Keynote & Plenary Speakers
Prof. Xiaohong Zhu
Sichuan University, China
Biography: Dr. Xiaohong Zhu is currently a full professor at the Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Sichuan University, China. He received his BSc degree in Materials Physics from Sichuan University in 2000 and PhD degree in Condensed Matter Physics from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2006. After that, he did 3-year postdoctoral research at CNRS and CEA in France, and then joined Sichuan University as a professor in 2009. From April 2012 to April 2013, he was also a research scholar at the Department of Physics & Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, USA. He was selected as a New Century Excellent Talent in University of China in 2009 and an Outstanding Young Scientific and Technological Leader of Sichuan Province, China in 2011, and won the 2018 China Industry-University-Research Collaboration Promotion Award. Prof. Zhu’s research interests include mainly graphene-based electrode materials and novel solid-state electrolytes for energy storage devices (supercapacitors and lithium-ion batteries), piezoelectric ceramics, as well as multifunctional oxide thin films and related electronic devices. Until now, he has authored/co-authored more than 110 SCI-indexed papers and 2 scientific books.
Prof. Lluís Soler
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC), Spain
Biography: Lluís Soler received his PhD in Chemistry from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 2010. In 2012, he joined the Institute for Integrative Nanoscience at the IFW Dresden (Germany) as a Postdoctoral Fellow and later on he moved to the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart (Germany). In 2014 he joined the group of Prof. Jordi Llorca at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech (UPC) with a “Beatriu de Pinós” (Marie Sklodowska-Curie COFUND) grant. He is currently Adjunct Professor of the Chemical Engineering Department at the UPC. He was recently granted as a principal investigator of a JIN type project (2019-2021) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Sciences and the ERDF. He published over 40 publications in books and referred journals (h-index=22) and authored over 4 patents. His research interests include heterogeneous catalysis, photocatalysis and reaction engineering.
Prof. Silvia Giordani
Dublin City University, Ireland
Biography: Silvia Giordani is full Professor (Chair) of Nanomaterials within the School of Chemical Sciences at Dublin City University and a PI of the strategically important National Centre for Sensor research. She received her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Miami, USA and carried out postdoctoral research at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland and at the University of Trieste, Italy. In 2007 she received the prestigious President of Ireland Young Researcher Award and was a Research Assistant Professor at TCD from 2007 to 2013. Since September 2013 she has been leading the new “Nano Carbon Materials” research lab at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) and in December 2016 she was appointed Associate Professor in Organic Chemistry at the University of Turin, Italy. Her main research interests are in the design, synthesis, and characterization of a wide range of nanomaterials for applications in smart and responsive bio-related nanotechnologies. She is the author/co-author of approx. 100 manuscripts, reviews and book chapters. In 2018 she was awarded the William Evans Fellowship from the University of Otago (New Zealand) and is Visiting Scientist to the Bio-Nano Institute at Toyo University (Japan).
Prof. Xiaochun Cao
Northeast Petroleum University, China
Biography: Prof. Cao is a full Professor of Petroleum Engineering at Northeast Petroleum University, China. She graduated from the Southwest Petroleum University and obtained BE degree of Applied Chemistry in 1989, and since then, she has been working at Northeast Petroleum University, China. She specialized in the Oil/Gas Well Engineering at the Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development for her master’s degree in 1991-1994, China. She carried out 3-year postdoctoral research on Oil and Gas Engineering at Northeast Petroleum University after she received her PhD degree in Municipal Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology in 2006. She was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Malaya in 2014/15. She was promoted as Lecturer in 1996, Associate Professor in 2006 and Professor in 2014 at Northeast Petroleum University. The undergraduate and graduate courses she lectured and has been lecturing include Principle of Drilling Fluids Process, Well Completion Engineering, Drilling Engineering Design, Oilfield Chemistry, Colloid and Surface Chemistry, Oil Recovery Chemistry, etc. Her main research interests are in the design, synthesis, and characterization of chemicals and formula for oil/gas drilling engineering and water/wastewater treatment. She is the author/co-author of about 40 articles and a book. She was awarded funds from national and provincial postdoc research and China National Petroleum Corporation.