Dr. Amrit De is the CEO and Chief Scientist of Apsidal – a company at the forefront of manufacturing advanced materials in space. Dr. De received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Iowa in 2009 and also holds M.S and B.E degrees in Electrical Engineering. He specializes in Photonics, semiconductor devices, and quantum information. Dr. De has authored over 32 publications with more than 1000 citations. His papers on optoelectronic manipulation of semiconductor nanostructures for quantum information processing, along with his seminal papers on the electronic structure of group-IV and III-V semiconductors, are highly cited and included in the prestigious Landolt & Bornstein semiconductor database. Dr. De has also peer-reviewed over 70 papers for top-tier journals such as Nature, APS, AIP, Springer, and Elsevier. In 2022, as PI, he and his Apsidal team launched their ZBLAN fiber optics manufacturing module to the ISS , within 18 months of starting their NASA InSPA contract. His team conducted 21 rounds of fiber draws and engaged in extensive, months-long metrology on the ISS, which helped them gain invaluable insights into space-based manufacturing.