Vincenzo Palermo uses nanotechnology and supramolecular chemistry to create new materials for mechanical, electronics and energy applications. In particular, he works on the production of carbon-based composite materials and on the characterization of their structure and charge transport at the nanoscale.

Vincenzo Palermo obtained his Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 2003 at the University of Bologna, after working at the University of Utrecht (the Netherlands) and at the Steacie Institute, National Research Council (Ottawa, Canada).

He has published more than 130 scientific articles on international journals in chemistry, nanotechnology and materials science (>4000 citations, h-index=35).

Vincenzo Palermo holds a joint position as research director of the National Reseach Council of Italy, and research professor at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, acting as vice-director of the Graphene Flagship. Between 2013 and 2017 he has been the leader of the work package on composites of the flagship.

He previously coordinated two large European research projects: GOSPEL (Graphene-Organic SuPramolEcular functionaL composites) and the International Training Network GENIUS (GraphenE-orgaNIc hybrid architectures for organic electronics: a mUltiSite training action), and was member of the scientific committee of EUROGRAPHENE programme of the ESF.

In 2012 Vincenzo Palermo won the Lecturer Award for Excellence of the Federation of European Materials Societies (FEMS) and in 2013 the Research Award of the Italian Society of Chemistry (SCI).

He is also actively involved in science dissemination giving seminars to high-school students and laymen on the interplay between science and history. He has published several articles for general audience, on scientific discoveries, and two books on the life and science of Albert Einstein (Hoepli, 2015) and of Isaac Newton (Hoepli, 2016).

In 2017 he also won a Research Project Grant for Engineering Sciences, assigned within the Research Grants Open call 2017 from Vetenskapsrådet and received a scholarship from the Rune Berhardsson's Graphene fund.