New executive director for National Institute for Nanotechnology

Edmonton, AB – An expert in nano-electronics will lead Canada’s National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT) into its second decade. The NINT governing council has named Dr Marie D’Iorio as its new executive director. Trained as a physicist, Dr D’Iorio’s expertise is in nano-electronics. She had been acting as NINT’s interim director general since last year. 

During her time as acting director general of NINT, Dr D’Iorio led the strategic planning process for NINT’s second decade. The resulting plan aims to increase industrial collaboration and re-organize the institute’s research and development activities into four application areas, including energy generation storage and hybrid nano-scale electronics. 

 “Nanotechnology can help Canadian companies be more competitive and NINT is key to them finding the right applications for their sector,” said John R McDougall, president of the National Research Council of Canada. “Marie D’Iorio’s mission is to expand NINT’s engagement with Canadian industry and help them benefit from the potential of small tech.” 

Dr D’Iorio joined NRC in 1983, where she established the first very low temperature, high magnetic field laboratory in Canada to study low dimensional electron systems in semiconductor heterostructures. She served as director general of the National Research Council of Canada Institute for Microstructural Sciences from 2003 to 2011. 

She obtained a PhD in solid-state physics in 1982 from the University of Toronto, and then spent a year as a post-doctoral fellow at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory in Switzerland.

The National Institute for Nanotechnology is a research and technology development organization working at the nano-scale.  Founded in 2001, it is a joint initiative of the National Research Council of Canada, the University of Alberta, and the Alberta and federal governments.