marrows
University of Leeds, UK

Christopher Marrows is Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Leeds. Like Peter Wohlfarth, he holds a BSc (1994) and PhD (1997) degree from that institution, where he was taught magnetism by Philip Rhodes, one of Wohlfarth's contemporaries and a fellow PhD student of Edmund Stoner. Following a period as a Research Fellow of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 in 1998-2000, he was appointed to a Lectureship, and then a Readership in 2005. He is an experimental physicist with over 160 publications in the fields of nanomagnetism and spintronics.

Professor A Turberfield
University of Oxford, UK

Andrew Turberfield is a Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and Chair of the Institute of Physics' Biological Physics Group. His principal current research interest is in biomolecular self-assembly, including the creation of biomimetic molecular machinery, structures and integrated systems from synthetic oligonucleotides and exploration of their applications in biophysics, structural biology and nanomedicine. He has also developed three-dimensional lithographic techniques for the fabrication of photonic crystals and new methods of optical spectroscopy for the study of correlated states of two-dimensional electrons (fractional quantum Hall effect). He was awarded the Tabor Medal of the Institute of Physics in 2011 for his contributions to nano-science, in particular, for pioneering the techniques of holographic lithography and DNA self-assembly, and the 2011 Rozenberg Tulip award for outstanding achievements in the field of Biomolecular Computing and Molecular Programming.