Professor Antonio Helio Castro Neto is a distinguished leader and world-renowned expert in the field of two-dimensional materials research. He currently serves as Co-Director of the Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials and Director of the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials at the National University of Singapore. After earning his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1994, he established his academic career with postdoctoral research at the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by faculty appointments at the University of California, Riverside and Boston University. His pivotal transition to the National University of Singapore in 2010 marked the beginning of his transformative leadership in graphene research, where he founded the Graphene Research Centre that later evolved into the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials in 2014.
Professor Castro Neto's groundbreaking theoretical work has fundamentally shaped the understanding of graphene and other two-dimensional materials, with his research encompassing electronic properties, superconductivity, twistronics, and strain engineering across various systems. His extensive publication record includes over 400 manuscripts in prestigious journals such as Science, Nature Materials, and Physical Review Letters, accumulating more than 108,580 citations with an h-index of 126 according to Google Scholar. His theoretical frameworks have provided critical insights into vacancy effects, bilayer graphene properties, and Coulomb blockade phenomena, establishing foundational knowledge for the entire field of 2D materials science. The exceptional impact of his research has been recognized through his consistent ranking among the top 1% of physics researchers worldwide, including recognition by Thomson Reuters in 2016 and by Clarivate Analytics from 2017 to 2019.
Beyond his research contributions, Professor Castro Neto has demonstrated exceptional leadership by founding and directing major research initiatives that have positioned Singapore as a global hub for 2D materials research. He established the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials in 2014, which has fostered significant industrial collaborations and applications across energy, water, food, and environmental sectors. His entrepreneurial vision led to the creation of three science spinoff companies: 2D Materials (2015), MADE Advanced Materials (2017), and Graphene Watts (2019), though he has since closed these ventures as part of his strategic research translation approach. As a Distinguished Professor at NUS with appointments across Material Science Engineering, Physics, and Electrical and Computer Engineering, and as Colloquia Editor for Reviews of Modern Physics, he continues to shape the global research agenda while mentoring the next generation of materials scientists and physicists.
