Paola Prete

Paola Prete is a research staff member at the Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems (IMM) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) in Lecce, where she is responsible of the Epitaxial Growth Laboratory. She graduated in Physics from the University of Lecce in 1991 and gained the PhD degree in Solid State Physics from the University of Bari in 1996. She has been visiting staff scientist at Glyndwr University, Wrexham (UK) in 1996-1997, where she received a temporary professorship. In 1998 she joined the IMM-CNR research Institute in Lecce. She has been also contract professor at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Salento in Lecce during the years 1997-2011. She has more than 25-years research experience in the field of materials science, focussing on the MOVPE and MBE growth and characterization of a) wide band-gap II-VI compound semiconductor heterostructures for applications to blue-green optoelectronics; b) III-V and II-VI compound semiconductors based nano-structures synthesized by bottom-up approaches for applications to nano-/opto-electronics, sensing and photovoltaics and, more recently, on c) graphene and graphene-like materials based van der Waals heterostructures for nano-electronic and photovoltaic applications. She is author of more than 120 articles published in international peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, 200 contributions to International Conferences, Workshops and several Invited presentations to International Conferences. She was awarded by the Italian Association of Crystallography (AIC) the Young Scientist Prize, in the year 2000. She is Founding Editor and Topic-Editor-in-Chief of the international peer-reviewed ISI-indexed journal, Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology (Intech) since 2011. https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/nanomaterials-and-nanotechnology/journal202571 Since December 2016 she is also an Associate Editor of the journal 'Progress in Crystal Growth and Characterization of Materials”, Elsevier, IF(2015) = 4.75. She has been Guest Editor of several International review volumes, books and Conference Proceedings. Chair of several International and National Congresses, and Chair of the European School on Crystal Growth (ESCG 2015), organized in Bologna (Italy) in September 2015. She is Advisory Committee member of several International Conferences in the field. She has been Coordinator of the AIC Crystal Growth Section and Italian Councillor for the International Organization for Crystal Growth (IOCG) in 2012-2014 and member of the Crystal Growth Commission of AIC in the years 2006-2011 and 2015-2017.