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Arno Smets

Prof. Dr. Ir. at Delft University of Technology

About me

Prof. Dr. Arno Smets is professor in Solar Energy and Director of Extension School Education at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Smets research focuses on the development of technologies that convert solar energy in to useful forms of energy, like electricity or artificial fuels. In a bi-lateral collaboration with HyET Solar he currently works on materials, device architectures, processing, and up-scalable lab-to-fab solutions that contribute to a circular value chain of lightweight and flexible thin-film silicon PV technologies and applications. In his role as director of Extension School education he is responsible for development of life-long learning programs and portfolio’s in the engineering topics like Energy Transition, Sustainable Cities, Future Transport, Quantum Technology, Medical Technologies, Digital Societies and Engineering skills. As lecturer he developed and is offering courses in renewable energies and solar energy engineering in both on-campus BSc & MSc programs and online courses and programs to reach out to the continuing education needs of professionals. He is co-author of the academic textbook ‘Solar Energy, the physics and engineering of photovoltaic conversion technologies and systems’. Smets received his PhD in 2002 at Eindhoven University of Technology. From 2005-2009 he worked as a visiting researcher at AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) in Tsukuba In Japan. He received the edX Award (Paris, 2016) and has been appointed as Mission Innovation Champion (Vancouver, 2019).