BME's International Scientific Advisory Board

Michael A. Cusumano (MIT) – entrepreneurship, strategic management

American economist and management professor. He is currently the SMR Distinguished Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and co-director of the System Design and Management (SDM) Program. His main areas of work are strategy, product development, and business management—particularly in the software industry, digital platforms, automotive, and consumer electronics sectors. He has published more than 14 books and over 120 academic articles; his notable works include Platform Leadership. He earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1984, and previously a BA from Princeton University in 1976. Additionally, he is an active international consultant, has previously taught abroad in Japan and at several European universities, and frequently speaks on technology strategy, innovation, and digital platforms.

Leroy Gardner (Imperial College) – structural engineering

Leroy Gardner is a professor in the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering at Imperial College London and the head of the Structural Engineering Section. His research areas include the design, experimental testing, and numerical modeling of steel structures, as well as the development of design codes—with particular emphasis on the behavior of stainless steel and high-strength steel. He is one of the leading experts in this field: a fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering and holds senior positions in British structural engineering institutions.

Gardner is co-author of several professional books, studies, and design guidelines, and plays a significant role in the development of European standards (e.g., Eurocode 3). In addition, he is an active university lecturer and industrial consultant, and under his leadership, the Imperial College steel structures research group has gained international recognition.

Manfred Kaltenbacher (TU Graz) – theoretical electrical engineering, materials science, applied mechanics

Prof. Dr. techn. Dr. h.c. Manfred Kaltenbacher is the head of the Institute of Theoretical Electrical Engineering at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz). He earned his degree in electrical engineering at TU Graz in 1992, his PhD at Johannes Kepler University Linz in 1996, and his habilitation in Germany in 2004. His research areas include the application of numerical methods for modeling multiphysics systems—such as electromechanical interactions, piezoelectricity, aeroacoustics and vibroacoustics, as well as material modeling and parameter identification. He has published several hundred works and is a member of international professional organizations, including the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In addition, he actively participates in industrial and academic collaborations, recently leading projects on noise propagation and acoustic modeling.

Krausz Ferenc (Max Planck Institut, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich) – attophysics, laser science

Ferenc Krausz was born in 1962 in Mór, Hungary. He earned a degree in electrical engineering at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) and studied theoretical physics at Eötvös Loránd University. In 1991, he received his doctorate in laser physics from the Vienna University of Technology. Between 2001 and 2004, his research group was the first to generate and measure attosecond (10⁻¹⁸ s) light pulses—enabling the real-time observation of electron motion within atoms. This achievement—the founding of attosecond physics—was recognized in 2023 with the Nobel Prize, shared with Pierre Agostini and Anne L'Huillier. He is currently the director of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and a professor at the Department of Experimental Physics–Laser Physics at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU).

Jens Marklof (School of Mathematics University of Bristol) – mathematical physics, number theory

Jens Marklof is a German mathematician who is a professor at the School of Mathematics, University of Bristol, and since 2024 holds the Henry Overton Wills Chair in Mathematics. His research areas include dynamical systems and ergodic theory, quantum chaos, automorphic forms, and number theory. His achievements include numerous significant papers and studies, such as results on theta sums in the multivariable case and contributions to kinetic theory in models related to the Lorentz gas. He is also active in the scientific community: he received the LMS Whitehead Prize in 2010, was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society in 2015, and has been President of the London Mathematical Society since 2023.

Muriel Médard (MIT) – network coding, information theory

Muriel Médard is an English–French information theory expert and engineer. She is currently the Cecil H. Green Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and leads the Network Coding and Reliable Communications Group. Her work focuses primarily on network coding, optical and wireless communications—she has contributed, among other things, to the practical implementation of Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC). For her outstanding achievements, she has received numerous prestigious awards, including the 2022 IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award and, earlier, the IEEE Edwin Howard Armstrong Achievement Award.

Regis Reau (Air Liquide) – phosphorus chemistry, supramolecular chemistry

Régis Réau is the Senior Scientific Director and Senior Fellow of Research & Development (R&D) at Air Liquide, France. He earned his PhD in chemistry from the University of Toulouse in 1988. Previously, he worked as a researcher at CNRS, and from 1997 he was a professor at the University of Rennes 1, conducting research on organic materials and catalysis. In his role at Air Liquide, he leads the company’s innovation activities, focusing on gas technologies, hydrogen, environmental and energy transition, as well as carbon capture and utilization (CCU). With his scientific background and expertise in chemistry and materials science, he plays a key role in the development of hydrogen energy and sustainable technologies, bridging the gap between academic and industrial research.

Christian Schönenberger (University of Basel) – nanotechnology, quantum technology

Christian Schönenberger is a Swiss experimental physicist, born in 1956 in Zurich. He earned his PhD in 1990 at the IBM Research Laboratory, with a dissertation on magnetic force microscopy. Since 1995, he has been a professor at the University of Basel, where he established and led the Nanoelectronics Group. His research focuses on electron and spin transport in nanosystems and quantum nanoelectronics. In his experimental work, he has studied quantum effects in carbon nanotubes, graphene, nanowires, and hybrid superconductor–metal devices. Additionally, from 2006 to 2022, he served as director of the Swiss Nanoscience Institute (SNI) and is considered a key figure in Swiss nanoscience.

Frank Fitzek (TU Dresden) – 5G/6G, molecular and quantum communication

Frank Fitzek is a German electrical engineer and researcher who leads the “Deutsche Telekom Chair of Communication Networks” at TU Dresden. His main research areas include mobile and wireless networks, 5G/6G systems, network coding, in-network computing, energy-efficient protocols, and cooperative networks. Since 2019, he has been the spokesperson for the Excellence Cluster “Centre for Tactile Internet with Human-in-the-Loop (CeTI),” which focuses on the development of real-time human-machine interaction and the tactile internet. In addition, he coordinates the German “5G Lab Germany.” Fitzek has received numerous awards, including the “NOKIA Champion Award” (2007–2011), the “Vodafone Innovation Prize” (2012), and in 2015 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME). He is also the founder of several start-ups and actively works to bring the networks of the future—including quantum and molecular communication, robotic systems, and human-machine collaboration—into practical implementation.