Prof. Luciano Mule Stagno, COST new Scientific Committee Chair
On 17 May 2021, Prof. Luciano Mule Stagno joined the COST Association as the new Scientific Committee Chair for the next three years. He is succeeding Dr Jari Hämäläinen.
Prof. Luciano Mule Stagno is the Director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy and Group Leader of the Solar Research Lab at the University of Malta. Prof Luciano has been involved with COST for over 10 years and since 2018, is a member of the Scientific Committee.
“The reason COST remains so popular among European researchers is that it is a unique program that focuses on establishing connections. Whether a leading researcher in your field or a newly minted PhD, you want to meet, discuss, learn, and exchange ideas with your peers in your field. Moreover, the topics chosen for COST Actions are often inter-disciplinary making them even more interesting. COST Actions advance science, result in new ideas and research proposals. This helps advance under-represented groups and countries within Europe. I have been involved with COST for over 10 years in many roles and have had the privilege to observe first-hand how fruitful a successful Action can be. It is therefore a privilege and an honour to contribute to the COST mission,” says Prof Luciano Mule Stagno.
Previously, Prof Luciano was the Director of Worldwide Labs with responsibility for labs in Asia, Europe, and the US. His major expertise is in the characterisation, engineering and synthesis of semiconductor and solar materials.
Prior to this, he was CEO of Heritage Malta from 2007 until 2009. He is currently Vice-president of Din L-Art Helwa, the National Trust of Malta.
Dr Orla Murphy COST new Scientific Committee Vice Chair
Dr Orla Murphy is an expert in Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage as well as in Critical Digital Pedagogy. She is the Head of the Discipline of Digital Humanities at University College Cork (UCC), Ireland where she is the Director and co-Creator of their innovative BA program in Digital Humanities and Information Technology.
Over the past decade, Dr Orla Murphy has been a consistent advocate of COST and part of COST Actions as both ordinary member and through a variety of initiatives from steering committee to communication and publication.
“Valorising expert knowledge is at the core of my engagement with COST over the past decade. The pressing need for international cooperation through expertise in science is critically evident across all domains in contemporary society. I see the value of COST and its impact in enabling scientists to network and learn from each other in a variety of contexts. Empowering transformative, bottom-up, blue-sky research is so relevant. We need to support researchers, invest in excellent science, and promote multidisciplinarity to open up opportunities for innovation outside of top-down approaches. It is my privilege to serve my colleagues and the COST agenda in this role,” says Dr Orla Murphy.
Prior to this, Dr Orla Murphy was Named Digital Champion in UCC, as one of the inaugural Fulbright TechImpact scholars in 2015 travelling to research applications of 3D in museum settings in Boston. She was awarded a National Teaching Expert Award by the Irish National Forum for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 2014. Her current research is on the embedding of foundational Digital Literacies as critical competences in Higher Education Institutions.
COST Scientific Committee gathers experts and researchers acting independently and playing a central role in the overall supervision and quality control of procedures related to the submission, evaluation and selection of proposals and the monitoring of COST Actions. The Scientific Committee serves as advisory body to the Committee of Senior Officials on the development of COST Science &Technology strategy.