Board of Directors
Francesco VOLPE
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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.
Clea KOLSTER
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Clea is a Partner and the Head of Science at Lowercarbon Capital. She previously worked with electricity resource planning models and economy-wide decarbonization plans for entire states, utilities, and asset owners at San Francisco-based energy consulting firm E3 (see for example this report and this). She also co-founded her own company focused on access to clean cooking fuels in West Africa, having previously worked on clean energy access and investment in East and North Africa. Clea earned her Ph.D. in chemical engineering and energy policy at Imperial College London, with a thesis on the techno-economics of carbon capture, transport networks, and sequestration in the subsurface.
Sylvie RICHARD
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Sylvie holds a master's degree in nuclear engineering from ENSTA Paris, and an Executive MBA from IMD Lausanne. Sylvie began her career as a neutronics engineer at EDF. She then held management positions in nuclear plants until taking over the management of the Tricastin power plant (4 reactors of 900 MWe). After being deputy director of the nuclear production division (56 EDF reactors in France and 2 engineering centers - 23,000 employees), she is, since April 2022, in charge of the French nuclear fleet Long Term Operation Program overseeing major maintenance and modifications, for an annual CAPEX budget of 4.7 billion euros.
Simon BELKA
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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.
Giorgio ANANIA
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Giorgio has spent 40 years in senior management at high-tech companies, from start-ups to multinationals in the US, UK, France and Germany, including with major operations in China (2,000 staff). He has led three IPOs and raised over $1.7 billion in public and private financing. He is Chairman and CEO at Aledia, a developer of an entirely new technology for making displays using LEDs, and VP of the European public-private partnership Photonics21. Previously he was CEO of Bookham (now Oclaro), number 2 worldwide in telecom lasers, which he grew from a start-up into a $250 million/year NASDAQ- and LSE-listed public company, Chairman of Sicoya, sold in 2021 to Chinese investors, and of Cube Optics, sold to Huber & Suhner in 2015. Giorgio has an M.A. in physics from Oxford University and a Ph.D. from Princeton University, with a thesis on the “Equilibrium and Stability of Stellarators”.
Founders & Executives
Francesco VOLPE
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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.
Martin KUPP
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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.
Diego CAMMARANO
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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 .
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Simon BELKA
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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.
Technical Leaders
Alexander USOSKIN
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Alexander’s current research interests include the development of consistent methods for processing large-area REBCO coated tapes on an industrial scale, and the investigation of mechanisms responsible for current interchange between the superconductors and normal-metals in the conductor structure. His other interests involve studying film-growth mechanisms, mechanisms of formation of laser-induced surface morphologies, and the optics of semiconductor-based composites. He has 35-year experience in the development of HTS film technologies and authored about 350 publications and 80 patents.
Carlo SBORCHIA
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Carlo has a background in nuclear engineering and a 35 year-long career in nuclear fusion. Employed by the European Commission he worked for major fusion projects such as JET, W7-X and more extensively ITER. He participated in design activities and R&D from 1993 till 2003, then construction from 2007 to 2020. He headed the magnet groups at W7-X and F4E and the ITER vessel division in Cadarache. After a spell in the EU-funded nuclear decommissioning program, he retired from the Commission and joined Renaissance Fusion in February 2023, to pursue his passion for fusion energy and innovation.
Eric FAVRE
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Eric has been the Managing Director of the French subsidiary of COMSOL since 2001. As such, he has overseen a team of 30+ people in the edition of scientific computing software, as well as helping his users to get the most of the software in many different areas of applications. Before that, his work consisted of modeling MHD and induction heating devices for the steel industry, after completing his PhD thesis from Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble on experimental fluid dynamics (Marangoni convection). Eric has been working in the Liquid Metal Team at Renaissance Fusion since June 2023, developing cutting edge technologies for the success of clean energy.
Business Operations
HTS Team
Fusion Teams
Liquid Metal Team
The on-site Renaissance Fusion team proudly works with remote and visiting, world-class advisors and collaborators.
Strategic Commitee
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Stefano BERNARDI
Investor @ Unruly Capital & Smallholding, Scout @ Atomico
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Pjotr VAN SCHOTHORST
Investor @ PVS Investments
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Gijs Van der HULST
Founding Partner @ Positron Ventures
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Business Advisors
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Ezio DAL MASO
Senior Associate @ Stephenson Harwood
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Emmanuel ORTIZ
General Manager @ Three O Construction, formerly @ GE Vernova
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Diane OUANDJI
Manager @ KPMG Canada
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Technical Advisors
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Kazunobu NAGASAKI
Professor @ Kyoto University
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Sergei SMOLENTSEV
Distinguished R&D Staff Member @ ORNL
We are also very grateful to Francesca BOMBARDA (ENEA) and 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
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.
