The University of Queensland (UQ)

Professor Debra Bernhardt is internationally recognised for her contributions to the development of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics and thermodynamics including far-from-equilibrium fluids and confined fluids. She is a Fellow of Australian Academy of Science and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and an ARC Australian Laureate Fellow. Professor Bernhardt’s 30 years of research experience includes appointments at the University of Basel, Switzerland; the Australian National University; and Griffith University, where she was founding director of the Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre. Professor Bernhardt's research interests focus on the use of a range of theoretical and computational approaches to develop a fundamental understanding of the behaviour of matter, and application of these approaches to a wide range of problems including transport in nanopores, fluctuation phenomena, design of materials, gas separation, energy storage and conversion. Professor Bernhardt has collaborated with researchers at many institutions including Politecnico di Torino, Italy; The University of Sheffield, UK; University of Bonn, Germany; Jilin and Nanjin University, China; and Clark-Atlanta University, USA. She has had collaborative research projects with researchers at the Air Force Research Laboratories at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, NASA Langley Research Laboratories, National Institute of Aerospace in the US and Chinese Academy of Science. Professor Bernhardt currently has a collaborative project with researchers at NIMS and the University of Tokyo funded by the Foundation for Australia-Japan Studies (FAJS).

University of Science and Technology of China (USTC)

Professor Qunfeng Cheng is a professor in the School of Nano Science and Technology of Suzhou Institute for Advanced Research, USTC in China. Dr. Cheng's research has discovered and experimentally confirmed for the first time the void defects in the two-dimensional nanocomposites induced by capillary contraction. Dr. Cheng has developed a new strategy of sequential bridging and nanoconfinement assembly to cure the void defects. Dr. Cheng has achieved dense and high alignment of two-dimensional nanosheets assembly, created two-dimensional nanocomposites with excellent mechanical and electrical properties, which surpass carbon fiber composites. Dr. Cheng also explored their applications in aerospace, flexible electronic devices, biomedical engineering, and other fields. Dr. Cheng has published more than 100 papers including 3 papers in Science, 1 paper in Nature, 1 paper in Nat. Mater., 4 papers in Nat. Commun., 2 papers Sci. Adv., 5 papers in PNAS with over 12,000 citations, and a Google Scholar h-index of 63. He has authorized 40 Chinese patents and has authored the book “Bioinspired Layered Two-dimensional Nanocomposites". He si the Winner of National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, 2021, Young Scientist Award of the Chinese Society for Composite Materials (2021-11-25), Mao Yisheng Science and Technology Award – Beijing Youth Science and Technology Award (2021-05-11), Beijing Outstanding Young Talent – Zhongguancun Award (2021-10-13), Meituan Green Hill Science and Technology Award (2023-05-25), and the Xplorer Prize (2024-10-18).

National University of Singapore (NUS)

 Dr. Zhiqun Lin is a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the National University of Singapore. He received his Ph.D. degree in Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2002. The Lin Research Group in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the National University of Singapore. Their research focuses on Nanostructured Materials for Energy (NanoME). Major research thrusts in this area include functional materials for energy conversion and storage (e.g., solar cells, photocatalysis, electrocatalysis, batteries, etc.); meniscus-assisted solution printing; precision synthesis of topologically complex polymers and multifunctional nanocrystals; polymer recycling and upcycling; self-assembly; and interfacial engineering of nanomaterials.

An extensive list of materials under investigation includes block copolymers; nonlinear polymers (e.g., star-like, bottlebrush-like, Janus, etc.); conjugated polymers; polymer-based nanocomposites; an array of nanocrystals with precisely controlled dimensions, compositions, architectures, and surface chemistry. The overarching goal of our research is to unravel the fundamentals of the as-crafted nanostructured functional materials via precision synthesis and scrutiny of their dimension-dependent structure-property relationship, aiming at capitalizing on them for a wide diversity of applications in energy and sustainability, including solar cells, LEDs, scintillators, photocatalysis, electrocatalysis (e.g., ORR, OER, HER, AOR, MOR, UOR, etc.), hydrogen generation, circular economy, nanotechnology, and biotechnology.

Australian National University (ANU)

Dr. Jagadish received the B.Sc. (Nagarjuna), M.Sc(Tech) (Andhra),  M.Phil. and Ph.D. (Delhi) degrees in 19977, 1980, 1982 and 1986. He was a Lecturer in Physics and Electronics at S.V. College, University of Delhi, during 1985-88 and worked at Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada, during 1988-90 as a post-doctoral research fellow. He moved to ANU in 1990 and is currently Distinguished Professor and Head of Semiconductor Optoelectronics and Nanotechnology Group in the Department of EME, RSPE, the ANU. He is also serving as Director of ANFF, ACT node and Convenor of the Australian Nanotechnology Network.   He has served as Vice-President and Secretary Physical Sciences of the Australian Academy of Science and current serving as President of the IEEE Photonics Society and Australian MRS.   His research interests include compound semiconductor optoelectronics, neuroscience and nanotechnology. He holds honorary appointments at UESTC, Chengdu, Nanjing, Tokyo, Anna and Mangalore Universities.

He has published more than 880 research papers (600 journal papers), 5 US patents assigned, co-authored a book, co-edited 11 books, guest edited 15 special issues of journals and edited 12 conference proceedings. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, APS, MRS, OSA, AVS, ECS, AIP, IoP, IoN, IET, AAAS, SPIE, EMA, APAM, APAS, IASc, INSA, NAI, TWAS, ATSE and AAS and Hon Mem MRSI.  He  is serving as an Editor of 3 journals, an Associate Editor of 3 Journals and an editorial board member of 15 journals.  He received Peter Baume Award, Federation  Fellowship (2004-2009) and Laureate Fellowship (2009-20014). He received 2010 The Quantum Device Award from the ISCS. He has been awarded IEEE Photonics Society (IPS) 2010 Distinguished Service Award, 2011 IEEE NTC Distinguished Service Award, 2010 Top Supervisor Award for excellence  by the ANU, 2012 EPD Division award of the ECS, 2013 Boas Medal from the AIP, 2015 IEEE Nanotechnology Pioneer Award, IPS Engineering Achievement Award, Distinguished Fellow of CAS,Silver Jubilee International Award from MRSIndia,2016 OSA Nick Holonyak Jr Award, 2017, IUMRS Somiya Award, 2017 Nayudamma Award. He has received Australia's highest civilian honour, Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 2016 for his service to physics and engineering, in particular nanotechnology.  

University of New South Wales (UNSW)

Prof. Martina Stenzel is an expert in the design of polymer nanoparticles and their interaction with the biological system.

Martina Stenzel studied chemistry at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, before completing her PhD in 1999 at the Institute of Applied Macromolecular Chemistry, University of Stuttgart, Germany. She then started working as a postdoctoral Fellow at the UNESCO Centre for Membrane Science and Technology at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia, before being appointed as lecture in 2002 at the same University.

In 2012 she was promoted to full Professor and is now UNSW Scientia Professor and ARC (Australian Research Council) Laureate Fellow. In 2018 she was elected as Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.

She is now a Scientia Professor in the School of Chemistry, as well as an ARC Laureate Fellow. She has more than 400 publications on the design of functional polymer nanoparticles for drug delivery applications. Her main interest is the question of how the properties of nanoparticles influence the interaction with the biological environment. She is the editor-in-chief of Materials Horizons and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. She is also UNSW Science Deputy-Dean for External Engagement with a focus on industry. She has invented and developed chemical techniques for the synthesis of new and complex polymer architectures and nanomaterials. With an emphasis on biomaterials possessing therapeutic abilities, she has demonstrated the efficacies of her innovative and smart drug-delivery materials, particularly against cancer. She has received numerous high-profile national and international honors in recognition of her outstanding contributions to chemistry and materials science. She was awarded the HG Smith Medal (2017) by the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and the LeFevre Medal (2011) by the Australian Academy of Science,  named a 2021 IUPAC Distinguished Woman in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering, an award granted annually to only a select group of women worldwide for their scientific leadership and global impact in the chemical sciences. She is also a Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) University Ambassador. She became editor for the Australian Journal of Chemistry in 2008 and has served as Scientific Editor and as of 2021, as Editorial Board Chair of RSC Materials Horizons.

Tsinghua University (THU)

Dr Qiang Zhang is Distinguished Professor of Department of Chemical Engineering at Tsinghua University, China

He obtained his Ph.D. in chemical engineering (2009) from Tsinghua University, China, and subsequently held Research Associate/Postdoc Research Fellow positions in the Case Western Reserve University, USA, and Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, Germany. He held the Newton Advanced Fellowship from Royal Society, UK and the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. He is selected as highly cited researchers at 2017-2023 by Clarivate Analytics. His current research interests are advanced energy materials, including dendrite-free lithium metal anode, lithium sulfur batteries, and electrocatalysis, especially the structure design and full demonstration of advanced energy materials in working devices.
His h-index is 169 now. He is the Advisor Editor of Angew. Chem., Associate Editor of J Energy Chem, EcoMat, & Energy Storage Mater. He is sitting on the advisory board of Chem Soc Rev, Joule, Matter, Adv Funct Mater, ChemSusChem, J Mater Chem A, Chem Commun, and so on. He is the deputy head of the expert group on energy storage and smart grid of the national key research and development plan. He has won the first prize of Natural Science of the Ministry of Education, the first prize of Fundamental Science of the Chemical Engineering Society.

as received a wide range of national and international recognitions, including the 5th XPLORER Prize (2023) and the ISE Zhaowu Tian Prize for Energy Electrochemistry (2020). She was awarded the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (2018) and the Excellent Young Scientists Fund (2014) by the NSFC. Her research was also recognized with the First Prize of the Ministry of Education Natural Science Award (2019) and the Young Science & Technology Award of China (2020). She received the Beijing Youth Wusi Medal (2020), the Youth Award of the Hou Debang Chemical Science and Technology Award (2015), and was selected for the Top Young Talents Program (2015). Other honors include the Chemical Industry Institute of Fundamental Science First Prize (2020), the Ministry of Education Youth Science Award (2018), and multiple best reviewer and instructor awards. He serves as Editors-in-Chief for EES Batteries and Advisory Editor for Angewandte Chemie,  Associate Editor for Journal of Energy Chemistry.