Marco Rolandi, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, where he started as an Assistant Professor in 2008, and the scientific founder of KitoTech Medical (2012). He was born and raised in Savona, Italy. After graduating from Italian Liceo Scientifico, he moved to the UK to study for an MSci in Physics at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London (now Queen Mary University of London) where he started performing research in the laboratories of Professor E. Guy Wilson. He then moved to the US and joined the research group of Professor Hongjie Dai while pursuing a PhD in Applied Physics at Stanford University. In 2005, he became a postdoctoral fellow in the Materials Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley working in the laboratories of Professor Jean M.J Fréchet.

His research focuses on micro- and nano- biological and bioinspired structures, their integration in biocompatible devices, and their translational applications. His work on bioprotonic transistors was highlighted in The New York Times, New Scientist, MRS 360, IEEE Spectrum, Materials Views, Engadget, Popular Science, and several other sites. He is also interested in visual communication in science and engineering and his essay on how to prepare scientific figures was the most downloaded article in Advanced Materials during the fall of 2011 (> 10,000 times). He received an NSF-CAREER award (2012), a 3M Untenured Faculty Award (2010), he was selected as one of the TR-35 GI by the MIT Technology Review (Italy, 2012) and as Faculty Innovator (Junior) by the College of Engineering. He was also voted “Faculty of the Year” by his department’s junior undergraduate students (2009, 2010, 2011, 2013).