Aleksandr (Alex) Simonian, Ph.D., D.Sc., is a Professor Emeritus at Auburn University and currently serves as the Program Director for the Biosensing Program at the NSF Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental & Transport Systems (CBET), a position he established in 2009. He has authored over 168 publications in leading scientific journals and has contributed highly cited review articles, book chapters, and patents in the fields of biosensors and functional biomaterials. His work has garnered over 5,870 citations, with an h-index of 41 and an i10-index of 63 (the number of publications with more than 10 citations). Professor Simonian earned his M.S. in Physics from Yerevan State University, his Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics from the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, and a D.Sc. in Bioengineering from the Moscow Institute of Applied Biochemistry, completing these degrees in 1969, 1973, and 1993, respectively. In 2011, he was elected as a Foreign Member of the Armenian National Academy.
Mary Arugula, Ph.D., is a Principal Scientist at CFD Research Corporation (Huntsville, Alabama) with over 12 years of research experience in developing biochemical sensors, including enzyme-based systems for information processing biomedical and environmental applications. She received her Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Engineering-Health Sciences from Clarkson University and served as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Dr. Zhen He), University of Utah (Dr. Shelley D. Minteer) and Auburn University (Dr. Aleksandr Simonian). Her postdoctoral research focused on biosensors, biocomputing, bio-analytical chemistry, electro-biochemistry, biofuel cells, enzyme extraction, and nano-biosensing. At CFD, she worked as a Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator for various DoD and NIH-funded projects that focused on biofuels (biobattery), point-of-care iron deficiency electrochemical sensors, microfluidic impedance sensors for biofilm establishment and phage detection, and multi-omics (miRNA's) point of care impedance sensors.
Paolo Bollella, Ph.D., is a Tenure Track Assistant Professor at the University of Bari Aldo Moro (Italy), specializing in advanced enzyme-based and edible biosensors. He earned his B.Sc. (2012) and M.Sc. (2014) in Analytical Chemistry and Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences (2017) from Sapienza University of Rome. He held postdoctoral positions at Åbo Akademi University (Finland) and Clarkson University (USA), where he was promoted to Research Assistant Professor in 2019. Author of 113 peer-reviewed papers (H-index = 35), he has presented over 100 oralcontributions and is among the world's top 2% scientists (Stanford ranking). He serves on the Advisory Board of DirectSens GmbH and is PI or co-PI of national and international projects including SPARKS, REFIN, and RS. He has received several awards, including the 2023 Early Career Analytical Electrochemistry Prize from International Society of Electrochemistry - Division 1 and the 2022 Young Researcher Award from the Italian Chemical Society.
