Joachim John was born in Freiburg, Germany on November 8, 1966. He received his diploma degree in physics at the Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg in 1993. He received his Ph.D in physics at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland in 1997. From 1990 to 1993 he joined the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques in Freiburg, Germany, doing research and development on semiconductor mid-infrared (IR) laser. From 1993 to 1998 he worked first as a Junior Scientist later as a Senior Scientist on photovoltaic mid-IR sensor arrays at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland. In 1998 he joined the Interuniversity Micro Electronic Centre (imec) in Leuven, Belgium, where he is presently Management Team Member and Program Manager in the PV department. Joachim John is Session Chairman, Scientific Committee member and Organizing Committee member of the EU PVSEC, IEEE PVSC, Si-PV/n-PV and the SNEC conference, respectively. He is paper reviewer for Progress in Photovoltaics, SOLMAT, IEEE and Electrochemical society. Since 2014 he is expert team member of the PV Technology Platform of the European Commission. He published more than 150 papers, gave more than 40 invited presentations and holds 4 patents. In his academic career he has supervised more than 50 internship and PhD students. Dr. John is currently working on the industrial crystalline silicon solar cell process improvement and device physics pushing towards higher conversion efficiencies and lower cost.