Kris Lipinska is the scientific group leader of FAME, Functional Advanced Materials for Energy technologies, Materials Research Group at the Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies of the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV).

Kris is an Associate Research Professor at UNLV. After her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Phys.& Chem. Sciences and Materials Sciences, she joined the group of Prof. William Hayes at Clarendon Lab. of Oxford University (UK) as a postdoctoral scholar working on optical spectroscopy and laser materials. Before joining UNLV, Kris held research and contract professor positions at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris, France), the International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP, Trieste, Italy), Trento University, (Trento, Italy), the Italian Agency for Nuclear & Alternative Energy Sources (ENEA, Frascati, Italy) and Waseda University (Tokyo, Japan).

Her main research interests include fundamental studies at the interface between physics and materials science, especially the optical properties of nanocrystals and nanoscale energy transfer processes as well as design of artificially made materials with engineered structure and tunable properties.

Kris has recently set up a new Materials at Extreme Environments Lab combined with Growth and Advanced Treatment of Materials Lab at the Harry Reid Center of UNLV. She is setting up a Laser Spectroscopy Lab., which is currently equipped with a state-of-the-art Raman Spectroscopy setup and wich will have more instrumentation added in the near future..