International Organizing Committee
Prof. Ziad Melham
Oxford Quantum Solutions Ltd/UK
Prof. Ziad Melhem is the Founder and CEO of Oxford Quantum Solutions Ltd (OQS), established in February 2021, specializing in superconducting, cryogenics, and quantum technology solutions. As of December 2022, he is also a Professor at Lancaster University’s Physics Department, focusing on business development and technology transfer in advanced cryogenics and quantum technologies. Additionally, he is a Non-Executive Director at Intelliconnect Europe Ltd, concentrating on product development for quantum technologies. With over 35 years of experience, Ziad has extensive expertise in superconductivity, cryogenics, and quantum applications and is actively engaged in various national and international committees and advisory boards.
Prof. Lance Cooley
Florida State University, IEEE-CSC/USA
Lance Cooley is a professor at Florida State University’s FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, and serves as director of the Applied Superconductivity Center (ASC) and an associate lab director at MagLab. His career in superconducting materials began in 1986 at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where he researched the limits of electric current in superconducting wires. Cooley’s work led him to positions at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Fermilab, focusing on superconducting materials and improving superconducting radio-frequency cavities. He joined Florida State University and MagLab in 2017 and manages conductor acquisition for the Large Hadron Collider High-Luminosity Accelerator Upgrade Project and the National Magnet Development Program, with over 120 refereed publications and numerous lectures to his credit.
Dr. Luca Bottura
CERN, ESAS/France/Switzerland
Luca Bottura has trained as a Nuclear Engineer at the Engineering Faculty of the University of Bologna (Italy), and was awarded a PhD from the University College of Swansea (Wales, UK) for the physical modeling, scaling and numerical analysis of quench in large-scale, force-flow cooled superconducting coils. He has experience in the design and testing of superconducting cables and magnets for fusion (NET and ITER), as well as accelerator magnet design, manufacturing and testing (CERN LHC, High Field Magnets). He is author of computational methods used for magnet design and anlysis, and from 1995 to 2004 he created the Field Description for the LHC (FiDeL), now an embedded system of the LHC control of field quality and corrections. He presently contributes to magnet R&D at CERN, especially for muon colliders, and the development of accelerators for particle therapy.
Dr. Joe Minervini
Novum-Industria, MIT, IEEE-CSC/USA
Joseph Minervini has led the field of large-scale applications of superconductors for over 35 years as a Senior Research Scientist at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, where he also headed the Magnets and Cryogenics Division until his recent retirement. In 2018, he co-founded Novum Industria LLC to commercialize superconductor technology for medicine, energy, and research. His recent research focuses on developing high-field superconducting cyclotron accelerators and applying High Temperature Superconducting materials for advanced fusion magnets, power grid efficiency, and data center power distribution. Minervini holds over 140 publications and has earned a Ph.D. and S.M. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and a B.S. from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.
Prof. Susannah Speller
University of Oxford/UK
Superconductors are a fascinating class of materials that can carry electricity without any resistance. The Superconducting Materials research group focusses on understanding relationships between processing, microstructure and properties of a wide variety of superconducting materials. A major part of our current research activity is associated with the Oxford Centre for Applied Superconductivity (CfAS) and involves working closely with local industrial partners to address materials challenges in the superconducting magnet industry, such as superconducting joints and MgB2 bulk materials. We have a growing activity in studying radiation damage in high temperature superconductors, which are a key enabling technology for commercial nuclear fusion reactors. In addition, we specialise in the processing and characterisation of thin films, and have a new research interest in novel superconducting materials for quantum device applications. Susie has recently published a new book – A Materials Science Guide to Superconductors: and how to make them super – which introduces superconductors and materials science to a general audience
Prof. Stephen Gourlay
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, USA
Dr. Stephen Gourlay was formerly a Senior Staff Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), retiring from the Lab in 2017. He started his career as an experimental particle physicist at Fermilab but soon moved into the field of superconducting magnets as project physicist for the new low beta insertions for the Tevatron. In 1995 he led the Superconducting Magnet Group at Fermilab, working on the design of IR quadrupoles for the Large Hadron Collider. After a year as a Scientific Associate at CERN he moved to LBNL in 1997 where he served as head of the high field magnet R&D program and was Director of the Accelerator and Fusion Research Division for 8 years. From its inception in 2003 until 2006, he headed the magnet activities of the DOE LHC Accelerator Research Program that produced the magnet technology now used for the LHC Hi-Lumi upgrade. In 2015 he led the creation of the US Magnet Development Program and became its first director. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and served on the Executive Committee of the APS-Division of Physics of Beams and as Chair in 2016. He was a member of the ASC Board from 1998 – 2016 and served as chair of ASC 2012.
Prof. Venkat Selvamanickam
University of Houston/USA
Dr. Venkat Selvamanickam is the M.D. Anderson Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston, Director of the Advanced Manufacturing Institute, and Director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity Applied Research Hub. Previously, he served as Chief Technology Officer of SuperPower Inc., leading the development of world-record thin film high temperature superconductor (HTS) wires and the first significant delivery of HTS wire for a power transmission cable in Albany, NY. At the University of Houston, he has achieved significant advancements in superconductor wire performance and established research on thin film semiconductors for photovoltaics and flexible electronics. Prof. Selvamanickam holds over 268 publications, 48 U.S. patents, and 75 international patents, and has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).
Dr. Kathleen Amm
NHMFL, Florida State University
Dr. Kathleen Amm is the director of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (National MagLab) at Florida State University (FSU)2. She earned her Ph.D. in Condensed Matter Physics from FSU in 1998 and has over 25 years of experience in superconductivity and magnet design. Before joining the National MagLab, she held various leadership positions at GE Global Research and served as the director of the Magnet Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Dr. Amm oversees the lab’s headquarters at FSU and its facilities at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Florida. She is known for her contributions to high-field magnet research and development, holding 22 patents and co-authoring over 75 peer-reviewed publications.
Dr. Anna Herr
Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC)
Dr. Anna Herr has been the Scientific Director at Imec since May 2021. Prior to that, she served as a Northrop Grumman Fellow from 2015 and held the position of Advisory Engineer at Northrop Grumman since 2011. She began her academic career as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1998, and achieved the status of full professor in 2006. From 2003 to 2006, she was a Research Fellow at The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
With 30 years of experience in superconducting digital circuits, Dr. Herr’s research interests encompass superconducting digital logic and systems, VLSI circuit design, the development of EDA tools, magnetic memory, and classical control for qubits. Notably, she pioneered the superconducting low-power spin memory known as JMRAM. Dr. Herr has published 70 research papers, holds 27 patents, and has received multiple Northrop Grumman Leadership and Innovation awards.
Dr Kazuhiko Hayashi
ISIS Chairman and CSSJ Executive Director
Kazuhiko Hayashi completed his master’s degree at the Department of Material Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, in 1982, then joined Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. After being involved in the development of functional metals (such as shape memory alloys) and electrical conductive metals, he started working on the fabrication of high-temperature superconducting wires (Ag sheathed BSCCO2223 and REBCO coated conductor) and research on their applications (such as power cable, ship propulsion motor, transformer and so on.) just after the discovery of high-temperature superconducting materials till his retirement from Sumitomo Electric in 2022. He is now the Chairman of the International Superconductivity Industry Summit (ISIS, Industry level information exchange consortium including the US, Europe, Korea, China, and Japan), Executive Director of the Cryogenic Society of Japan (CSSJ), Director of the Japan Industrial Society of Cryogenics and Superconductivity (JISOCS) and a co-editor of Superconductivity News Forum (SNF) operated by IEEE CSC, ESAS, and CSSJ
Dr. Cathy Foley
Chief Scientist for CISRO
Dr Foley has been the chief scientist for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) since August 2018. She was the 9th Chief Scientist of Australia since January 2021. While working at CSIRO, Dr Foley made significant contributions to the understanding of nitride semiconductors and superconducting electronics. Dr. Foley and her team’s most successful application is the LANDTEM sensor system used to locate valuable deposits of minerals deep underground, such as nickel sulphide, silver, and gold.
Dr. Foley’s scientific excellence and influential leadership have been recognised with numerous awards and fellowships, including being elected to the Australian Academy of Science in 2020, being named an Officer in the Order of Australia in 2020 for service to research science and the advancement of women in physics, receiving the Clunies Ross Medal of the Australian Academy of Technological Science and Engineering in 2015, and receiving the Australian Institute of Physics Medal for Outstanding Service to Physics in 2016. She was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Science and Engineering in 2008.
Dr Foley’s previous roles include membership of the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council, President of the Australian Institute of Physics, President of Science and Technology Australia, Editor-in-Chief of Superconductor Science and Technology journal, and a council member for Questacon.
Dr. Foley is committed to helping Australia realise the transformative potential of critical technologies and meet the climate challenge. She is an inspiration to women in STEM across the globe and focuses strongly on equality and diversity in the science sector.