Marta Hatzell is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. Prior to starting at Georgia Tech in August of 2015, she was a Post-Doctoral researcher in the Department of Material Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois - Urbana-Campaign. During her post doc, she worked in the Braun Research group on research at the interface between colloid science and electrochemistry. She completed her PhD at Penn state University in the Logan Research Group. Her PhD explored environmental technology for energy generation and water treatment. During graduate school she was an NSF and PEO Graduate Research Fellow.

Currently her research group focuses on exploring the role photochemistry and electrochemistry may play in future sustainable systems. She is an active member of the American Chemical Society, the Electrochemical Society, ASEEP, AICHE, and ASME. Dr. Hatzell has also been awarded the NSF Early CAREER award in 2019, the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in Chemistry in 2020, the ONR Young Investigator Award in 2020, the ECS Toyota Young Investigator award in 2021, and the Moore Inventor Fellow in 2021.

I am currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Montreal, Department of Chemistry. My overarching motivation is to discover and implement the chemistry necessary to transition to a sustainable energy-based society. Specifically, I am developing materials to convert solar energy to chemical fuels as an energy storage media.

Victor Mougel completed his Bachelor's and Master's degree in Chemistry at the ENS of Lyon, and obtained his PhD at the University of Grenoble under the supervision of Prof. Marinella Mazzanti. He then joined ETH Zürich as an ETH/Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow before starting his independent career as a CNRS associate researcher at Collège de France in 2016. Since December 2018, he is a tenure track assistant professor at the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at ETH Zürich.

Ifan is Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London.  Prior to Ifan's appointment at Imperial in 2017, he was Asssociate Professor and Leader of the Electrocatalysis Group at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).In 2015, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) appointed Ifan as the Peabody Visiting Associate Professor.

Ifan leverages the insight from fundamental electrochemistry experiments to discover new catalyst materials with unprecedented performance. Ifan’s research ultimately aims to enable the large-scale electrochemical conversion of renewable energy to fuels and valuable chemicals and vice versa. He has 62 peer reviewed publications, 2 patents, 4 patent applicaitons and is cofounder of the spinout company, HPNow.

Dr. Chris Baeumer is Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) for Electrochemistry of Nanostructures in the Inorganic Materials Science group at the University of Twente and associate research group leader at Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany.  His research focuses on model electrochemical materials and interfaces with precisely controlled, single-crystalline surfaces, and their operando X-ray characterization to reveal the atomic details of complex oxide electrode materials at the solid/liquid interface. For this work, he was awarded the ERC Starting Grant. Before moving to the University of Twente, he was a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow at Stanford University and RWTH Aachen University.

Doing my BSc/MSc in Physics and PhD in an interdisciplinary program crossing the disciplines like Chemical Engineering, Nanotechnology, and Electrochemistry made me who I am today – a scientist who enjoys the challenge of multifaceted research.

I enjoy doing basic research in order to solve applied tasks. This explains my research interest in fundamental physical chemistry, e.g. oxidation and dissolution of metals and semiconductors, electrocatalysis, and electrochemistry at modified interfaces but also electrochemical engineering, e.g. development and optimization of catalyst layers in fuel cells and water electrolyzes.

Progress in basic research is often a direct outcome of previous achievements in experimental instrumentation. Hence, a significant part of my interest is in the development of new tools, e.g. electrochemical on-line mass spectrometry, gas diffusion electrode approaches, and high-throughput screening methods.

I am currently a joint project researcher between Malmö University and the Nanomax beamline at MAX IV, my current projects focus on Bragg Coherent Diffraction Imaging (BCDI) of nanoparticles in the electrochemical environment and in situ grazing incidence XAFS. I am also actively involved in the development of in situ high-energy surface x-ray diffraction, performing experiments and writing software for data treatment.

I got my Ph.D. in 2016 from the University of Liverpool where my thesis focused on using surface x-ray diffraction to investigate fundamental electrocatalysis. Afterwards I was a postdoc at Lund university, where I focused on combining various synchrotron techniques with anodisation, corrosion, and electrodeposition. I then continued another two years at Lund and worked on in situ high-energy surface x-ray diffraction and some in-situ AP-XPS measurements. Afterwards I did another postdoc at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, in the Nano-electrochemistry group.

One of my goals is to use synchrotron-based techniques to establish structure-function relationships for model electrocatalysts that will hopefully lead to the development of new catalysts, and a sustainable future. Also it's fun to learn new things, "stupid" experiments sometimes take us to unexpected places.

Magalí Lingenfelder is currently leading the Max Planck-EPFL Laboratory for Molecular Nanoscience in Lausanne, Switzerland. Her vision is to create atomically tailored interfaces for applications in two distinct areas of urgent technological and societal relevance: energy conversion and antimicrobial interfaces.

She studied physical and biological chemistry at the National University of Córdoba in Argentina. In 2003 she finished her MSc thesis at the Max Planck Institute for the Solid State Research (MPI-FKF in Stuttgart, Germany) with seminal contributions to the field of metal-organic coordination networks on solid surfaces. She continued with her doctoral studies in Physics, and received the Otto Hahn medal of the Max Planck Society in 2008 for the microscopic understanding of the chiral recognition process with submolecular resolution. In her quest to study molecular recognition going from 2D to 3D complex systems, she made postdoctoral stays at the Institute of Materials Sciences in Barcelona, and at the Molecular Foundry of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in the US.

She is a committed mentor, and since her relocation from Berkeley to EPFL in 2013, she directed 3 MSc theses, 4 PhD theses, and 4 postdocs. She advocates for  problem-oriented interdisciplinary research: she is pioneering the emerging field of BioNanoarchitectonics, she led 5 international research consortiums, delivered over 40 invited presentations, and organized 9 conferences and 4 doctoral schools.  In 2018, the Royal Society of Chemistry included her work in the first collection “Celebrating Excellence in Research: 100 Women of Chemistry”.

 

Corina Andronescu received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the University Politehnica of Bucharest (Romania) in 2009 and 2011, respectively. Her Ph.D. title she received from the same university in 2014. In 2016 she joined the group of Prof. W. Schuhmann (Ruhr University Bochum, Germany) first as postdoctoral researcher and later as group leader. December 2018, she was appointed Junior Professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen, where she is currently leading the group of Electrochemical Catalysis in the Faculty of Chemistry. Her research interests include development of hybrid electrocatalysts for the CO2 electroreduction reaction, alcohol electrooxidation as well as investigation of electrocatalysts at nanoscale using Scanning Electrochemical Cell Microscopy.

Dr. Camélia Matei Ghimbeu is a Research Director at Material Science Institute in Mulhouse (IS2M), CNRS, France. She received in 2007 her PhD from University of Metz, France and TU Delft, The Netherlands and her Habilitation in 2015 from University of Haute Alsace, France. She was awarded in 2017 the CNRS Bronze Medal, in 2018 the Award "Solid-State Chemistry Division" (French Chemistry Society) and in 2019 the award Guy Ourisson (Gutenberg Cercle), for her research works devoted to the design of carbon-based materials with controlled characteristics for energy storage and environmental applications. Author of more than 100 articles and about 150 communications, she is leading the “Carbon and Hybrid Materials” group at IS2M, and she is member of French network of Electrochemical Storage of Energy (RS2E).

Dr. Maria Gimenez is Principal Investigator at CiQUS, Ramon y Cajal at the University of Santiago de Compostela and Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham. In 2006 she received her PhD from the University of Valencia working under the supervision of Prof Eugenio Coronado and Dr. Francisco M. Romero on multifunctional materials of interest in molecular magnetism. She then joined the Supramolecular Chemistry and Chemical Nanosciences Group of Prof. Neil Champness working as postdoctoral research fellow for almost three years. In 2009 she was awarded with a two-year Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship in the Nanocarbon Group of Prof. Andrei Khlobystov at the University of Nottingham. In 2011, she started her independent career as Royal Society Research Fellow and in 2015 she became Assistant Professor of Materials Chemistry in Nottingham. In 2018 she joined the CiQUS, launching her project ERC-STG NANOCOMP supported by the Oportunius Program (Xunta Galicia). She is currently coordinator of a strategic research group on Condensed Matter & Functional Materials (MAT2). The research in her group is currently focused on the development and functional characterisation of hybrid metal-carbon nanostructures for spintronics and energy-related applications.

In the last 10 years her studies have included a number of firsts, including (i) the first demonstrations of a molecular rhombus tiling (Nat. Chem. 2012), a supramolecular bilayer at a surface (Nat. Chem. 2011) and unusual nanoribbons inside carbon nanotubes (Nat. Mater. 2011); (ii) the encapsulation of single molecule magnets (Nat. Commun. 2011); (iii) the controlled assembly of preformed magnetic nanoparticles (Angew. Chem., 2013,) and exploitation of electrochemical nanoparticles (Adv. Mater. 2016, ChemSusChem 2021) in hollow carbon nanostructures. She has discovered a new type of supramolecular fluid (PCT/ES2021/070659, ES2797556 Angew.Chem. 2021) and established a new catalyst technology (PCT/ES2021/070649, ES2796448) offering a unique opportunity to address recyclability & sustainability for cost-effective electrochemical technologies. She has directed four doctoral thesis at the University of Nottingham and 12 MSc theses. She has participated in 15 research projects (11 as PI).

During these years she has been granted different fellowships and awards: Spanish Ministry of Education and Science Undergraduate Fellow, Extraordinary award for highest Degree in Chemistry, Regional Government Fellowship for Doctoral Studies, Marie Curie Intra-European Research Fellowship, Royal Society DH Research Fellowship, ERC Starting Grant-NANOCOMP, Ramon y Cajal contract and a ERC PoC Grant-ZABCAT. In recognition of her multidisciplinary achievements, Maria was awarded in 2012 with a very prestigious prize (Emerging Investigator Award 2012) by the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry for outstanding and novel research (covered in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2012, 51, 51). In 2016 and 2017 she became Emerging Talent SRUK/CERU Award finalist for the impact of her studies on the development of materials chemistry using carbon nanostructures.

 

Professor Emma Kendrick, CChem FIMMM FRSC FIMMM - Chair of Energy Materials, School of Metallurgy and Materials, University of Birmingham.

Prof Kendrick’s career to date has included industrial and academic roles leading to her current role as Chair of Energy Materials, where in add addition to group lead of the energy materials group (EMG), she is co-director of the Centre for Energy Storage (BCES) and part of Birmingham Energy institute (BEI) and Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements and Critical Materials (BCSECM). The EMG investigates sustainability in novel battery technologies from materials, manufacturing, performance and parameterisation, and recycling. Her recent work has led to a 2021 joint UoB - Imperial College London (ICL) spin out company, based around the methods of experimental parameterisation of applied multi-physics cell models, called About:Energy, for which she is founder and director.

Prior to UoB, she spent two years as Reader in WMG, University of Warwick. Before academia, she led innovations in the battery industry, latterly as Chief Technologist in Energy Storage at SHARP Laboratories of Europe Ltd (SLE) and prior to that for two innovative lithium-ion battery SMEs, Fife Batteries Ltd and Surion Energy Ltd.

She is fellow of the Royal Society of chemistry (RSC) and Institute of Metals, Mining and Materials (IoM3). Recently, she has been recognised through several awards; 2021 Faraday Institution (FI) Researcher Development Champion, RSC 2021 Environment, Sustainability and Energy Division Mid-Career Award, and the 2019 Hothersall Memorial Award for outstanding services to Metal Finishing.

Prof Kendrick holds a PhD from Keele University, obtained as part of a postgraduate transfer partnership (PTP) scheme with CERAM Research, a MSc in new materials from the University of Aberdeen and a BSc in chemistry from the University of Manchester.

Since 2017 Beatriz Roldan Cuenya has been a Director at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin (Germany). There she heads the Department of Interface Science. She moved from the Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany), where she became a professor of Physics in 2013. Prior to that, Beatriz Roldan Cuenya was a professor of Physics at University of Central Florida (USA).

She carried out her postdoctoral research in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of California Santa Barbara (2001-2003). Prof. Roldan obtained her PhD in Physics from the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany) summa cum laude in 2001. She completed her M.S./B.S. in Physics with a minor in Materials Science at the University of Oviedo, Spain in 1998. During her academic career Prof. Roldan received an Early CAREER Award from the US National Science Foundation (2005) and the international Peter Mark Memorial award from the American Vacuum Society (2009). She is the author of more than 110 peer-reviewed publications and 3 book chapters and has given over 100 invited talks. She presently serves as Associate Editor of ACS Catalysis, in the editorial advisory board of the Surface Science journal and in the Advisory Committee of the Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the US Department of Energy.

Prof. Roldan’s research program explores the novel physical and chemical properties of size and shape-selected nanostructured materials, with emphasis on advancing the field of nanocatalysis through in situ and operando characterization of catalysts at work.

Peter Strasser is the chaired professor of �Electrochemistry for energy conversion and storage� at the Chemical Engineering Division of the Department of Chemistry at the Technical University of Berlin. Prior to his appointment, he was Professor at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston. Before moving to Houston, Prof. Strasser served as Senior Member of staff at Symyx Technologies, Inc., Santa Clara, USA. In 1999, Prof. Strasser earned his doctoral degree in Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry from the �Fritz-Haber-Institute� of the Max-Planck-Society, Berlin, Germany, under the direction of the 2007 Chemistry Nobel Laureate, Professor Gerhard Ertl. In the same year, he was awarded the �Otto-Hahn Research Medal� by the Max-Planck Society. In 1996, Dr. Strasser was visiting scientist with Sony Central Research, Yokohama, Japan. He studied chemistry at Stanford University, the University of Tuebingen, and the University of Pisa, Italy. Professor Strasser is interested in the fundamental Materials Science and Catalysis of electrified liquid solid interfaces, in particular for renewable energy conversion, energy storage, production of fuels and chemicals.

Pieremanuele Canepa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Chemistry from the University of Torino (Italy) and a PhD from the University of Kent (UK). Prior NUS, he was a Postdoctoral fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the guidance of Prof. Gerbrand Ceder. His research contributes to the rational design of materials for clean energy technologies, including electrode materials for batteries, and electrolytes for sustainable energy storage devices. In 2021, Pieremanuele was elected as fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Montse Casas-Cabanas is the scientific coordinator of the Electrochemical Energy Storage Area and group leader of the Advanced Electrode Materials group at CIC energiGUNE. Her research interests focus on the design of battery materials and the understanding of phenomena that occur in energy storage devices through a multidisciplinary approach, with a focus in crystal chemistry. 

She is also author of >75 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals and has been PI of several national and european projects. She has co-authored the FAULTS software for the refinement of X-ray data of crystalline structures with planar defects. She is also actively involved in the MESC+ Erasmus Mundus master course and has recently received the 2021 Young Researcher award ("Group Leader" category) from the  Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry.

Dr. Hatzell is an assistant professor at Princeton university in the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment and department of Mechanical and aerospace engineering. Hatzell’s group primarily work on energy storage and is particularly interested at using non-equilibrium x-ray techniques to probe batteries during operando experimentation.

 

Dr. Hatzell earned her Ph.D. in Material Science and Engineering at Drexel University, her M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University, and her B.S./B.A. in Engineering/Economics from Swarthmore College. Hatzell’s research group works on understanding phenomena at solid|liquid and solid|solid interfaces and works broadly i9n energy storage and conversion. Hatzell is the recipient of several awards including the ORAU Powe Junior Faculty Award (2017), NSF CAREER Award (2019), ECS Toyota Young Investigator Award (2019), finalist for the BASF/Volkswagen Science in Electrochemistry Award (2019), the Ralph “Buck” Robinson award from MRS (2019), Sloan Fellowship in Chemistry (2020), and POLiS Award of Excellence for Female Researchers (2021).

Dr. Yaroslav Romanyuk is a scientific group leader at the Laboratory for Thin Films and Photovoltaics since 2008. He received his Ph.D. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne in 2005 and completed his postdoctoral education stay at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include novel materials for thin-film solar cells, oxide electronics, and lately all-solid-state batteries fabricated with vacuum and printing methods. He supervised 11 completed Ph.D. theses with two in progress. He holds several patents and has co-authored more than 150 research articles (h-factor = 40 as of April 2022).

Maksym Kovalenko has been a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at ETH Zurich since July 2011 and Associate professor from January 2017. His group is also partially hosted by EMPA (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) to support his highly interdisciplinary research program. He completed graduate studies at Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria, 2004-2007, with Prof. Wolfgang Heiss), followed by postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago (USA, 2008-2011, with Prof. Dmitri Talapin). His present scientific focus is on the development of new synthesis methods for inorganic nanomaterials, their surface chemistry engineering, and assembly into macroscopically large solids. His ultimate, practical goal is to provide novel inorganic materials for optoelectronics, rechargeable Li-ion batteries, post-Li-battery materials, and catalysis. He is the recipient of an ERC Consolidator Grant 2018, ERC Starting Grant 2012, Ruzicka Preis 2013 and Werner Prize 2016. He is also a Highly Cited Researcher 2018 (by Clarivate Analytics).

Alexander S. Urban studied Physics at the University of Karlsruhe (Germany) obtaining an equivalent to an M.Sc. degree (German: Dipl. Phys.) at the University of Karlsruhe (Germany) in 2006. During his studies he spent a year at Heriot Watt University (UK), where he obtained an M.Phys. in Optoelectronics and Lasers in 2005. He then joined the Photonics and Optoelectronics Chair of Jochen Feldmann at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich (Germany) in 2007 where he worked on the optothermal manipulation of plasmonic nanoparticles, earning his Ph.D. summa cum laude in 2010. He expanded his expertise in the fields of plasmonics and nanophotonics in the group of Naomi J. Halas at the Laboratory for Nanophotonics at Rice University (Houston, TX, USA), beginning in 2011. He returned to the LMU in 2014 to become a junior group leader with Jochen Feldmann, where he led the research thrusts on optical spectroscopy, focusing on hybrid nanomaterials such as halide perovskite nanocrystals and carbon dots. In 2017 he was awarded a prestigious Starting Grant from the European Research Council and shortly after that in 2018 he received a call as a Full Professor of Physics (W2) at the LMU.  Here, he now leads his own research group working on nanospectroscopy in novel hybrid nanomaterials.

Dr. Teresa Andreu is lecturer professor at the University of Barcelona since 2020. She received the degree in Chemistry (1999) and PhD in Materials Science (2004) from the University of Barcelona. After a period in industry and academia, she joined IREC in 2009 as senior researcher. Her research is focused on the development of materials and reactors for emerging technologies for hydrogen generation and carbon dioxide conversion (photoelectrochemistry, heterogeneous catalysis and plasma-catalysis), solar fuels and redox flow batteries. She has been part-time lecturer at the materials department at UB (2014-2017) and UPC (2017-2019) and she is the author of more than 100 scientific publications and 4 patents.

Prof. Aimy Bazylak is the Canada Research Chair in Thermofluids for Clean Energy and Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the U of T. In 2011, she was awarded the I.W. Smith Award from the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering, and she received the Ontario Early Researcher Award in 2012. From 2015-2018, she served as the Director of the U of T Institute for Sustainable Energy. In 2015 she was named an Alexander Von Humboldt Fellow (Germany), and in 2019 she was named a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In 2020, she was named a Helmholtz International Fellow (Germany), was awarded the U of T McLean Award, and was elected to the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.

I am currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Montreal, Department of Chemistry. My overarching motivation is to discover and implement the chemistry necessary to transition to a sustainable energy-based society. Specifically, I am developing materials to convert solar energy to chemical fuels as an energy storage media.

Christoph J. Brabec is holding the chair “materials for electronics and energy technology (i-MEET)” at the materials science of the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg. Further, he is the scientific director of the Erlangen division of the Bavarian research institute for renewable energy (ZAE Bayern, Erlangen).
He received his PhD (1995) in physical chemistry from Linz university, joined the group of Prof Alan Heeger at UCSB for a sabbatical, and continued to work on all aspects of organic semiconductor spectroscopy as assistant professor at Linz university with Prof. Serdar Sariciftci. He joined the SIEMENS research labs as project leader for organic semiconductor devices in 2001 and joined Konarka in 2004, where he was holding the position of the CTO before joining university.
He is author and co-author of more than 150 papers and 200 patents and patent applications, and finished his habilitation in physical chemistry in 2003.

Eva Herzig’s research interest focuses on the possibilities and limitations in the characterization of nanostructures in functional materials as well as how such nanostructures form and change as functions of external parameters. The examined materials range from organic molecules to nanostructured hybrid and inorganic systems. We examine processing-property relationships and the influence of external fields to investigate how the fundamental self-assembly processes influence the final material performance. To this end we exploit various scattering techniques to observe and control structure and function relationships in the examined materials in-situ. Using grazing incidence x-ray scattering we are particularly sensitive to nanostructures on flat surfaces and within thin films.

Leite is an Associate Professor in Materials Science and Engineering at UC Davis. Her group investigates materials for energy harvesting and storage, from their nano-scale structural, electrical, and optical properties to their implementation in devices. Before joining UC Davis, Leite was an associate professor at the University of Maryland, she worked for two years at NIST and was a post-doctoral scholar at Caltech (Department of Applied Physics and Materials Science). She received her PhD in physics from Campinas State University in Brazil and the Synchrotron Light Source Laboratory. Leite's work has been recognized on the cover of ~30 scientific journals, by the presentation of >140 invited talks, by the 2016 APS Ovshinsky Sustainable Energy Fellowship from the American Physical Society (APS) and the 2014 Maryland Academy of Sciences Outstanding Young Scientist Award. Leite’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Army Research Office (ARO), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), etc.

Iván Mora-Seró (1974, M. Sc. Physics 1997, Ph. D. Physics 2004) is researcher at Universitat Jaume I de Castelló (Spain). His research during the Ph.D. at Universitat de València (Spain) was centered in the crystal growth of semiconductors II-VI with narrow gap. On February 2002 he joined the University Jaume I. From this date until nowadays his research work has been developed in: electronic transport in nanostructured devices, photovoltaics, photocatalysis, making both experimental and theoretical work. Currently he is associate professor at University Jaume I and he is Principal Researcher (Research Division F4) of the Institute of Advanced Materials (INAM). Recent research activity was focused on new concepts for photovoltaic conversion and light emission based on nanoscaled devices and semiconductor materials following two mean lines: quantum dot solar cells with especial attention to sensitized devices and lead halide perovskite solar cells and LEDs, been this last line probably the current hottest topic in the development of new solar cells.

Jenny Nelson is a Professor of Physics at Imperial College London, where she has researched novel varieties of material for use in solar cells since 1989. Her current research is focussed on understanding the properties of molecular semiconductor materials and their application to organic solar cells. This work combines fundamental electrical, spectroscopic and structural studies of molecular electronic materials with numerical modelling and device studies, with the aim of optimising the performance of plastic solar cells. She has published around 200 articles in peer reviewed journals, several book chapters and a book on the physics of solar cells.

Sam Stranks is a University Lecturer in Energy and Royal Society University Research Fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology and the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. He obtained his DPhil (PhD) from the University of Oxford in 2012. From 2012-2014, he was a Junior Research Fellow at Worcester College Oxford and from 2014-2016 a Marie Curie Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He established his research group in 2017, with a focus on the optical and electronic properties of emerging semiconductors for low-cost electronics applications.

Sam received the 2016 IUPAP Young Scientist in Semiconductor Physics Prize, the 2017 Early Career Prize from the European Physical Society, the 2018 Henry Moseley Award and Medal from the Institute of Physics, and the 2019 Marlow Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2016 he was named a TED Fellow, and in 2017 he was listed by the MIT Technology Review as one of the 35 under 35 innovators in Europe. Sam is also a co-founder of Swift Solar, a startup developing lightweight perovskite PV panels, and an Associate Editor at Science Advances.

Christoph J. Brabec is holding the chair “materials for electronics and energy technology (i-MEET)” at the materials science of the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg. Further, he is the scientific director of the Erlangen division of the Bavarian research institute for renewable energy (ZAE Bayern, Erlangen).
He received his PhD (1995) in physical chemistry from Linz university, joined the group of Prof Alan Heeger at UCSB for a sabbatical, and continued to work on all aspects of organic semiconductor spectroscopy as assistant professor at Linz university with Prof. Serdar Sariciftci. He joined the SIEMENS research labs as project leader for organic semiconductor devices in 2001 and joined Konarka in 2004, where he was holding the position of the CTO before joining university.
He is author and co-author of more than 150 papers and 200 patents and patent applications, and finished his habilitation in physical chemistry in 2003.

Filippo De Angelis is senior research scientist and a deputy director at the CNR Institute of Molecular Sciences and Technology, in Perugia, Italy. He is the founder and leader of the Computational Laboratory for Hybrid/Organic Photovoltaics. He earned a BS in Chemistry in 1996 and a PhD in Theoretical Inorganic Chemistry in 1999, both from the University of Perugia. He is an expert in the development and application of quantum mechanical methods to the study of hybrid/organic photovoltaics and materials for energy applications. He is Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences. He has published >270 papers with > 17000 citations.

Laura Herz is a Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford. She received her PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge in 2002 and was a Research Fellow at St John's College Cambridge from 2001 - 2003 after which she moved to Oxford. Her research interests lie in the area of organic and organic/inorganic hybrid semiconductors including aspects such as self-assembly, nano-scale effects, energy-transfer and light-harvesting for solar energy conversion.

Lorenzo obtained his PhD in Chemistry in 2003 and since 2008 is Assistant Professor at the Chemistry Department of the University of Pavia. In 2021 he was appointed Full Professor in the same department. He was the recipient of the Young Scientist Award for outstanding work in the field of perovskites at the International Conference on Perovskites held in late 2005 in Zürich, of the “Alfredo di Braccio” Prize for Chemistry 2008 of Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei awarded to distinguished under 35-year-old chemists and contributed the Journal Materials Chemistry and Chemical Communications“Emerging Investigator” issues in 2010 and 2011. He is working in several areas of solid state chemistry with particular interest in the investigation of structure–properties correlation in different kinds of functional materials, in particular electrolyte materials for clean energy, hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites and catalysis materials.  He is author of more than 200 papers on international peer-reviewed journals. Since 2018 he is member of Academic Senate and Vice-Director of the Chemistry Department. He is Director of the INSTM Reference Center “PREMIO” devoted to the synthesis of innovative materials and member of the Directive Board of INSTM. Since 2014 he is member of the Academic Board of the PhD in Chemistry of Pavia University. He is Editor of Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids.

Iván Mora-Seró (1974, M. Sc. Physics 1997, Ph. D. Physics 2004) is researcher at Universitat Jaume I de Castelló (Spain). His research during the Ph.D. at Universitat de València (Spain) was centered in the crystal growth of semiconductors II-VI with narrow gap. On February 2002 he joined the University Jaume I. From this date until nowadays his research work has been developed in: electronic transport in nanostructured devices, photovoltaics, photocatalysis, making both experimental and theoretical work. Currently he is associate professor at University Jaume I and he is Principal Researcher (Research Division F4) of the Institute of Advanced Materials (INAM). Recent research activity was focused on new concepts for photovoltaic conversion and light emission based on nanoscaled devices and semiconductor materials following two mean lines: quantum dot solar cells with especial attention to sensitized devices and lead halide perovskite solar cells and LEDs, been this last line probably the current hottest topic in the development of new solar cells.

1) Predoctoral (2011-2014)
After completing 3-month and 5-month research internships at Tohoku University (Japan) and Université de Sherbrooke (Canada), I did my PhD in France at the University of Lyon (2014). My work focused on “Surface functionalization of heterogeneous gold / silica substrates for the selective anchoring of biomolecules and colloids onto LSPR biosensors”. The chemical functionalization approaches that I developed resulted in 5 first-author articles and 1 book chapter. In particular, the optimized biochemical functionalization of gold surfaces to robustly anchor different molecules (see publication 10, section C.1) is still cited today. This work provides a tool to detect specific biomolecules, such as tumoral markers for an early cancer diagnosis. During that time I was also secretary of Ecole Centrale de Lyon’s PhD association (ECLAT), where we conducted dissemination activities and organized visits to relevant scientific and industrial sites such as CERN and St Alban nuclear power plant. I also co-supervised one Master’s thesis student (Cindy Montenegro Benavides), whose work contributed to the aforementioned publication, and was in charge of 201 hours of teaching in general chemistry and chemical engineering.

2) Junior postdoc (2015-2018)
From 2015 until the end of 2017 I was hired as a post-doctoral researcher at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia to work on the ERC project Trans-Nano. During that time, I made significant contributions to the emerging field of halide perovskite quantum dots which is in process of becoming a major technology for high-efficiency (low energy consumption) displays. I published over 20 papers, most as first author in leading journals, many of which have gathered over 100 citations already (see publications 9-6, section C.1). I also participated in several international conferences (section C.2) and taught a course for PhD students on surface characterization methods (XPS and ToF-SIMS).

3) Senior postdoc and independent researcher (2018-present)
In 2018 I joined the Instituto de Ciencia Molecular in Valencia, first through a Marie-Curie Fellowship and then with a Juan de la Cierva – Incorporación contract. Aside from maintaining a high-level of publications in the field of perovskite photovoltaics to meet the global demand on renewable energies (publications 5-1, section C.1), during these last years I have consolidated my position as independent researcher, as proven by: (i) my appointment as co-leader for one of the 6 strategic research axes of ICMol as a Maria de Maeztu excellence unit, (ii) the supervision of PhD candidates (Yousra El Ajjouri, defended with honors in September 2020; Paz Sebastia-Luna, ongoing), (iii) several publications as corresponding author, (iv) establishment of several national and international collaborations (e.g. Monica Morales in University of Twente, the Netherlands and Liberato Manna from my former group in Italy), and (iv) the obtention of a Ramon y Cajal grant.
Furthermore, I have kept a teaching activity in chemical engineering (102 hours) and obtained the “Profesor Contratado Doctor” accreditation from ANECA. Eventually I have been very active in outreach activities to society, participating in several “MSCA information days” organized by the Network of Valencian Universities (RUVID) and collaborating with the spanish federation of young researchers (FJI), as well as being involved in technology transfer with leading industries in emerging photovoltaics (patent filing ongoing as a result of a collaboration work with Oxford PV, a spin-off company that is leading the market of perovskite photovoltaics).
With this solid background, I will start my Ramón y Cajal contract in 2022 at the Technical University of Cartagena (UPCT) where I plan to build my own independent research group with the help of this project among other funds.

Throughout this highly international career I have made significant contributions in the fields of materials’ chemistry, colloidal inorganic nanocrystals, surface analysis and halide perovskites’ optoelectronic devices among others.

I have co-authored 31 articles in international peer-reviewed journals and 1 book chapter. Most of my publications are in the most significant and highest impact factor journals of my field of research such as Nature Energy, Nature Communications and Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). My work has been highlighted on the cover of JACS and Chemistry of Materials. My publications cumulate a rapidly increasing number of citations (> 500 in total, out of which > 250 in 2018; source: Google Scholar). Furthermore, it is worth noting that most of these publications are without the contribution of my PhD supervisors and that I am first author and/or corresponding author in more than half of them.

Aside from research I have also maintained a teaching activity throughout my career with over 200 hours of lectures and practical courses in chemistry at undergraduate level (Ecole Centrale de Lyon; 2011-2014) as well as specific courses in surface analysis techniques for PhD students (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia; 2015-2017). Eventually, I have supervised a Master of Science thesis and I currently supervise a PhD thesis.

Christoph J. Brabec is holding the chair “materials for electronics and energy technology (i-MEET)” at the materials science of the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg. Further, he is the scientific director of the Erlangen division of the Bavarian research institute for renewable energy (ZAE Bayern, Erlangen).
He received his PhD (1995) in physical chemistry from Linz university, joined the group of Prof Alan Heeger at UCSB for a sabbatical, and continued to work on all aspects of organic semiconductor spectroscopy as assistant professor at Linz university with Prof. Serdar Sariciftci. He joined the SIEMENS research labs as project leader for organic semiconductor devices in 2001 and joined Konarka in 2004, where he was holding the position of the CTO before joining university.
He is author and co-author of more than 150 papers and 200 patents and patent applications, and finished his habilitation in physical chemistry in 2003.

 

René Janssen is university professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). He received his Ph.D. in 1987 from the TU/e for a thesis on electron spin resonance and quantum chemical calculations of organic radicals in single crystals. He was lecturer at the TU/e since 1984, and a senior lecturer in physical organic chemistry since 1991. In 1993 and 1994 he joined the group of Professor Alan J. Heeger (Nobel laureate in 2000) at the University of California Santa Barbara as associate researcher to work on the photophysical properties of conjugated polymers. Presently the research of his group focuses on functional conjugated molecules and macromolecules as well as hybrid semiconductor materials that may find application in advanced technological applications. The synthesis of new materials is combined with time-resolved optical spectroscopy, electrochemistry, morphological characterization and the preparation of prototype devices to accomplish these goals. René Janssen has co-authored more than 600 scientific papers. He is co-recipient of the René Descartes Prize from the European Commission for outstanding collaborative research, and received the Research Prize of The Royal Institute of Engineers and in The Netherlands for his work. In 2015 René Janssen was awarded with the Spinoza Prize of The Dutch Research Council.

 

Jenny Nelson is a Professor of Physics at Imperial College London, where she has researched novel varieties of material for use in solar cells since 1989. Her current research is focussed on understanding the properties of molecular semiconductor materials and their application to organic solar cells. This work combines fundamental electrical, spectroscopic and structural studies of molecular electronic materials with numerical modelling and device studies, with the aim of optimising the performance of plastic solar cells. She has published around 200 articles in peer reviewed journals, several book chapters and a book on the physics of solar cells.

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Mariano Campoy Quiles´s research is devoted to the understanding and development of solution processed semiconductors for energy and optoelectronic applications. He and his team have built substantial research efforts in two application areas, solar photovoltaic (light to electric) and thermoelectric (heat to electric) energy conversion based on organic and hybrid materials. He studied physics at the Univesity of Santiago de Compostela, obtained his PhD in experimental physics from Imperial College London, and since 2008 he leads his team at the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona.

Eva Herzig’s research interest focuses on the possibilities and limitations in the characterization of nanostructures in functional materials as well as how such nanostructures form and change as functions of external parameters. The examined materials range from organic molecules to nanostructured hybrid and inorganic systems. We examine processing-property relationships and the influence of external fields to investigate how the fundamental self-assembly processes influence the final material performance. To this end we exploit various scattering techniques to observe and control structure and function relationships in the examined materials in-situ. Using grazing incidence x-ray scattering we are particularly sensitive to nanostructures on flat surfaces and within thin films.

Frédéric Laquai received his doctoral degree in Physical Chemistry from the University of Mainz in 2006. Thereafter, he was as a Research Fellow at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. In 2008 he became Head of the Max Planck Research Group for Organic Optoelectronics at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz. Since 2015 he is also Associate Professor at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and affiliated with the Solar and Photovoltaics Engineering Research Center (SPERC) at KAUST. His current research interest is focused on photonenergy conversion processes, specifically the photophysics of organic solar cells.

Iain McCulloch holds positions as Professor of Chemical Science within the Division of Physical Sciences and Engineering of KAUST, and a Chair in Polymer Materials within the Chemistry Department at Imperial College. He is also a co-founder and director of Flexink Limited. He is co-inventor on over 60 patents and co-author on over 300 papers with a current h-index of 68. His papers have been cited over 19000 times, including two papers with over 1000 citations. He was cited in Thompson Reuters “Global Top 100 Materials Scientists, 2000-10, Ranked by Citation Impact” at number 35 globally and number 2 in the UK, and was listed on ISI Highly Cited Researchers List 2014, based on ESI Highly Cited Papers 2002-2012. He was awarded the 2009 Royal Society of Chemistry, Creativity in Industry Prize, the 2014 Royal Society of Chemistry Tilden Prize for Advances in Chemistry and a 2014 Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award.

Thuc-Quyen Nguyen is a professor in the Center for Polymers and Organic Solids and the Chemistry & Biochemistry Department at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). She received her Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2001 under the supervision of Professor Benjamin Schwartz. Her thesis focused on photophysics of conducting polymers. She was a research associate in the Department of Chemistry and the Nanocenter at Columbia University working with Professors Louis Brus and Colin Nuckolls on molecular self-assembly, nanoscale characterization and molecular electronics. She also spent time at IBM Research Center at T. J. Watson (Yorktown Heights, NY) working with Richard Martel and Phaedon Avouris. Her current research interests are structure-function-property relationships in organic semiconductors, electronic properties of conjugated polyelectrolytes, interfaces in optoelectronic devices, charge transport in organic semiconductors and biological systems, and device physics. Recognition for her research includes the 2005 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, the 2006 NSF CAREER Award, the 2007 Harold Plous Award, the 2008 Camille Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award, the 2009 Alfred Sloan Research Fellows, the 2010 National Science Foundation American Competitiveness and Innovation Fellows, the 2015 Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Award, the 2016 Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the 2015, 2016, and 2017 World’s Most InfluentialScientific Minds; Top 1% Highly Cited Researchers in Materials Science by Thomson Reuters and Clarivate Analytics. Her current research interests are electronic properties of conjugated polyelectrolytes, doping in organic semiconductors, charge transport in organic semiconductors and biofilms, bioelectronics, and device physics of organic solar cells, ratchets, transistors, and photodetectors.

Ergang Wang was appointed as a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers in 2019. He has been an Associated Professor in 2016-2019 and Assistant Professor in 2012-2016. Previously, he has been a postdoc fellow in the same department in 2008-2011. He obtained his PhD degree in Materials Science in 2008 and Docentship in 2015.

The focus of his research is on the development of new conjugated polymers, 2D materials and Graphene-like materials. The main applications of the materials are organic solar cells, photodetectors, light-emitting diodes, light-emitting electrochemical cells, electrochromics, field effect transistors and supercapacitors.

Amirreza received his BSC. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the Tehran Polytechnic (2010) and Sharif University of Technology (2013), Tehran, Iran. In 2014, he was awarded an F.P.I scholarship from Spanish Research Council (CSIC). He received his Ph.D. in the field of neuromorphic engineering at the Instituto de Microelectronica de Sevilla (IMSE-CNM-CSIC), University of Seville, Seville, Spain in 2018. He has been visiting scholar/Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Manchester (UK), Brain and Mind Institute (CerCo, CNRS, Toulouse), National University of Singapore, imec (Ghent), BrainChip (Toulouse) and GrAI-Matter-Labs (Eindhoven). Since 2020, he is a neuromorphic architect researcher in IMEC (Eindhoven, Netherlands) with a focus on designing low-power neuromorphic processor architecture.

Aldo Di Carlo is Director of the Institute of Structure of Matter of the National Research Council and Full Professor of Optoelectronics and Nanoelectronics at the Department of Electronics Engineering of the University of ROme "Tor Vergata". His research focuses on the study and fabrication of electronic and optoelectronic devices, their analysis and their optimization. Di Carlo founded the Center for Hybrid and Organic Solar Cells (CHOSE) which nowadays involve more than40 researchers dealing with the development of III generation solar cells (DSC, OPV and Perovskite) and on scaling-up of these technologies for industrial applications. CHOSE has generated 6 spin-off companies and a public/private partnership. Di Carlo is author/coauthor of more than 500 scientific publications in international journals, 13 patents and has been involved in several EU projects (three as EU coordinator)

He has more than 15 years research experience in the academic sector working on nanoelectronics, spintronics and optoelectronics. He possesses extensive hands-on experience on emerging low-dimensionality electronic systems including nanowire transistors, GaAs single spin quantum-bits, as well emerging phenomena in functional oxide and superconductive/ferromagnetic interfaces towards beyond CMOS technologies. He has served at various academic research positions in high reputation European institutions including the Foundation of Research and Technology in Greece, the Institut Néel CNRS in France and the London centre for Nanotechnology – University College of London in United Kingdom.  He obtained his PhD in Nanoelectronics from Grenoble Institute of Technology in France, in 2009. He is currently Researcher (Grade C) in the i-EMERGE Research Institute of the Hellenic Mediterranean University (HMU) and the Team Leader of Innovative Printed Electronics at the Nanomaterials for Emerging Devices research group. His current research interests include 2D materials engineering in various printed device concepts suc as high performing solar cells, functional sensors as well as neuromorhic computation architectures towards energy efficient, smart Internet of Intelligent Things and wearable systems.

Mariano Campoy Quiles´s research is devoted to the understanding and development of solution processed semiconductors for energy and optoelectronic applications. He and his team have built substantial research efforts in two application areas, solar photovoltaic (light to electric) and thermoelectric (heat to electric) energy conversion based on organic and hybrid materials. He studied physics at the Univesity of Santiago de Compostela, obtained his PhD in experimental physics from Imperial College London, and since 2008 he leads his team at the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona.

Dr Matthew Griffith develops bio-functional electronic inks and crafts new tools to print functional devices with applications in biosensing, energy and interact with human body. He has created soft functional materials that can replace traditional hard electronics, solving longstanding biocompatibility problems that restrict adoption of electronic devices in healthcare.

 

His achievements include creating biocompatible inks for a printed artificial retina with the potential to restore colour vision, flexible X-ray detectors that are revolutionizing radiotherapy treatment for cancer, and a series of material and technological developments that enabled the first commercial installation of printed solar cells in Australia. His work is published in the top 5% of journals in materials science and has been commercialised through multiple industry partnerships. The bioprinting tools he developed enable a globally unique translation of innovation from the lab to industrial scale roll-to-roll manufacture, leading to their inclusion in the Australian National Fabrication Facility.

 

Matthew has been awarded $6M+ in prestigious grants and fellowships, half secured as lead researcher. He has authored 45 publications, cited in 160 journals by authors in 68 countries across 19 different subject areas. His outreach includes direct patient engagement, creating a podcast for Australia’s leading chemistry society, and frequent media interactions.

Oana Jurchescu is an Associate Professor of Physics at Wake Forest University (WFU). She received her PhD in 2006 from University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and was a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD, until 2009, when she joined the Physics Department at Wake Forest University as an Assistant professor. Her expertise is in charge transport in organic and organic/inorganic hybrid semiconductors, device physics and semiconductor processing. She published over 70 peer-reviewed articles, 4 invited book chapters, 3 patents and gave over 50 invited or plenary talks at conferences. She won the 2013 National Science Foundation CAREER award, the ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement award, the university award for excellence in research, the university innovation award, as well as the prize for excellence in teaching and the award for excellence in mentorship. She served in a variety of capacities, including program chair and co-chair, for over 30 international conferences and workshops such as MRS, APS, SPIE, etc.