PhD Story: Leo Huf Campos Braga

I first met the IRIS research group while visiting FBK for the 2009 Researcher’s Night. At the time, I was following a Master in Nano-Micro technologies at UNITN, and IRIS work on 3D image sensors really piqued my interest, as I had worked with CMOS image sensors in Brazil.

Then, in 2010, I started my PhD at FBK-IRIS, where I was able to participate in a large European project, SPADnet. While my main focus was CMOS single photon sensors, this project allowed me to get in contact with many technology areas, such as sensor networking, FPGA, statistics and biomedical imaging physics. This opportunity together with the great support of IRIS team resulted in many accomplishments for me: two times recipient of the best student paper award at the Nuclear Science Symposium (2011 and 2013), two submitted patents, and first author of papers in the most prestigious CMOS conference and journal: ISSCC and JSSC, respectively.

Once I defended my PhD in 2014, I joined NXP Semiconductors Central R&D department. In 2016 I joined EFFECT Photonics, a start-up developing telecommunications modules based on highly integrated InP photonic chips, where I’m now the module engineering manager. In both cases, the experience provided by my PhD, both in technical as well as inter-personal development, were true catapults for my career.