About Us

We build the path from spark to discovery. Under one roof, we unite frontier research and talent development. Frontiers is the home of curiosity-driven discovery in Hungary.

— From Spark to Discovery —

LEADERSHIP AND BOARDS

Board of Trustees

Ferenc Krausz

Chair of the Board, Initiator of the Foundation
Nobel Laureate in Physics , 2023

Ferenc Krausz is the Director of the Max-Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) and a Professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, as well as the Initiator of the Frontiers Foundation. He also serves as CEO and Scientific Director of the Center for Molecular Fingerprinting (CMF), Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the AS250 – International Charitable Foundation for Talent Development, and Founder and Member of the Board of Trustees of the MATFIN Foundation.
He and his colleagues were the first to create attosecond light pulses, allowing for the direct observation of electron motion. This breakthrough led to the emergence of attosecond physics, which has applications in early disease detection.
He has received prestigious awards for his work, including the King Faisal Scientific Prize and the Wolf Prize in Physics. In 2023, he was also honored with the "Frontiers of Knowledge Award", and in 2023, the Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Ferenc Krausz, Pierre Agostini, and Anne L’Huillier. (PC: Magyar Nemzet / András Éberling)

Steven Chu

Board Member of the Frontiers Foundation
Nobel Laureate in Physics , 1997

Steven Chu is a physicist, energy scientist, and Nobel Laureate renowned for his pioneering work in laser cooling and trapping of atoms, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 alongside Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William D. Phillips.

His career is marked by interdisciplinary achievements, bridging physics, biology, and environmental science, and he remains active in energy innovation and climate policy.

He is Professor of Physics, Molecular and Cellular Physiology, and Energy Science and Engineering at Stanford University. Chu is a member of several prestigious academies and societies, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Inventors. He is also a foreign member of the Royal Society, in the United Kingdom, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academia Sinica, the Korean Academy of Science and Technology, and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

László Lovász

Board Member of the Frontiers Foundation
Abel-Prize winning Mathematician, 2021

László Lovász is a Hungarian-American mathematician widely recognized for his foundational contributions to discrete mathematics, combinatorics and theoretical computer science. He is Professor Emeritus at Eötvös Loránd University and Research Professor at the HUN-REN Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics. He served as President of the International Mathematical Union from 2007 to 2010 and as President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 2014 to 2020.

His many distinctions include the Wolf Prize, the Gödel Prize and the Kyoto Prize. In 2021, he was awarded the Abel Prize jointly with Avi Wigderson for foundational contributions to theoretical computer science and discrete mathematics.

His work has had a major impact on graph theory, combinatorics, algorithms and the interface between mathematics and computer science; concepts and results associated with his name include the Lovász Local Lemma and the LLL lattice reduction algorithm.

Randy Schekman

Board Member of the Frontiers Foundation
Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 2013

Dr. Randy Schekman is a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

He studied the enzymology of DNA replication as a graduate student with Arthur Kornberg at Stanford University. His current interest in cellular membranes developed during a postdoctoral period with S. J. Singer at the UC Diego.

Among his awards are the Gairdner International Award, the Albert Lasker Award in Basic Medical Research and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with James Rothman and Thomas Südhof.
He served as the Editor of the Annual Reviews of Cell and Developmental Biology and as Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and eLife.

Beginning in 2018, Schekman has served as the Scientific Director of “Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s Disease” a major philanthropic effort organized along with The Michael J. Fox Foundation to identify molecular and cellular mechanisms in the initiation and progression of Parkinson’s Disease.

Schekman’s laboratory investigates the mechanism of vesicular traffic in the secretory pathway in eukaryotic cells. Currently the lab focuses on the unconventional secretion of extracellular vesicles and of soluble proteins, such as alpha-synuclein. The means by which alpha-synuclein is released by nerve cells may relate to the spread of pathology in Parkinson’s Disease.

Donna Strickland

Board Member of the Frontiers Foundation
Nobel Laureate in Physics , 2018

Donna Strickland is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo and is one of the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 for developing chirped pulse amplification with Gérard Mourou, her PhD supervisor at the time.

They published this Nobel-winning research in 1985 when Strickland was a PhD student at the University of Rochester in New York state. Together they paved the way toward the most intense laser pulses ever created.

Strickland was a research associate at the National Research Council Canada, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a member of technical staff at Princeton University. In 1997, she joined the University of Waterloo, where her ultrafast laser group develops high-intensity laser systems for nonlinear optics investigations.

Strickland was named a Companion of the Order of Canada. She is a recipient of a Sloan Research Fellowship, a Premier’s Research Excellence Award and a Cottrell Scholar Award. Strickland served as the president of the Optical Society (OSA) in 2013. She is a fellow of OSA and SPIE, the Royal Society of Canada and the Royal Society. She is an honorary fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering as well as the Institute of Physics. She is an international member of the US National Academy of Science. Strickland earned a PhD in optics from the University of Rochester and a B.Eng. from McMaster University.

Management

Markó Madaras

Director General

Markó Madaras is the Director General of the Frontiers Foundation, who, under the supervision of the Board of Trustees, coordinates the organization’s strategic leadership as well as its professional and legal operations. He oversees the high-level execution of the Foundation’s research and talent development programs and represents the Foundation both nationally and internationally.

As Director General, he also manages the Foundation’s organizational structure, exercises employer responsibilities, and oversees budget planning and the effective utilization of the Foundation’s assets. His strategic focus centers on supporting the Board of Trustees’ decision-making, optimizing business processes, attracting top talent, and achieving both short- and long-term objectives.

Péter Dombi

Chief Scientific Officer

Péter Dombi is a research professor of experimental physics focusing on research in ultrafast science, laser physics and nanophotonics.

Until his appointment as Chief Scientific Officer of Frontiers Foundation, he was also acting as the founding head of the Ultrafast Science and Applications Division of the ELI Laser Facility in Szeged, Hungary. In 2023, he was elected to become Chairman of the Laser Physics Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

He is particularly active in mentoring young researchers with 12 PhD supervisions in his career and several other master and bachelor thesis supervisions at different universities.

He received several national and international recognitions including the International Dennis Gábor Award, the Selényi Award and the Physics Prize of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Top researchers

Botond Roska

Frontiers Fellow

Botond Roska is a Hungarian neuroscientist redefining how we understand and restore vision. As professor at the University of Basel and founding director of the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel, he leads research investigating vision – our most precious sensory tool enabling intelligent interaction with our environment.

His work has enabled the partial restoration of vision in blind patients using optogenetic therapies. By combining molecular biology, genetics, and advanced imaging, he connects fundamental research with clinical applications. His research is already translating into therapies moving towards clinical use.

Roska is a Wolf Prize Laureate and a key scientist in bringing breakthrough discoveries in neuroscience to patients.