Konarka Technologies Inc. of Lowell, Mass., a maker of products that convert light to energy, announced that scientist Christoph Brabec, formerly its director of polymer photovoltaics, has been named the company's chief technology officer. Before joining Konarka in September 2004 as part of its acquisition of Siemens' organic photovoltaic research group, Brabec was project leader for organic semiconductor devices at Siemens Corporate Technology. Prior to that, he worked with Alan Heeger, Konarka's founding scientist, director and winner of the 2000 Nobel Chemistry Prize for his semiconducting and metallic polymers research. Brabec has authored or co-authored more than 100 papers, filed over 30 patents and presented at numerous technical symposia in the US and Europe.