Tonio Buonassisi

Tonio Buonassisi, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, runs a research laboratory with an interdisciplinary focus on photovoltaics (solar energy conversion into electricity). Prof. Buonassisi completed his Ph.D. research at UC Berkeley, with emphasis on understanding and controlling metal-related defects in multicrystalline silicon solar cells. Subsequently, he became a crystal growth scientist at the ribbon-silicon-producing Evergreen Solar, Inc. (Marlborough, Massachusetts), where he was part of the team that developed the next generation crystal growth furnace (the "Quad" platform), and spearheaded cross-team efforts to improve solar cell efficiency and mechanical yield in crystal growth and cell fabrication. Prof. Buonassisi was also a visiting scientist at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Freiburg, Germany), and at the Max-Planck-Institute for Microstructure Physics (Halle, Germany). Aside from teaching class