José Rivas is a co-founder of NANOGAP and Full Professor of Applied Physics of the University of Santiago de Compostela from 1982 and director of the recent created Spanish-Portuguese International Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL, Braga, Portugal). He has more than 250 publications in international journals and is the owner of several patents. He is a member of the EMRC Steering Committee for the Scientific Forward Look Nanomedicine Strategic Plan (2002-2006) and shares with Prof. López-Quintela the 1998 Burdinola Prize in New Chemistry Nanotechnologies.