Board of Directors

Francesco VOLPE

  • Francesco is a physicist and has been passionate about fusion since the age of 16. He dedicated his studies to heating, diagnosing and stabilizing fusion plasmas and liquid metals. For his research, he received the 2003 Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Gesellschaft, the 2011 DOE Early Career Award and the 2015 Excellence in Fusion Engineering Award. Having worked on all major magnetic fusion concepts, he came to the conclusion that simplified stellarators are the north star and a start-up is the way to reach it. After earning his Executive MBA at ESCP Europe, he co-founded Renaissance Fusion in 2020.

    LinkedIn

Clea KOLSTER

  • Description text goes here

Sylvie RICHARD


  • Responsable de la conception

    Tout commence par une idée. Peut-être voulez-vous créer une entreprise. Peut-être voulez-vous donner une nouvelle dimension à un passe-temps.

Simon BELKA

  • Simon holds a master’s in mechanical engineering from the Paristech School, Ecole Nationale des Ponts & Chaussées, and an Executive MBA from ESCP. Simon started his career as an engineer at Airbus & Renault. He then worked as a project manager on several industrialization projects of the Airbus A350 program. Simon then moved to several executive positions such as Bid & Projects Director, Strategy & Marketing Director at Ascent Integration, General manager of a business line at Atlas Copco. He finally joined Renaissance Fusion in February 2022. 

    LinkedIn

Giorgio ANANIA


  • Responsable de la conception

    Tout commence par une idée. Peut-être voulez-vous créer une entreprise. Peut-être voulez-vous donner une nouvelle dimension à un passe-temps.

Founders & Executives

Francesco VOLPE

  • Francesco is a physicist and has been passionate about fusion since the age of 16. He dedicated his studies to heating, diagnosing and stabilizing fusion plasmas and liquid metals. For his research, he received the 2003 Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Gesellschaft, the 2011 DOE Early Career Award and the 2015 Excellence in Fusion Engineering Award. Having worked on all major magnetic fusion concepts, he came to the conclusion that simplified stellarators are the north star and a start-up is the way to reach it. After earning his Executive MBA at ESCP Europe, he co-founded Renaissance Fusion in 2020.

    LinkedIn

Martin KUPP

  • Martin is an Associate Professor of entrepreneurship and strategy at the ESCP Business School, Paris and at the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT), Berlin. He has had a passion for deeptech entrepreneurship ever since meeting Francesco for the first time in 2019. Martin’s research focuses on entrepreneurial decision-making, venture scaling and team dynamics in deeptech ventures.

    LinkedIn

Diego CAMMARANO

  • Diego Cammarano joined Renaissance Fusion as its first employee in March 2021, where he is now the COO. Always looking for ways to put his skills at the service of the others, he has previously held field positions in several medical projects at Dasit spa and IBA. Diego holds an MBA from ESMT Berlin, an MSc in Nuclear engineering from the Polytechnic University of Milan and an MSc in Industrial engineering from École Centrale Paris .

    Linkedin

Simon BELKA

  • Simon holds a master’s in mechanical engineering from the Paristech School, Ecole Nationale des Ponts & Chaussées, and an Executive MBA from ESCP. Simon started his career as an engineer at Airbus & Renault. He then worked as a project manager on several industrialization projects of the Airbus A350 program. Simon then moved to several executive positions such as Bid & Projects Director, Strategy & Marketing Director at Ascent Integration, General manager of a business line at Atlas Copco. He finally joined Renaissance Fusion in February 2022. 

    LinkedIn

Business Operations

  • Domenico D'ANDREA

    Head of Business Development & Sales
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  • Julie DILAS

    Senior Buyer
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  • Alejandro RODRIGUEZ

    Project Execution Engineer
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  • Eleonora SARTORI

    Grant Editor & Administrator
    LinkedIn

HTS Team

  • Achraf EL MOHAJIR

    Group Leader, Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD)
    LinkedIn

  • Denis BARKATS

    Senior Experimental Physicist
    LinkedIn

  • Hervé ROUCH

    CFD Modeler of (MO)CVD
    LinkedIn

  • Julián GARCÍA PANIZO

    Experimental Mechanical Engineer
    LinkedIn

  • Jorge VILHENA

    Mechanical Engineer
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  • Rattena TANG

    Automation Engineer
    LinkedIn

  • Vincent NICOLAS

    Vacuum & Material Technician
    LinkedIn

Fusion & Liquid Metal Teams

  • Victor PROST

    Group Leader, Nuclear Systems Engineering
    LinkedIn

  • Achilleas EVANGELIAS

    Stellarator Equilibrium Physicist
    Linkedin

  • Diego PEREIRA BOTELHO

    Stellarator Groove Modeler
    LinkedIn

  • Lorenzo BORTOT

    Magnet Engineer - Modeler
    LinkedIn

  • Nathaniel BAKER

    Liquid Metal Experimentalist

  • Nicolas LOUIS

    Mechanical Engineer
    LinkedIn

  • Sami MEDDEB

    Liquid Metal Corrosion Specialist
    LinkedIn

The on-site Renaissance Fusion team proudly works with remote and visiting, world-class advisors and collaborators.

Strategic Commitee

Business Advisors

Technical Advisors

  • Frédéric BROCHARD

    Research Director @ Institut Jean Lamour (IJL) | LinkedIn

  • Kazunobu NAGASAKI

    Professor @ Kyoto University

  • Sergei SMOLENTSEV

    Researcher @ UCLA

We are also very grateful to Stewart PRAGER (PPPL) and Ron PRATER (General Atomics), now both retired, for having advised Renaissance Fusion during its first steps.

Collaborators in Europe

Collaborators in the USA

Are you a University, National Lab or private company developing top-notch Fusion, HTS, Liquid Metals and related technologies?

Join the cause! Contact us at collaborate@renfusion.eu

We are lucky to work or have worked with amazing, energetic students:

Francesca Rita FAMÁ - Università degli Studi della Tuscia

Deborah SELEMON - now at University of York

Simone DEL NERO - Università degli Studi della Tuscia

Paulo FIGUEIREDO - Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon

Loris MEGY - Mines Paris Tech

Sabine OGIER-COLLIN - École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

Remi ROBIN - Sorbonne Université, Paris

Erol BALKOVIC - Case Western Reserve University, now at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

Are you a gifted, resourceful student seeking a research project of 6 months or longer?
Contact us at
collaborate@renfusion.eu or check the FuseNet matchmaking site!

Last but absolutely not the least

We work relentlessly every day to make fusion smaller, faster, cheaper, safer and simpler. We use creativity, agility, originality, passion and hard work, to continuously improve.

We need future rockstars to join our team of 23 people from 10 nationalities. We need bold doers & builders. We need you!