Jo De Wachter

I combine my experience in communication strategies in the high-tech industry with an academic scientific background in Nuclear Physics. I organized the 1st International Nanotech Outreach Workshop (www.studionanobio.be).

I (°1968) earned my BS in Physics (Cum Laude) in 1988 and my MS in Experimental Nuclear Physics (Magna Cum Laude) in 1990, from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.

As a scientific researcher I designed and performed materials research experiments at the particle accelerator facilities of CERN (Switzerland), GSI (Germany), LISOL and imec (Belgium). From my research work and the resulting international collaborations, visits, papers and conference presentations, my interests in science communication grew. I focused on the science-society relationship and the impact of science and technology on society.
In 1997 I started working as a science communicator at the Earth Observation Desk of the Belgian Royal Meteorological Institute, Brussels.
I joined the Marketing and Public Relations Department
of imec (www.imec.be), the world-leading independent research center in
nanoelectronics and nanotechnology, in 1998.
I set up and coordinated 'imecexpo', a science and society research project. Imecexpo examined new nanotech outreach strategies and the nanoscience - society relationship. Imecexpo was a collaboration between imec, RVO-Society (www.rvo-society.be), The Flanders NanoBio Alliance and Ad!dict Creative Lab (www.addictlab.com), a global creative think tank of designers, artists, scientists.
The imecexpo project delivered 3 important outputs: