Ilaria Liorni Wins Young Scientist Award at BioEM2019!

Ilaria Liorni, IT’IS Foundation project leader for wireless power transfer (WPT), was this year's winner of the Arthur Pilla Young Scientist Award presented at BioEM2019, the annual joint meeting of the Bioelectromagnetics Society (BEMS) and the European BioElectromagnetics Association (EBEA), in Montpellier FR, 23 – 28 June 2019. Ilaria's winning presentation, entitled "Physics-based closed coupling factors for evaluating exposures to gradient magnetic fields", was co-authored by Myles Capstick, Sven Kuehn, Esra Neufeld, and Niels Kuster.

In her work, Ilaria presented a new concept for coupling factors used to account for the effect of the inhomogeneity of magnetic fields caused by the steep gradients of, e.g., high-power WPT systems. The coupling factors are used to translate measured magnetic field amplitudes and gradients into induced fields and absorbed power for direct comparison with basic restrictions published in all current guidelines, such as by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The coupling factors were obtained through an extended numerical study and have been strengthened by tethering to physics-based concepts. This new concept based on coupling factors has also been adopted within the draft of the new IEC TC 106 PT63184 standard regarding novel methods for near-field WPT exposure assessment.

The Arthur Pilla Young Scientist Award, awarded to the best presentation by a young scientist at the annual BioEM meeting, is sponsored by the Arthur A. Pilla Research Foundation, to honor Dr. Pilla (1935 – 2015), pioneering bioelectrochemist and global expert on non-invasive electrotherapeutics.

Congratulations Ilaria!