Dr. Julien Gorenflot is a research scientist in charge of developing FAIR (Findable Accessible Interoperable Reusable) data in the division of Physical Science and Engineering in KAUST. 15 years of research in the field of photovoltaics made him realize how powerful, yet how impossible, it is to assemble data across projects, across laboratories, across universities. As a matter of fact results can barely be re-used past their initial publication, a major obstacle to their transfer to industrial applications. Other critical problems are the lack of verifiability of results, fueling the current reproducibility and retraction crisis and a gradual loss of trust in science. Realizing that this all comes down to a lack of consistency in data collection and transmission, he is now dedicating himself to defining standards and formats in close collaboration with the FAIRmat consortium in Germany, implementing them at the heart of experimental setups with the help of their users, training users and raising awareness on the critical question of research data management, and most recently developing a research data management policy to foster a better documented hence more reliable, reproducible and reproducible science. 

Bibliographic bullet points:

February 2025: started the team developing KAUST’s Research Data Management Policy.

July 2024: starting a new life as a FAIR data implementer.

July 2018: became research scientist, with mission to lead the organic photovoltaic research in the group of Professor Frédéric Laquai.

February 2016: joined KAUST as a postdoctoral fellow.

2015: postdoctoral fellow in the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany.

July 2015: PhD from the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy of Würzburg, Germany as a Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher within the Research Training SolarNType.

Until 2008: life and studies in France: Meaux, Mende, Sarlat-la-Caneda, Pau, Strasbourg, Toulouse

Easter 1981: born in France, on a hill close to Paris, grew up with the Eiffel tower light at the Western window and the Sleeping Beauty Castle (Eurodisneyland park) at the Eastern window.