Alejandro Pérez-Rodríguez (Phys. Deg. 1984, PhD 1987) is Full Professor in the Department of Electronics of the University of Barcelona. He’s the Head of Solar Energy Materials & Systems Group at IREC- Catalonia Institute for Energy Research- Spain. In 2005–2009 he has been Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Physics of the University, where he was coordinator of the Laboratory of Micro and Nanotechnologies. Since February 2009 he is ascribed to the Catalonia Institute for Energy Research (IREC) as Senior Researcher, where he heads the Research Group on Solar Energy Materials and Systems in the Department of Advanced Materials for Energy. His research activities and interests are centred on Optical and structural assessment of processes in semiconductor technologies; Si based microsystem technologies and nanotechnologies for advanced sensor applications and, more recently, on the development of new technologies for high efficiency low cost solar cells based on compound semiconductors and third PV device generation. He has coordinated 19 research projects in National Spanish R+D programmes (Electronics and Information Technologies, Materials, Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, CENIT...) as well as 6 International projects from different programmes of the European Union (Information Society Technology, Future Emerging Technologies, Energy...) and bilateral cooperative actions with different groups mainly from France and Germany. He is co-author of 252 papers (including 122 papers in ISI international journals and 9 invited reviews in international journals and series of books), and has supervised 7 Doctoral Thesis.
Prof. Joydeep Dutta is the Chair of Functional Materials division at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. He was the Chair Professor in Nanotechnology for Water Desalination and other applications in Sultan Qaboos University until recently. He was the Vice President (Academic Affairs), Director of the Center of Excellence in Nanotechnology and a Professor in Nanotechnology at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, Thailand, whose faculty he joined in April 2003 (until October 2011). He completed his Ph.D in 1990 from the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, India (Calcutta University). In 1991 and 1992 he did Post Doctoral work at the Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL, Japan) and at Ecole Polytechnique (France) before moving to Switzerland in 1993 where he was associated with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland until 2003. From 1997-2001 he worked in technical and managerial qualities in high technology industries in Switzerland before returning back to academia in 2002. He has been the member of the board of two companies working in high technology electronics and environmental consulting respectively.
His broad research interests include nanomaterials in nanotechnology, self-organization, enhanced water treatment, catalysis, nanoparticles, nanorods and their applications. The current research interests encompasses two themes namely: Planetcare and healthcare. In the planetcare nexus research is focused on visible light photocatalysis, electrocatalysis of waste water (with focus on degradation of waste water, produced water and hospital waste), desalination (both membrane and capacitive deionization) and alternate energy sources (rainbow solar cells and hydrogen production from methanol steam reforming). In the healthcare nexus, work in the group encompass magnetic imaging, quantum dot labeling and in bone implants.
He is a Fellow of the Institute of Nanotechnology (IoN) and the Society of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (SNN), Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), USA, founding member of the Thailand Nanotechnology Society, and member of several professional bodies. He has served to review projects of various scientific organizations of different countries and has organized a few international conferences and served as a member in several others.
Prof. Dutta is an award winning author (Choice award for Outstanding Academic title of 2010 from American Library Association) of the book “Fundamentals of Nanotechnology”. He has also written two other text books entitled “Introduction to Nanoscience” and “Introduction to Nanoscience and Nanotechnology” (CRC Press of Taylor and Francis Group LLC).
Jordi Martorell received a PhD degree in Physics from Brown University. Since 2005 he is head of the organic nano-structured photovoltaics group at ICFO. Jordi Martorell has mainly focused his research into the experimental study of the optical control to shape the properties of photonic materials, a field where he has made several breakthrough contributions as, for instance: To control spontaneous emission in photonic crystals and to obtain non-linear light generation in photonic crystals. Currently, Jordi Martorell focuses his research activities in the study of photonics applied to photovoltaics. Among contributions made in this field stands out the recently proven world record efficiencies for semi-transparent single junction solar cells. Jordi Martorell is currently coordinating an FP7 European project, is partner in a Horizon2020 project and is leading several national/industrial projects to facilitate the transfer of the photovoltaic technology to society.
Christiane Chaumette received her engineering degree (Dipl.-Ing.) in chemical engineering from Karlsruhe University and studied disinfection by-products as visiting scholar at the University of North Carolina in 1999. Ever since she has been working as researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart, Germany.
After focussing on technical membrane fabrication and membrane filtration and membrane contactor applications she developed her own group on Advanced Oxidation Processes (2010-2014) and moved on to the position of deputy head of the group Physical-Chemical Water Treatment.
Christiane has initiated and coordinated application oriented European Research Projects with an overall budget of 10 million euro since FP7, developing oxidative water treatment technologies and self-cleaning membranes in close cooperation with industrial companies. She is the coordinator of NAWADES project developing Nanotechnological Application in Water DESalination
Dr Ivan Gordon received his Master Degree in Physics in 1997 from the University of Leuven (KUL), Belgium. He did his PhD research in the field of novel magnetic materials for sensor applications and obtained his PhD Degree from the University of Leuven in February 2002. He started to work at imec in June 2003 in the photovoltaics department, where he is currently the head of the Silicon Solar Cells and Modules (SSCM) group, working on various wafer-based silicon solar cell concepts (e.g. PERC, PERT, IBC) and advanced module concepts for thin c-Si wafer-based cells. Since 2008, he is associate editor for the international scientific journal Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells. Since 2011, he is also associate editor for the IEEE Journal on Photovoltaics. He has authored and co-authored more than 140 journal and conference papers.
Silke Christiansen is appointed full professor since 11/2013 at the Free University – Berlin in the physics department and is managing a research department for correlative microscopy and materials data at the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramics materials and systems in Forchheim, Germany. She received several awards including the MRS student award, a research fellowship award by the Bayerische Forschungsstiftung for a research stay at Columbia University, NY, USA and a Feodor Lynen Fellowship awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to carry out research in silicon technology at TJ Watson Research Center of IBM, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA. Moreover, she is distinguished honorary professor at the Material Science Dept., Chungbuk University in Korea for 6 years (2014-2020). She has significant experience in the field of nano-materials, in particular energy materials and context microscopy and spectroscopy, bio-medical sensing, bio-technology and opto- as well as large-area electronics. She advances materials based on correlated microscopies and spectroscopies for which she operates a labs@location unit with Carl Zeiss Microscopy. She gained her scientific experience at various institutions in Germany and the US, e.g. IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, USA, Columbia University, NY, USA, Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics and the Science of Light in Halle and Erlangen (group leader), Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin for Materials and Energy (institute director), Leibnitz Institute for Photonic Technology in Jena (department leader) and the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (PhD and habilitation). She has more than 370 peer-reviewed publications, more than 12 patents/- applications, more than 200 invited seminars, more than 120 invited, keynote and plenary talks at international conferences and ~ 14000 citations and an h-index of 61.
Junhui He is a professor and Head of Functional Nanomaterials Laboratory at Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He received his B. Sc. from National University of Defense Technology and his Ph. D. degree under Prof. E. Wang from Institute of Photographic Chemistry, CAS. He then spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. N. S. Allen in Manchester Polytechnic and over four years as a STA fellow and FRS researcher with Prof. T. Kunitake at Frontier Research System (FRS), RIKEN. He returned as part of the Hundred Talents Program. His research interests involve functional nanomaterials, biomimetic materials, thin films, smart surfaces, and their energy and environmental applications. He has so far co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers and filed nearly 50 patents. He is also serves as Managing Editor of International Journal of Nanoscience.
Alejandro Pérez-Rodríguez (Phys. Deg. 1984, PhD 1987) is Full Professor in the Department of Electronics of the University of Barcelona. He’s the Head of Solar Energy Materials & Systems Group at IREC- Catalonia Institute for Energy Research- Spain. In 2005–2009 he has been Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Physics of the University, where he was coordinator of the Laboratory of Micro and Nanotechnologies. Since February 2009 he is ascribed to the Catalonia Institute for Energy Research (IREC) as Senior Researcher, where he heads the Research Group on Solar Energy Materials and Systems in the Department of Advanced Materials for Energy. His research activities and interests are centred on Optical and structural assessment of processes in semiconductor technologies; Si based microsystem technologies and nanotechnologies for advanced sensor applications and, more recently, on the development of new technologies for high efficiency low cost solar cells based on compound semiconductors and third PV device generation. He has coordinated 19 research projects in National Spanish R+D programmes (Electronics and Information Technologies, Materials, Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, CENIT...) as well as 6 International projects from different programmes of the European Union (Information Society Technology, Future Emerging Technologies, Energy...) and bilateral cooperative actions with different groups mainly from France and Germany. He is co-author of 252 papers (including 122 papers in ISI international journals and 9 invited reviews in international journals and series of books), and has supervised 7 Doctoral Thesis.
Prof Jr-Hau He is an Associate Professor at Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Sciences and Engineering (CEMSE) Division, King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST). He had been a Visiting Scholar at Georgia Tech (2005), a Postdoc Fellow at National Tsing Hua University (2006) and Georgia Tech (2007), a Visiting Professor at Georgia Tech (2008), UC Berkeley (2010 and 2014), and UC San Diego (2012-2013), and tenured Associate Professor at National Taiwan University (2007-2014).
He puts his efforts in the development of transparent and flexible electronics using novel devices based on nanomaterials, including solar cells and photodetectors, LEDs, and memory devices. He is also interested in harsh electronics. Of particular interest in solar energy are efforts to understand light scattering and trapping in nanostructured materials and design next-generation solar cells. He is also interested in transport of charge carriers across these solar cells and improving light coupling to increase the efficiency of photoinduced charge separation. Dr. He’s group is also currently involving in fundamental physical properties of the nanomaterials, such as the transport and switching behavior of 2D nanomaterials. The nanotechnology he developed has been transferred constantly to semiconductor and PV industry in Taiwan.
He has garnered over 2300 citations for a body of work over 120 peer reviewed journal articles with 28 of H factor over his career and had over 200 presentations in international conferences. His breakthrough researches have been highlighted over 50 times by various scientific magazines such as Nature, SPIE newsroom, IEEE SPECTRUM, EE Times, Semiconductor Today, Materials Today, Chemical & Engineering News, and Nano Today.
He is actively participating in the activities and services in scientific professional societies. Professor Jr-Hau He has been recognized internationally. He serves as a referee for numerous prestigious journals, and a chair, co-chair, and committee for national and international symposiums. He is a recipient of Ta-You Wu Memorial Award (similar to NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award in the US) (2014), Outstanding Young Electrical Engineer Award by Chinese Institute of Electrical Engineering (2013) Outstanding Youth Award of Taiwan Association for Coating and Thin Film Technology (2012), Youth Optical Engineering Medal of Taiwan Photonics Society (2011), Distinguished Young Researcher Award of the Electronic Devices and Materials Association (2011), Prof. Jiang Novel Materials Youth Prize of International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) (2011), and the Exploration Research Award of Pan Wen Yuan Foundation (2008) and selected as a Member of the Global Young Academy (2011). He is a senior member of IEEE, OSA, and SPIE. The laboratory has graduated 5 PhD and 24 MS alumni to date. Visit his web for more information (nanoenergy.kaust.edu.sa).​
Prof. Joydeep Dutta is the Chair of Functional Materials division at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. He was the Chair Professor in Nanotechnology for Water Desalination and other applications in Sultan Qaboos University until recently. He was the Vice President (Academic Affairs), Director of the Center of Excellence in Nanotechnology and a Professor in Nanotechnology at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, Thailand, whose faculty he joined in April 2003 (until October 2011). He completed his Ph.D in 1990 from the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, India (Calcutta University). In 1991 and 1992 he did Post Doctoral work at the Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL, Japan) and at Ecole Polytechnique (France) before moving to Switzerland in 1993 where he was associated with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland until 2003. From 1997-2001 he worked in technical and managerial qualities in high technology industries in Switzerland before returning back to academia in 2002. He has been the member of the board of two companies working in high technology electronics and environmental consulting respectively.
His broad research interests include nanomaterials in nanotechnology, self-organization, enhanced water treatment, catalysis, nanoparticles, nanorods and their applications. The current research interests encompasses two themes namely: Planetcare and healthcare. In the planetcare nexus research is focused on visible light photocatalysis, electrocatalysis of waste water (with focus on degradation of waste water, produced water and hospital waste), desalination (both membrane and capacitive deionization) and alternate energy sources (rainbow solar cells and hydrogen production from methanol steam reforming). In the healthcare nexus, work in the group encompass magnetic imaging, quantum dot labeling and in bone implants.
He is a Fellow of the Institute of Nanotechnology (IoN) and the Society of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (SNN), Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), USA, founding member of the Thailand Nanotechnology Society, and member of several professional bodies. He has served to review projects of various scientific organizations of different countries and has organized a few international conferences and served as a member in several others.
Prof. Dutta is an award winning author (Choice award for Outstanding Academic title of 2010 from American Library Association) of the book “Fundamentals of Nanotechnology”. He has also written two other text books entitled “Introduction to Nanoscience” and “Introduction to Nanoscience and Nanotechnology” (CRC Press of Taylor and Francis Group LLC).
Junhong Chen is currently a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and an Excellence in Engineering Faculty Fellow in Nanotechnology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM). He is also the Director of the Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) on Water Equipment and Policy, supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and water-based industrial partners, and the founder of NanoAffix Science, LLC. Dr. Chen received his B.E. degree (in Thermal Engineering) in 1995 from Tongji University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees (both in Mechanical Engineering) in 2000 and 2002, respectively, from the University of Minnesota (Advisor: Professor Jane Davidson). Dr. Chen’s dissertation research focused on understanding corona discharges and corona plasma-enhanced chemical reactions, e.g., ozone generation and chemical vapor deposition. From October 2002 to August 2003, he was a postdoctoral scholar in Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Advisor: Professor Richard Flagan), where he studied the use of plasma for nanoparticle synthesis. In August 2003, he became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UWM, where he was promoted to tenured Associate Professor and Professor in 2008 and 2011, respectively. He received a joint appointment in the UWM Department of Materials Science and Engineering in January 2013.
Professor Chen’s current research focuses on nanomaterial innovations for sustainable energy and environment, including nanomaterial synthesis, assembly, and nanofabrication; energy conversion, storage, and conservation; nanostructure-based gas sensors, biosensors, and water sensors; carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene, and hybrid nanomaterials; pollution control; and corona discharges and plasma reacting flows (For more details, please visit his research group website at www4.uwm.edu/nsee).
Dr Alberto Figoli got his PhD degree at Membrane Technology Group, Twente University (The Netherlands), 1997-2001. Since 2001, he has a permanent position as Researcher at Institute on Membrane Technology (ITM-CNR) in Rende (CS), Italy. Alberto Figoli is expert in the field of membrane technology, particularly in membrane preparation and characterisation and their application in environmental filed. He is working on the preparation and characterisation of polymeric membranes, both in flat and hollow-fiber configurations for water treatment. Furthermore, he is also involved on polymeric capsules preparation by membrane process and on pervaporation applied to the removal of contaminants (i.e. VOCs) from water and aroma recovery from natural matrices. He was awarded for Scientific Productivity 2006 in “Food Packaging Research – GSICA Awards” by the Italian Scientific Food Packaging Group, 22 June 2006, Catania (Italy) and selected for the best publications in the Environmental Section in the “Highlights of CNR” for the year 2010 and 2011 by CNR, Rome (Italy). He worked abroad at Quest International (Unilever) in the Netherlands for one year, 1996 and in the USA, at Environmental Protection Agency of United States (USEPA) in Cincinnati during the years 2004 and 2005. He is involved and responsible for ITM-CNR of several international project funded by EU and national projects with both Italian Ministry of Education, University & Research and private companies. He is co-author of three books, more than 90 peer-review scientific papers and more than 10 chapters published in international journals and books. He is also author of two international patents on membrane and science technology. He is expert evaluator for Italian Ministry of Instruction, Hong Kong SAR Government, Research Foundation Flanders (FWO); Research Councils UK (RCUK). Since February 2015, he is serving the European Membrane Society Council (EMS) as Responsible for Awards and Summer School Activities.