Plenary Sessions

Dr. Tammy Ma is a plasma physicist at NIF. She leads a number of the fusion experiments at the NIF and currently heads the X-Ray Analysis Group for the ICF programme.

Ma earned her bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from Caltech in 2005, then received her master's degree in 2008, and Ph.D. in 2010, both from the University of California, San Diego. Ma completed a postdoc at LLNL before becoming a staff scientist in 2012. Experimental Plasma Physicist in Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) and High Energy Density Physics, National Ignition Facility (NIF), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), in Livermore, California. Ma was recently awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering, the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on early-career science and engineering professionals. She also received the American Physical Society 2016 Thomas H. Stix Award for Outstanding Early Career Contributions to Plasma Physics Research.

Prof. Constantin Häfner became director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen in November 2019. Previously, he was Program Director for Advanced Photon Technologies at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where he has led the development of the world’s most powerful laser systems.

After graduating from the University of Konstanz with a degree in physics, he obtained a Ph.D. in laser physics from the University of Heidelberg. In 2004, Häfner moved to the United States, first to the Nevada Terawatt Facility, University of Nevada, Reno, and subsequently, in 2006, to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.

Donna Strickland is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo and is one of the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 for developing chirped pulse amplification with Gérard Mourou.

Strickland was a research associate at the National Research Council Canada, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a member of technical staff at Princeton University. In 1997, she joined the University of Waterloo, where her ultrafast laser group develops high-intensity laser systems for nonlinear optics investigations.Strickland earned a PhD in optics from the University of Rochester and a B.Eng. from McMaster University.

Claudio Conti (Ph.D. 2002, ERC StGrant 2008) is currently the Director of the Institute of Complex Systems of the Italian National Research Council (ISC-CNR) in Rome (Italy). Formerly, he was New Talent Grant from the Research Center Enrico Fermi; Humboldt fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light; Senior Researcher at CNR; Principal Investigator of the Starting Independent Research Grant from the European Research Council (ERC), with the project Light and Complexity; Principal Investigator of the ERC Proof of Concept Grant Vanguard; Principal Investigator of the Templeton Foundation Grant Generalized Uncertainty Principle and the Photon; and Associate Professor at the Department of Physics of the University Sapienza.

In 2012, Valeria Tirelli succeeded her father as CEO of Aidro. Aidro was founded by Paolo Tirelli, an Italian engineer with a vast experience in the hydraulics sector, in 1982.

Starting from 2017, Aidro introduced the new technology Additive Manufacturing, enabling the production of Metal 3D Printed products in the hydraulics sector.

Driven by the desire to innovate and by the continuous growth of 3D printing, the company has expanded its activity to other sectors such as aerospace, energy and oil & gas.

In 2021 Aidro joins Desktop Metal family to growth in fluid power with Additve Manufacturing.

Dr. Farsari is a Research Director at the Institute of the Electronic Structure and Laser, Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, where she joined in 2003. Her main research interests are light-based additive manufacturing, multi-photon lithography, laser-based nanofabrication, and materials processing using ultrafast lasers.

She received her first degree in 1992 from the Physics, University of Crete and her PhD in 1997 from the Physics Department, University of Durham, UK. After graduating, Farsari worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Universities of Durham and Sussex and as a Senior Optical Scientist for the security company DeLaRue Holographics.