Prof Massimo De Vittorio is coordinator of the Center for Biomolecular Nanotechnologies (CBN) of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) and responsible of the nanofabrication and MEMS front-end and back-end facilities and activities at CBN, where he coordinates a group of about 20 persons among researchers, postdocs, PhD students and technicians.

He is also full professor at Università del Salento (Dip. Ingegneria dell'Innovazione), where he is lecturer of the courses "Electronic and Photonic Devices" and "Nanotechnologies for Electronics", and co- founder of the nanodevice division at the national nanotechnology laboratory (NNL) of the CNR Nanoscience Institute at Università del Salento.

His research activity deals with the development of science and technology applied to nanophotonics, nanoelectronics and nano and micro electromechanical systems (NEMS/MEMS) for applications such as ICT, life-science, energy and robotics. Recently, his research is focused on the realization of piezoelectric MEMS for mechanical energy harvesting and for biomimetic microsystems to mimic natural senses and their mechanoreceptors and on nanofabrication of probes for neuronal activity recording and stimulation. All research activities are characterized by a strong interaction between design, smart material development, advanced nanofabrication processes and device testing. He has been invited professor at the Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (France) and at the ATR research center (Japan). Author of about 210 papers, 70 proceedings of international conferences, 13 patents and several invited/keynote talks to international conferences, he is also associate editor of the Journal IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology and member of the editorial board of the Journal Microelectronic Engineering (Elsevier).