Hele Savin

Hele Irene Savin (née Väinölä; born 1 August 1977 in Imatra) is a Finnish scientist and inventor, best known for her research in solar cells and is a professor of micro and nanoelectronics at Aalto University.¹²³⁴⁵⁶ She is publicly known as an inventor and developer of high-efficiency solar cells using nanostructured, so-called black silicon.²

Savin graduated from the Helsinki University of Technology (now part of Aalto University) with a master's degree in engineering (2000) and a doctorate in technology (2005).¹ Her English-language dissertation, titled Controlling iron and copper Precipitation in Silicon wafers, studied ways in which silicon materials that are used in electronics can be more economical.⁶

During her postgraduate studies, Savin visited the United States as a visiting researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California (2002–2003). As a postdoc researcher, she worked at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Freiburg, Germany (2009–2010). Later, she was a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2013) in Cambridge Massachusetts.⁷

Savin is listed by the U.S. Patent Office as co-inventor of nine patented devices.⁸

Savin received awards for her "pioneering research"⁶ in solar energy development of efficient solar cells with, among other things, the World Economic Forum's Young Scientist Award (2013), and the Parliament's EUR 110,000 Women's Innovation Award (2017).²⁹ She is a member of the Academy of Technical Sciences.⁹