29 April 2009

Solar cell inventor, Scientia Professor Stuart Wenham, has won the top prize at the 2009 Inventor of the Year awards hosted by New South Innovations, UNSW’s technology commercialisation company.

Professor Wenham is a world-leading solar cell inventor who heads UNSW’s ARC Photovoltaic Centre of Excellence. In a career spanning more than a quarter of a century, he has invented or co-invented eight suites of solar cell technologies that have been licensed to solar cell makers around the world, including Suntech-Power, BP Solar and Samsung. These companies have annual production volumes valued at hundreds of millions of dollars in an industry that is now the world’s fastest-growing energy sector.

Eleven UNSW inventors were short-listed as finalists across four inventor award categories – biomedicine, science and engineering, the environment, and information and communication technology. The winners of each award category were nominees for the overall Inventor of the Year award.

In June Professor Wenham will head to the US to receive the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ William Cherry Award for outstanding contributions to the advancement of photovoltaic science and technology. In addition to the Inventor of the Year award, Professor Wenham also won the environment award.

Read the full story at the NSi website: http://www.nsinnovations.com.au/news/2009-04-24~solar_cell_inventor_wins_nsi-ioy_award.html

Scientia Professor Stuart Wenham.