Simone Cardarelli is the full-time CEO and co-founder of MicroAlign BV since April 2021. He completed his bachelor's and master's studies in Electrical Engineering at the University of L'Aquila, Italy, by graduating cum laude in both academic courses. He has obtained his PhD degree in Photonic Integration at the Eindhoven University of Technology within the Electro-Optical Communication group. His PhD project was about optical fiber-to-chip connection for which he generated results presented at relevant international scientific conferences.