Dr. Maria Mitkova received her BS in Semiconductor Materials and Devices Technology and PhD in Technical Sciences from the Technological University in Sofia, Bulgaria. She was professor at the Technological University and Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and has worked in the research and development of Ovonic memory devices in the Institute for Microelectronics. Since 1997 she has worked in the USA - at the University of Cincinnati and Arizona State University. Dr. Mitkova joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Boise State University in November 2006.

Her research interests are in the field of amorphous semiconductors, their characterization and application as optical and electronic memory media. She has specialized in a number of Ag-containing chalcogenide systems and their application in ionic nonvolatile programmable metallization cell memory devices, optical displays, MEMS and devices for microfluidic control.

Dr. Mitkova holds six US patents; she is co-author of three books, five invited chapters in books and over 100 scientific papers in journals and conference proceedings. She is a member of the American Physics Society, Materials Research Society, American Society for Engineering Education, and fellow of the Selenium, Tellurium Developing Association - Brussels, Belgium. She was involved as a consultant with Hoechst AG, Frankfurt/Main, Germany; European Media Laboratory GmbH, Heidelberg, Germany; Micron Technology Inc., Boise/Idaho; Infineon AG, Munich, Germany; Nanochip Inc. Fremont/California; and Tower Semiconductor LTD. Tel Aviv, Israel.