Plamen Atanassov graduated from the University of Sofia (1987) with an MSc in Chemical Physics & Theoretical Chemistry. He joined the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) and become a Member of Technical Staff of its Central Laboratory of Electrochemical Power Sources (now the Institute for Electrochemistry & Power Systems). His initial work included materials solutions for metal-air batteries. He was a visiting scientist at the Frumkin’s Institute of Electrochemistry, Moscow, Russia studying bio-electrochemistry of enzymes and received a PhD in Physical Chemistry/ Electrochemistry from BAS for his work on enzyme biosensors.
Dr. Atanassov moved to the United States in 1992 and became a research faculty with the University of New Mexico (UNM). During the 90s he was involved in development of a several electrochemical biosensor technologies for biomedical, environmental, food safety and defense applications. In 1999 Plamen Atanassov joined Superior MicroPowders LLC (acquired later by Cabot Corp.), were he was a project leader in fuel cell electrocatalysts development, and introduced spray pyrolysis for catalyst synthesis on industrial scale. He returned to UNM in 2000 as faculty member of the Chemical & Nuclear Engineering department. In 2007 Dr. Atanassov founded the UNM Center for Emerging Energy Technologies (CEET). From January 2012 to December 2013 Dr. Atanassov was the Associate Dean for Research of the UNM School of Engineering. July of 2015 Dr. Atanassov was promoted to a Distinguished Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering and Chemistry & Chemical Biology. From January 2015 to September 2018 he served as director of the UNM Center for Micro-Engineered Materials (CMEM).
Starting October 2018 Dr. Atanassov joined University of California, Irvine where he is a Chancellor’s Professor with Henry Samueli School of Engineering, with the newly formed Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, holding secondary appointments with Materials Science & Engineering and with Chemistry. He is also affiliated with Los Alamos National Laboratory and is honorary professor of The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. He served as a Vice-President of the International Society of Electrochemistry (2015-2017) and is a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society. In 2018 he was inducted in the National Academy of Inventors.