From Habilis to Steve Jobs: Two Million Years of Technology

Massimo Guarnieri was born near Venice, Italy, in 1955. He received the Laurea (Hons.) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Padua in 1979; the Diploma in Plasma and Thermonuclear Fusion Research in 1982; an MBA from CUOA (Italy) in 1985; and the Ph.D. in Electrical Science from the University of Rome in 1987. He joined the Italian National Research Council in 1982 and the University of Padua in 1983, where he has been a Full Professor of Electrical Engineering since 2000.For more than twenty years, his research focused on electromagnetic systems and power supplies for magnetic-confinement thermonuclear fusion experiments, mostly Eta-Beta II and RFX. He led the RFX Magnetic System Group, responsible for the device’s major magnetic systems (diameters up to 8 m, 50 kA, 200 kV).Over the following twenty-four years, his work centered on the computational and experimental activities on fuel cells and electrochemical energy-storage systems, including flow batteries and Li-ion technologies. He established the Electrochemical Energy Storage and Conversion Laboratory (EESCoLab) and the Electrical Engineering Computation Laboratory at the University of Padua, and founded E-Storage Engineering, a university spin-off company.His broader research interests include numerical methods for electromagnetic and multiphysics problems, as well as the history of technology and science.He became a member of ICS in 2008, IEEE in 2012, and ECS in 2014. He served as the University of Padua’s representative in N.ERGHY, the EU research association in the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Technology Initiative, and in the Energy Storage Joint Programme of EERA, the European Energy Research Alliance. He was Chair of the Technological Committee of Flow Batteries Europe and a member of its Executive Board. He currently chairs the History Activity Committee of the IEEE Italy Section.He is an expert evaluator for the European Commission’s Funding and Tenders Portal, contributing to Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe, ERC, MSCA, ETN, and ITN programmes. He served on the IEEE European Public Policy Committee Working Group on Energy.He has conceived and coordinated numerous scientific projects funded by national and European agencies, including, recently, a €4.4M MSCA project and a €3.5M MASE-PNRR project. He has also led multiple research projects funded by private industry and has promoted scientific cooperation through agreements with major institutions, including:– Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (Japan)– University of Tennessee, Knoxville (USA)– Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT (USA)as well as collaborations with Vanderbilt University, Fraunhofer ICT, Skoltech, Chalmers University of Technology, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Eindhoven University of Technology, Imperial College London, and the University of Cambridge.He is a Historical Columnist, Associate Editor, and Editorial Board Member of IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine.His scientific output includes more than 350 publications (190 indexed in Scopus), spanning journal articles, conference proceedings, and several textbooks, as well as six patents. He appears in Stanford University’s “World’s Top 2% Scientists” ranking (career and yearly lists 2021–2024). He was acknowledged by the Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers for his contribution to the 2024 Economic Report of the President.

• The age of revolutions.- International expansion of the industrial revolution.- Electrotechnics and new materials.- Toward industrial maturity.- Second industrial revolution.- Machines and mobility in the late 1800s.- Emerging technologies of the early 20th century.- A more accessible world.- From the great depression to world war ii.- World war ii.- Third industrial revolution.- The age of space and information.- At the dawn of the third millennium.- Technology and us.- Bibliography.- Indexes.