Aad Gordijn studied experimental physics in Utrecht, The Netherlands. In 2005 he received his Ph.D. degree in the field of thin-film photovoltaics. In 2005 he started a post-doc at Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany. His research interests are deposition processes for the growth of microcrystalline silicon at high deposition rates and the properties of deposited materials and devices. In 2006 he became group leader responsible for large-area device development.
Abraham Ellis has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and power systems from New Mexico State University and is the technical head of Renewables Grid Integration at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. He is the current chair of the WECC Renewable Energy Modeling Task Force and participates or leads several stakeholder groups in IEEE, NERC and IEC on the subject of wind and solar grid integration.
Dr. Achim Schulze studied mathematics at the University of Bayreuth. Working on stability problems in plasma and astrophysics, he joined the analysis and modelling team of Q-Cells after receiving his Ph.D. in 2008.
Ajeet Rohatgi, founder and CTO of Suniva, is a Regents’ Professor and a Georgia Power Distinguished Professor in the School of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he joined the ECE faculty in 1985 and was founding director of the University’s Center of Excellence for Photovoltaic Research and Education. Rohatgi continues his research interests in the development of cost and efficiency roadmaps for attaining grid parity with silicon PV, and innovations in cell design and technology. He received a B.S. in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur; an M.S. in materials engineering from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; and a Ph.D. in metallurgy and material science from Lehigh University. He is an IEEE Fellow and recipient of the William R. Cherry Award, has published more than 370 technical papers in the PV field, and has been awarded 11 patents.
Alberto Visentin earned a degree in physics from Rome University La Sapienza in 1977. From 1977 to 1979 he worked at the University of Cosenza (Italy) carrying out experiments on concentrating troughs for the exploitation of solar thermal energy. He joined the European Patent Office as a patent examiner in 1980 and has been working in the Berlin office of the EPO since 2003, dealing with the search, classification and examination of patent applications. He has worked in the field of semiconductor technology – in particular optoelectronic and photovoltaic (PV) devices for electricity generation – since 1985 and has presented statistical studies of PV patent applications at the European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference in 2004-07.
Alex Cole is Business Development Manager for Photovoltaics at Narec. He has worked in PV research for six years, during which time he has published over 25 papers. His background is in physics, having earned a Ph.D. in solid state physics as well as a degree in physics from the University of Leeds.
Alex McEachern is President of Power Standards Lab and is an expert on electric power problems at sensitive locations, including semiconductor fabs, hospitals, automobile factories, and data centres. He is based in Alameda, California, but visits an average of 19 countries per year to solve difficult and interesting power problems. He is the principal author of SEMI F47-0706, and the Task Force Lead on IEC 61000-4-11 and IEC 61000-4-34, and has been awarded 29 U.S. patents on power-related topics.