IEEE Nanotechnology Council Announces 2026 Election Results
The IEEE Nanotechnology Council (NTC) elected new officers at its Annual Administrative Committee Meeting held in Nanjing, China, on July 5, 2026.
Representatives of the twenty-two IEEE Societies who are Council members gather annually to conduct Council business and elect officers. The positions up for election were:
- President-Elect (2027).
- Vice-President-Elect for Educational Activities, Vice-President Elect for Publications, and Vice President Elect for Technical Activities (3 years, elect 2027; VP 2028-2029).
- Interim Vice President for Finances (3 years, elect 2026; VP 2027-2028).
- Member at Large (2027-2028)
John Yeow, University of Waterloo, Canada, was elected as President-elect (2027).
Georgios Ch. Sirakoulis, Democritus University of Thrace (DUTh), Xanthi, Greece, was reelected for a second term as Vice President for Educational Activities (term through 2029). Sorin Cotofana, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands, was elected Vice-President Elect for Publications and Li Tao, Southeast University, Nanjing, China, was elected Vice President Elect for Technical Activities. Rafal Sliz, University of Oulu, Finland, was elected Vice President for Finances to fill the remainder of the term of the late Malgorzata Chrzanowska-Jeske.
Shanshan Liu, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China; Luca Pierantoni, Universita Politecnica delle Marche (UnivPM), Ancona, Italy; and Winnie Ye, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, were elected Members-at-Large 2027-28.
President-Elect (2027)
John T. W. Yeow is currently a Professor and a University Research Chair in the Department of Systems Design Engineering at University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada. He is focused on the development of micro/nanodevices for a wide range of applications. He is a recipient of the Professional Engineers Ontario Engineering Excellence Award, Natural Science & Engineering Research Canada Innovation Challenge Award, Douglas R. Colton’s Medal of Research Excellence, Micralyne Microsystems Design Award, Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation’s Early Researcher Award, University of Toronto Alumni Association 7T6 Early Career Award, 2011 IEEE NANO Excellence Paper award and IEEE Canada Outstanding Engineer Award. He was a Canada Research Chair in Micro/Nanodevices (2004 – 2019). He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Engineering Institute of Canada, Engineers Canada, and a Member of College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada.
Vice-President-Elect for Educational Activities (3 years, elect 2027; VP 2028-2029)
Georgios Ch. Sirakoulis is the Head (from 2020 till now) of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of DUTH (Democritus University of Thrace) in Greece, Visiting Researcher/Professor in University of West England from 2014 and co-founder and research associate of Ulysses Ltd., Kavala, Greece (1999-2002). Georgios (Google Scholar – h-index: 36, i-index: 122) has published more than 150 journal papers, more than 170 in international conference papers, 15 guest-editorials, 8 international books and 37 books chapters. He has participated as leader and principal investigator in more than 31 scientific programs and projects funded from the Greek Government, Industry, Third Parties and Countries and EU. He was and he is supervisor of 15 Ph.D. theses, 29 M.Sc. theses and 92 M.Eng. Theses. Three of his students have been awarded and one with best IEEE Greek Chapter Diploma Award. He has been involved in more than 142 Conferences (as PC member, Chair, etc.) and delivered 30 invited talks.
Vice-President Elect for Publications (3 years, elect 2027; VP 2028-2029)
Prof. Sorin Cotofana (PhD EE, MSc CE) is currently with the Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science Faculty, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands. His current research is focused on: (i) the design and implementation of dependable/reliable systems out of unpredictable/unreliable components; (ii) ageing assessment/prediction and lifetime reliability aware resource management; and (iii) unconventional computation paradigms and computation with emerging nano-devices and materials, e.g., graphene. He published more than 300 papers in peer-reviewed international journal and conferences, received 13 international conferences best paper awards, e.g., 2012 IEEE Conference on Nanotechnology, 2012 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Nanoscale Architectures, 2005 IEEE Conference on Nanotechnology, 2001 International Conference on Computer Design, and delivered 40 invited talks. He participated as principal investigator in 15 research projects funded by Government, Industry, and EU, and is currently leading 2 Spin Wave-based computing projects. He advised and graduated 20 PhD and 30 MSc students, respectively.
Vice President Elect for Technical Activities (3 years, elect 2027; VP 2028-2029)
Professor Li Tao is a young chief professor at Southeast University, Nanjing, China and serves as the Associate Dean in School of Materials Science and Engineering. His research interests focus on low-dimensional nanomaterials and their flexible/wearable nanoelectronics for artificial intelligence of things, sustainable nanodevices, and health care. He is the inventor of 2D PtSe2 enabled self-powered wireless transceiver-sensor circuits for flexible In-sensor GHz RF communications (IEDM 2024) and the first silicene transistor (Nat. Nanotechnol. 2015, over 1500 citations) featured by TIME blog, Nature News and 100+ media. He has been selected as an IEEE Nanotechnology Council Distinguished Lecturer (2023 &2024), general chair twice for NMDC 2020 & 2022, conference co-chair of IEEE Nano 2026. He serves as an associate editor for Research, npj 2D Materials & Applications and Microelectronics Engineering.
Vice President for Finances (3 years, elect 2026; VP 2027-2028)
Rafal Sliz is a tenured Assistant Professor at the Optoelectronics and Measurement Techniques Unit (OPEM) of the University of Oulu, Finland, with his promotion to Associate Professor expected by the end of 2024. His research expertise lies in nanotechnology, focusing on printed electronics and sustainable energy storage systems. Rafal earned his B.Sc. in Electronics from the Silesian University of Technology, Poland. He pursued his M.Sc. and Ph.D. at the University of Oulu, where he conducted pioneering research in wireless sensor networks and printed electronics at the OPEM. Throughout his academic career, Rafal has received numerous grants and awards, enabling him to conduct research visits abroad, including the Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University (USA), the London Centre for Nanotechnology at UCL (UK), and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Sargent Group, University of Toronto (Canada). Rafal has been appointed as a visiting professor at ASU (USA), commencing in October 2024.
Member at Large (2027-2028)
Shanshan Liu, is a professor with the School of Information and Communication Engineering at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China. She received the Ph.D. degree in Microelectronics and Solid-State Electronics from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 2018. She was a post-doctoral researcher with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), Northeastern University, Boston, USA, from 2018 to 2021, and an assistant professor with the Klipsch School of ECE, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, from 2021 to 2023 (where she was the Co-PI for SCALE: Radiation-Hardening, supported by DoD). She teaches VLSI design and SoC design.
Her research interests include fault-tolerance design in nanocomputing systems, emerging computing, nanoscale VLSI design, and dependable machine learning. Among these topics she has more than 80 publications in peer-reviewed periodicals such as IEEE TCAS-I, TC, TETC, TNANO, INM, and conference proceedings such as ISSCC and VLSI.
Luca Pierantoni is Full Professor of Electromagnetic Fields at the Università Politecnica delle Marche (UnivPM), Ancona, Italy. He received (1988) the Laurea Degree (summa cum laude) in Electronic Engineering and the PhD Degree (1993) in Electromagnetics from the University of Ancona, Italy. From 1996 to 1999, he worked at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, as Senior Research Scientist. His research interests are in the i) investigation of the combined Maxwell-quantum transport phenomena in nano-materials/-devices; ii) development of a computational techniques for the multi-physics modeling of nano-to-meso-scale devices/systems, including electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, thermal effects, spintronics and for applications that cover the areas of microwave, photonics, opto-mechanics, plasmonics, metamaterials, quantum computing; iii) atomistic (ab initio) simulations of novel and smart materials (e.g. ferroelectrics, phase change materials). UnivPM PI in the Europen Projects HiMMODA, GreEnergy, NANOEH, NANOPOLY, NANOSMART, NTX, PHENOMEN, NANO RF, MILESAGE. He is author/coauthor of about 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. Thanks to European projects, it has obtained funding around 4 Million Euro, about 4.6 Million USD.
Dr. Winnie Ye is a Fellow of Optica, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Engineering Institute of Canada, and a Full Professor in the Department of Electronics at Carleton University. She previously held the Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Nano-scale IC Design for Reliable Opto-Electronics and Sensors (2009–2021). Her research focuses on silicon nanophotonics and integrated optoelectronics, developing nanoscale photonic devices and circuits for telecommunications, data communications, biophotonics, sensing, and renewable energy.
Dr. Ye received her B.Eng. from Carleton University and her M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto and Carleton University. She was an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT and Harvard University before joining Carleton’s faculty in 2009.
Her contributions to research, leadership, and service have been recognized with the 2026 Sustainable Photonics Technology Innovation Award, the 2025 Optica Robert E. Hopkins Leadership Award, the 2025 IEEE Canada W.S. Read Gold Medal Award, and the 2021 IEEE MGA Leadership Award. She currently serves as Global Chair of IEEE Women in Engineering (2025–2026), an elected member of the IEEE Photonics Society Board of Governors (2024–2026), and Chair of the IEEE Photonics Society Ottawa Chapter.
