Fiorenzo Omenetto

Fiorenzo (Fio) G. Omenetto is the Frank C. Doble Professor of Engineering in the Biomedical Engineering Department and also holds appointments in the Department of Physics and the Department of Electrical Engineering at Tufts University, USA. He received a PhD from Università di Pavia in 1997. His research interests are in the convergence of technology, biologically inspired materials, and the natural sciences with an emphasis on new, transformative approaches for sustainable materials for high-technology applications and solutions for global health and sustainability.

He has proposed and pioneered the use of silk as a material platform for advanced technology with uses in photonics, optoelectronics, and nanotechnology applications, and he is a co-inventor on several disclosures on the subject. His technologies are licensed by major corporations and he is the scientific co-founder of multiple companies that range from room temperature vaccine and food preservation, to coral-reef safe reflecting powders for sunscreen.

Omenetto was formerly a J. Robert Oppenheimer Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratories, a Guggenheim Fellow, a recipient of the Tällberg Global Leadership prize, and is a Fellow of Optica, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Physical Society. His research has been featured extensively in the press with coverage in the most important media outlets worldwide. In 2025, he received the R. W. Wood Prize, “For pioneering silk-based optics, photonics, and optoelectronics with uses across multiple disciplines at the interface of biology and technology including applications in sustainability, global health, and food safety.”