Emilio Méndez (Lérida, 1949) received his PhD in Physical Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Full professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the State University of New York and director of this university´s Interface Phenomena Institute, he is the author of six patents for microelectronic devices. Méndez, who has carried out important research at IBM´s Thomas J. Watson Institute, is a one-time collaborator of Leo Esaki, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics.

His research has focused on analysing the problems arising in the fabrication and characterisation of solid bodies used in high- technology processes. He has also studied the electronic and optoelectronic properties of semiconductor materials, and his findings on the effects of an electric field on the electronic properties of quantal wells and supernetworks, in addition to the experimental demonstration of the "Stark effect" on quantal wells, are particularly noteworthy. Honorary Member of the American Physics Society, Emilio Méndez sits on the editorial board of Solid State Communications and Semiconductor Science and Technology magazines, and he has been the director of several NATO-sponsored courses on physics and semiconductor applications.