Short biography

Valerio Pruneri is Corning Inc. Chair leading the Optoelectronics group at the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO). Previously he worked for Avanex, Corning, Pirelli, and the University of Southampton. He has given about 70 invited talk and is inventor in about 40 patents. He has taken part in more than 40 technical or steering committees of international conferences. He serves on the QEOD board of the European Physical Society, the advisory board of ACREO AB Fiber Optic Centre, VLC Photonics, B-able seed funding capital and is technical advisor of Medlumics. He was awarded the Philip Morris Prize, Pirelli Fellowship, IBM Faculty award, Paul Ehrenfest award, Corning Inc. Professorship and Duran Farell Prize for technological research. His work has led to numerous industrial collaborations (e.g. Corning Inc., Carl Zeiss and HP) and the creation of two spin offs, quside (2017) and sixsenso-water (to be launched 2018).

Research interests

Valerio Pruneri leads the Optoelectronics group at the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO). The group is working on ultrathin materials, nano-structured biomimetic surfaces, micro- and nano-engineered integrated and fibre optic devices for telecommunication, sensing, aerospace, energy and quantum cryptography. In particular the main driving is to carry out research which bridges the academic and the industrial worlds, by developing fundamental ideas which will have an impact on commercial products.

Key words

Photonics, Optoelectronics, Optical materials, Optical engineering, Photovoltaics, Fibre Optics, Optical communication, Optical sensing, Quantum cryptography