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People
Ron Cottam Willy Ranson Roger Vounckx
Ron Cottam Ron received his first degree and
PhD in Applied Physics from the University of Durham,
UK. He transferred to the Department of Metallurgy at
the University of Leuven, Belgium in 1971, and later
joined the Department of Electronics and Information
Processing of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 1983.
Since 1984 he has been a member of the Laboratory of
Micro- and Photonelectronics (LAMI) in the VUB, associated with
work on chemical sensors, optical computing,
computational theory, and most recently since 1991 on
the development of hierarchical architectures for the
implementation of lifelike processes in ULSI beyond
2020. Ron leads the VUB Living Systems
Group (LIFE), and has authored and co-authored papers on
solid-state physics, ultrasonic techniques,
computational emergence, natural semiotics, hierarchical
evolutionary systems, complexity and anticipatory
computation, and has contributed to international
conferences, journals and books. He teaches electronics
and intelligent design in Vesalius College of the VUB
since 1990, and is a member of the Board of Governors of
the Institute for Semiosis, Evolution and Energy of the
University of Toronto.
Willy Ranson received the Telecommunication Engineer degree in 1975 from the University of Leuven, Belgium. He was Assistant Professor in the Department of Microwaves and Lasers at the University of Leuven until 1983, when he joined the Department of Electronics and Information Processing (ETRO) of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). Since 1989 he has been a member of the Inter-university Micro-Electronics Center (IMEC) in the VUB. Willy has participated in projects and contracted research on such diverse topics as planar antenna structures, high frequency wave-guides, chemical sensors, biological applications for breast cancer detection, optical information processing for parallel computation, CO2 laser applications, microelectronic process technology and revolutionary information and revolutionary computation theories. He is currently Senior Researcher in charge of the processing technology lab of LAMI and is a founder member of LIFE (Living Systems). His current research contributions are in the areas of CO2 laser modulation, millimeter imaging systems, micro machines for ultra-rapid DNA screening, fast enforcing technologies for protein engineering and Evolutionary Living Systems, sensing, imaging and modulation functionalities and operating in the electromagnetic spectrum ranging from the microwave range up to the far-infrared, covering the 30 GHz to 30 THz range. Willy is (co)author of more than 135 publications in international refereed journals and conferences. Roger A. Vounckx received the lic. in physics degree from the University of Brussels (VUB) in 1975. He was a teaching assistant in the Physics Department of that university’s Faculty of Sciences until 1980 (military service 1978-1979). His research interests during that period included surface properties of silicon, charge coupled devices (CCDs) and tunneling mechanisms in dielectrics for non-volatile memory applications. In 1981 and 1982 he was a visiting scientist and acted as a consultant for AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey (USA), working on exploratory high speed III-V semiconductor transistors. In autumn 1982 he started doctoral work in the Electronics Department of the VUB on III-V transistors and received the Dr.Sc. degree in physics with highest honours in 1984 with a dissertation on the effects of ohmic contact formation on the performance of high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). He was appointed associate professor of microelectronics at the VUB in 1984 and full professor in 1993. He became director of the Laboratory of Micro- and Photonelectronics (LAMI) in 1987. His current research interests include semiconductor devices and systems for optical and electrical information processing and communication and mm wave imaging systems. He published around 250 technical papers in international journals and conference proceedings and holds 6 international patents. He served as a chairman and member of program committees for international conferences and as a reviewer for international scientific journals. He is a member of the Physics Commission of the Belgian National Science Fund (FWO-V) and serves regularly as an expert for evaluation of industrial research projects for the Belgian Government. His laboratory is involved in several national and European research consortia. He is currently heading an impulse program from the Brussels region about Q-switched CO2 lasers and equalizing techniques for fast data communication and a “Strategic Basic Research” Program from the Flemish government for mm wave imaging applications.
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