Academician of Science Risto M. Nieminen

Risto M. Nieminen (b. 1948) is widely hailed as a trailblazer and pioneer in the application of nanoscience and materials physics within scientific research. He has acquired versatile expertise in computational material physics.

Nieminen has held a number of significant scientific positions at key universities and research centres both in Finland and abroad, including Helsinki University of Technology, now Aalto University, CSC – the IT Center for Science, the University of Jyväskylä, the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (Nordita) in Denmark and Sweden, Cornell University in the US and the University of Cambridge in the UK. He defended his DSc thesis in 1975. Between 2000 and 2013, Nieminen headed the Academy of Finland’s Centre of Excellence in Computational Nanoscience at Aalto University.

He has also received an honorary prize by the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation as an acknowledgement for his remarkable merits in scientific research and contributions to Finnish science. He was named Professor of the Year in 2003 by the Finnish Union of University Professors (FUUP).

Nieminen received the honorary title of Academician of Science in 2014.