Lecturers' biographies

Krishna Persaud is Professor of Chemoreception at the University of Manchester. Originally trained as a biochemist, his interests range from fundamental research into biological transduction mechanisms in olfaction through to the practical application of chemical sensors. Krishna has developed two successful spin-out companies targeting odour measurement and water quality and is also investigating applications of artificial olfaction in healthcare. He has worked in the US and Italy and maintains strong connections to a number of European research groups.

Patrick Mielle is an expert in olfaction and taste at the FLAVIC (flavour, vision, consumer behaviour) laboratory at INRA where he develops instrumentation systems (mainly GC, GC/Sniff and gas sensors) for instrumental analysis of aroma and flavours. He has over 27 years of multidisciplinary electronics and chemical R&D experience, including chemical sensors, flavour analysis, sampling and extraction techniques, chromatography and spectrometry. His current focus is the development of an Artificial Mouth, able to mimic the human chewing process to follow flavour release on-line.

Jean-Pierre Rospars received degrees in engineering from Ecole Nationale Supérieur Agronomique, Rennes, France in 1972 and in biophysics from Paris VI University (Pierre and Marie Curie) in 1973. He earned his Doctorat d'état ès Sciences in neurobiology from Paris XI University (Orsay) in 1985. Since 1974 he has belonged to INRA, the French National Institute for Agricultural Research. Currently he is at the Insect Physiology (PISC) Unit, Versailles, and at the Applied Mathematics and Informatics (MIA) Unit, Jouy-en-Josas. His research interests focus on modeling the structure and function of the olfactory system using morphometric, single neuron and neural network approaches.

Franco Maloberti received the Laurea Degree in Physics from the University of Parma, Italy and the Dr. Honoris Causa degree in Electronics from Inaoe, Puebla, Mexico. He was a Visiting Professor at ETH-PEL, Zurich and at EPF, Lausanne. He was the TI/J.Kilby Analog Engineering Chair Professor at the TAMU and also the Microelectronic Chair Professor at UT Dallas. Currently he is Professor at the University of Pavia, Italy. His professional expertise is in the design, analysis of integrated circuits and analogue-digital applications, mainly in the areas of data converters, interfaces for telecommunication and sensor systems. He had various IEEE responsibilities, including the President of the IEEE Sensor Council. He received the 1999 IEEE CAS Society Meritorious Service Award, the 2000 CAS Society Golden Jubilee Medal, and the IEEE Millenium Medal.

Anke Suska is a post-doc working at the department of physics, chemistry and biology at Linköping University, Sweden, following a molecular biology PhD in 2003 at the University of Tübingen, Germany. Her research focuses on bioassays and biological conditioning, involving the use of Xenopus laevis melanophores to express olfactory and taste receptors. This includes cross-disciplinary research on chemical images generation for biochemical sensing.

Danick Briand obtained his Ph.D. degree in the field of micro-chemical systems from the Institute of Microtechnology (IMT), University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland in 2001, where he is currently a team leader in the field of MEMS and Microsystems. His Ph.D. work led to the successful technological transfer of micromachined transducing plaftforms to the gas-sensing industry. He is a member of the technical program committee of the IEEE Sensors and PowerMEMS conferences and of the steering committee of the Eurosensors conference. He has been author or co-author on more than 100 papers published in scientific journals and conference proceedings. His research interests in the field of microsystems include polymeric and Power MEMS, and the development of micro-analytical instruments and devices for gas sensing applications.

Agustin Gutierrez-Galvez received a B.S. in physics and a B.En. in electrical engineering 1995 and 2000, respectively, both from the University of Barcelona. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science at Texas A&M University in December 2005. His PhD research was focus on biologically inspired processing for gas sensor arrays. After a short stay in Tokyo Institute of Technology working on QCM sensor fabrication in 2006, he came back to the University of Barcelona where he currently holds a Marie Curie fellowship. His research interests are neural networks, pattern recognition, chemical sensors, computational models of the olfactory system, pattern recognition applied to odor detection with gas sensor arrays, and quartz crystal microbalance sensor fabrication

Markus Graf leads the research of the humidity sensor group at Sensirion AG in Swirtzerland where he focuses on CMOS-based sensor systems and related microfabrication technologies. Markus is responsible for product development, quality assurance and the industrialisation of processes. After studying a physics degree, he worked at the Micro-and Nanotechnology Center (MIC) of the Technical University of Denmark and later at the Physical Electronics Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland where he received his PhD. He is now transferring many of the techniques developed at ETH into commercial application.

Vittorio Ferrari is a Professor of Electronics at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Brescia. Having trained as a physicist, he undertook research in electronic instrumentation which included a period as a visiting fellow at the HP Laboratories, Palo Alto, USA. His research activity is in the field of sensors and the related signal-conditioning electronics. Topics of interest are acoustic-wave piezoelectric sensors, microresonant sensors and MEMS, autonomous sensors and power scavenging, oscillators for resonant sensors and frequency-output interface circuits

Ferran Reverter is an Assistant Professor in Analogue Electronics and Digital Systems at the Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona. From 2005 to 2007, he was also a Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow with the Delft University of Technology. He is co-author (with Ramon Pallàs-Areny) of the book Direct sensor-to-microcontroller interface circuits (Barcelona: Marcombo, 2005). His research interests are in the field of electronic instrumentation, in particular, the design and characterisation of interface circuits for smart sensors.

Nikos Papamichail trained as a chemist and undertook research into gas analysis using electronic noses and analytical methods. For the last four years he has been a member of the management team of the GOSPEL Network of Excellence, stimulating the development of new cross-disciplinary research collaborations and coordinating European expertise in microsystems, biomimetics and related software. His research interests are in analytical methods and chemical sensors.