Leadership
"The goal of I-FIM is to develop new approaches in science which would allow us to deal with out of equilibrium phenomena. This will lead to the creation of Functional Intelligent Materials – materials which can be programmed to perform specific functions and even change their internal structures and functionality depending on the environment.
Focused primarily on fundamental research, I-FIM also produces innovations in such areas as big data, machine learning, robotics, advanced functional materials. We are looking for new applications of Functional Intelligent Materials in such areas as electronics, energy, healthcare, membranes and many others. . I-FIM will create the core expertise and facilities for the development of machine learning and AI solutions for smart technologies and material science in Singapore and worldwide. "
Prof. Sir Konstantin 'Kostya' Novoselov
Professor Sir Konstantin Novoselov FRS
Director, Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials, NUS
Prof Sir Konstantin ‘Kostya’ Novoselov FRS is the Director of the Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials, as well Distinguished Professor at the Department of Material Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS). He currently holds a Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professorship at NUS.
Prof. Novoselov graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and undertook his PhD studies at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands (2004). He started to work as postdoc at the University of Manchester in 2001. He was the first Director of the National Graphene Institute at the University of Manchester. He currently also holds positions of the Langworthy Professor of Physics and the Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Manchester.
In 2019, he joined the National University of Singapore as Distinguished Professor and in 2021 became the Founding Director of the Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials at NUS.
Professor Novoselov is recipient of numerous prizes, including Nicholas Kurti Prize (2007), International Union of Pure and Applied Science Prize (2008), MIT Technology Review young innovator (2008), Europhysics Prize (2008), Bragg Lecture Prize from the Union of Crystallography (2011), the Kohn Award Lecture (2012), Leverhulme Medal from the Royal Society (2013), Onsager medal (2014), Carbon medal (2016), Dalton medal (2016) and the Otto Warburg Prize (2019), among many others. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (UK) and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA).
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010 for his achievements with graphene.
He was knighted Commander of the Order of the Netherlands Lion in 2010 and knighted at the UK New Year Honours in 2012.
Prof. Novoselov is best known for isolating graphene for which he won the Nobel Prize, and is an expert in condensed matter physics, mesoscopic physics and nanotechnology. Every year since 2014 he is included in the list of the most highly cited researchers in the world.
Professor Antonio Helio Castro Neto
Co-director
Prof. Antonio Castro Neto is the Director of the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials (CA2DM) and Co-Director of the Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials (IFIM) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Material Science Engineering and Physics, as well as a Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, NUS, and member of the Singapore and Brazilian National Academies of Science.
Prof. Antonio H. Castro Neto got his Ph.D. in Physics at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1994. His thesis studied the fundamentals of the theory of metals. In 1994, he moved to the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara as a postdoctoral fellow, and in 1995, he became an Assistant Professor at University of California at Riverside. In 2000, he moved to Boston University as Professor of Physics. In 2010, Prof. Castro Neto joined the National University of Singapore and became the Founding Director of the Graphene Research Centre which, in 2014, evolved into CA2DM. In 2021, Prof. Castro Neto became Founding Co-Director of the Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials, NUS.
Prof. Castro Neto is recipient of many awards, including the 11th Ross J. Martin Award by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; the University of California Regent Fellowship; the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship; the visiting Miller Professorship by the University of California, Berkeley; the visiting Gordon Godfrey Professorship by the University of New South Wales, Australia; the Distinguished Visiting Chair Professor at the SKKU Advanced Institute of Nano-Technology (SAINT), South Korea; the Hsun Lee Lecture Award by the Institute of Metal Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences; and Kramers Professorship at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. Prof. Castro Neto was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2003, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2011. He is also a Fellow of the Singapore National Academy of Science and the Brazilian Academy of Science.
Prof. Castro Neto founded 2D Materials (2DM) Pte Ltd in Singapore for the development of high-quality graphene in 2016, MADE Advanced Materials Pte Ltd for the development of graphene composites with carbon and glass fibre in 2017, and Graphene Watts Pte Ltd for the development and commercialization of graphene-based, Lithium-Sulphur batteries in 2019.