Riccardo Bertacco is full professor at the Physics Department of Politecnico di Milano. He is the head of the Nanobiotechnology and Spintronics group (http://nabis.fisi.polimi.it) of the Physics Department. Starting from a background on electron spectroscopy and surface magnetism, the research activity of R. Bertacco is nowadays devoted to the investigation of fundamental spintronics and to the applications of magnetism to biology and medicine. Since 2012 he has been responsible for the realization of Polifab (http://polifab.polimi.it), the new facility for micro and nanofabrication of Politecnico di Milano, consisting in a clean room of 360 m2 and characterization laboratories. Currently he is the deputy director of Polifab; he coordinates the activities of the technical staff and negotiates contracts with internal and external users.