Pitarke de la Torre, José María

Prof. Pitarke (Bilbao, 1960) studied Physics at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), where he received his PhD with honors (extraordinary doctorate award) in 1990. During his PhD work, he investigated some aspects of tunneling spectroscopy and electron and photon emission in solids. After a postdoctoral stay at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (USA), he obtained in 1993 a tenured position back at UPV/EHU. He combined his work at UPV/EHU with sabbatical semesters at various USA Universities and the Imperial College of the University of London (UK). Since 2000, he has been full professor of condensed matter physics at UPV/EHU. In 2005, he was elected Visiting Fellow at Churchill College (University of Cambridge). His research interests include condensed matter theory and many-electron dynamics in solids, surfaces, and nanostructures. His most recent research includes, for example, his prediction of the existence of acoustic plasmons in graphene and his theoretical work on the elusive van der Waals interaction.

In February 2006, Prof. Pitarke was appointed Director-General of the Nanoscience Cooperative Research Center nanoGUNE, at the time of its creation. He joined nanoGUNE in September 2006, without completely abandoning his obligations at the University. Hardly a few months after the opening of nanoGUNE in January 2009, he received a special mention by the jury of the 9th Manuel Laborde Werlinden prize for his business initiative on graphene. He was the driving force of the start-up company Graphenea, which was founded in April 2010 as a joint venture of private investors and nanoGUNE, with the mission of commercializing high-quality graphene wafers and developing graphene-based technologies. He was Vice-President of Graphenea until April 2015. He participated very actively in the creation –at nanoGUNE– of the start-up company Biotech Foods, and he is now President of nanoGUNE's three other start-up companies. Since 2013, he has been President of the Elhuyar Foundation for the popularization of science and technology.