Team
Matteo Rinaldi, PhD
Matteo Rinaldi, PhD
Director
Matteo Rinaldi is a Full Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Northeastern University and the Director of the Kostas Nanotechnology Laboratory and the Director of Northeastern SMART a university research center that, by fostering partnership between university, industry and government stakeholders, focuses on the discovery, pilot manufacturing and rapid transition of new micro and nano systems technologies that are foundational for emerging paradigms like zero-power sensing, 5G/6G communications, artificial intelligence, quantum information science and nanomedicine. Dr. Rinaldi received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in December 2010. He worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in 2011 and he joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Northeastern University as an Assistant Professor in January 2012. Dr. Rinaldi’s group has been actively working on experimental research topics and practical applications to ultra-low power MEMS/NEMS sensors (infrared, magnetic, chemical and biological), plasmonic micro and nano electromechanical devices, medical micro systems and implantable micro devices for intra-body networks, reconfigurable radio frequency devices and systems, phase change material switches, 2D material enabled micro and nano mechanical devices.
The research in Dr. Rinaldi’s group is supported by several Federal grants (including DARPA, ARPA-E, NSF, DHS), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Keck Foundation with funding of $20+M since 2012.
Dr. Rinaldi has co-authored more than 180 publications in the aforementioned research areas and also holds 13 patents and more than 10 device patent applications in the field of MEMS/NEMS.
Dr. Rinaldi was the recipient of the IEEE Sensors Council Early Career Award in 2015, the NSF CAREER Award in 2014 and the DARPA Young Faculty Award class of 2012. He received the Best Student Paper Award at the 2009, 2011, 2015 (with his student), 2017 (with his student) and 2020 (with his student) IEEE International Frequency Control Symposiums; the Outstanding Paper Award at the 18th International Conference on Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems, Transducers 2015 (with his student) and the Outstanding Paper Award at the 32nd IEEE International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, MEMS 2019 (with his student).
Prof. Rinaldi is the founder and CEO of Zepsor Technologies, a start-up company that aims to bring to market zero standby power wireless sensors for various internet of things applications including human presence detection, distributed wireless fire monitoring systems, battery-less infrared sensor tags for occupancy sensing and distributed wireless monitoring systems of plant health parameters for digital agriculture.
Prof. Rinaldi is also the owner of Smart MicroTech Consulting LLC, a company that routinely provides consulting services to government agencies, large companies and startups in the broad areas of Micro and Nano Technologies, Internet of Things, Wireless Communication devices and systems, Radio Frequency Devices and Systems and Sensors.
Zhenyun Qian, PhD
Zhenyun Qian, PhD
Research Faculty
Zhenyun Qian (S’13–M’17) received the B.S. degree in electronic science and engineering from Southeast University, Nanjing, China, in 2011, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA, in 2013 and 2017, respectively. He is currently serving as a Research Faculty at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Northeastern University. He has published more than 40 papers in high-impact journals and at premier conferences. He also holds several device patents or applications in the field of micro/nano electromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS). His research interests include piezoelectric MEMS/NEMS resonators, 2-D materials enhanced nano devices, low-power/zero-power sensors (infrared, magnetic, and chemical), MEMS-based radio frequency devices, and micromechanical switches.
Dr. Qian was the recipient of the Outstanding Paper Award at the 18th International Conference on Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems (Transducers 2015) and the Best Paper Award at the 2017 European Frequency and Time Forum and International Frequency Control Symposium.
Wenjun Zhang, PhD, MBA
Wenjun Zhang, PhD, MBA
Assistant Director of Finance and Administration
Wenjun Zhang received her B.S. in Chemistry in 2011 from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) focusing on novel nanotechnologies and nanomaterials. She obtained her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Engineering in 2016 focusing on medical devices from Northeastern University with 16 peer-reviewed papers and an awarded and licensed patent “Salivary Glucose Monitoring System”. She was the receipt of 2016 Outstanding Graduate Student Research Award in Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering. Prior joining SMART center, she has worked at College of Engineering at Northeastern as a Sr. Research Scientist from 2016 to 2018.
She obtained her PMP (Project Management Professional) Certificate in September 2018. She has experience in project management, design thinking, market analysis, technology transfer, and business development. She further sharpened her acumen and skills in business and management obtaining a MBA in August 2021. She was selected to be the Commencement Speaker at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business Graduation Ceremony (https://youtu.be/b5OU1R3Ra24).