J.A. Szpunar, a professor of Materials Science at University of Saskatchewan, was educated in Poland and received his PhD and D.Sc. degrees from the Academy of Mining and Metallurgy in Cracow. He has held various visiting positions in at Sussex and Durham Universities in England, worked in laboratories of the Finish Academy of Science, Riso National Laboratories and held visiting professor positions in Seoul National University, Queens University, Tohoku University, Osaka University and Bangalore Institute of Science and Technology. He also served as an adviser to the National Atomic Agency Research Center in Bandung, Indonesia and International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. During 22 years he has been Professor of Materials Science and Henry Birk’s Chair in Metallurgy at McGill University. During his time, at McGill, he founded the “Textures & Microstructure Laboratory”, recognized as a leading world center of microstructural research. During his years at McGill, 30 Ph.D. students and 15 MSc. students graduated under his supervision. He was a leader of 49 major research projects – mostly materials related investigations. Dr. Szpunar joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan in August 2009 as Tier I Canada Research Chair in Advanced Materials for Clean Energy and his present research is mainly related to materials for Generation IV nuclear reactors, hydrogen generation and storage and novel techniques to support clean energy programs. His overall research interests extend to various areas of materials related investigations.

His research interest spans various areas of materials related investigations. In particular he is interested in deformation and recrystallization processes in textured metals, structure and properties of thin films, electronic interconnects, high temperature oxidation and corrosion, synergy of wear and corrosion, application of X-ray and neutron diffraction, structure of grain boundaries and other interfaces, intergranular fracture, hydrogen membranes and hydrogen ingress in nuclear materials, superplasticity and special properties of nanocrystalline materials His group is also active in the area of computer simulation of structure and properties of engineering materials. The simulation based research is done on various levels: atomistic, microscopic and macroscopic; Ab-Initio, Molecular Dynamics and Monte Carlo are used to predict macroscopic properties of materials and to understand various processes that transform texture, grain boundary structure and properties

Dequan Xiao completed his PhD at Duke University in 2009 and postdoctoral studies at Yale University from 2009 to 2013. He is the director of Center for Integrative Materials Discovery and the University Research Scholar at the University of New Haven. He is focused on integrating frontier chemical theories with experimental methods to drive the discovery of new materials for the applications in renewable energy and molecular therapy. He has published more than 36 papers in high-impact journals and 3 book chapters, and has been served as the advisory board member of Connecticut NASA Space Grant Consortium.

Inverse molecular design of green catalysts for converting biomass into value-added chemicals: inverse molecular design theory, binding energy analysis of catalytic surfaces, and catalytic hydrogenation of biomass polymers; Computational design for polymer and dye-sensitized solar cells; and De novo design for molecular drugs for Leukemia cancer and Parkinson’s diseases. Keywords: inverse molecular design theory, binding energy analysis, green catalysts, bio fuels, photo voltaic materials, and molecular drugs.

Dr. Fuqiang Liu is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UMass Lowell, where he leads the Electrochemical Energy Lab. Upon receiving his PhD degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Penn State in 2006, he worked at United Technologies Research Center as a senior researcher (2006-2009). Prior to his current position, he was an Assistant Professor (2009-2015) and then Associate Professor (2015-2016) at University of Texas at Arlington. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed papers and held ~10 patents and patent applications.

Electrochemical energy generation and storage, Solar energy conversion through photo-electrochemical reactions, Ion-conductive membranes for electrochemical systems, Nanostructured materials.

Prof. Christopher Chao is a Chair Professor and Head of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a first class honors in 1988. He obtained his Master's and Doctoral degrees from the University of California at Berkeley in 1992 and 1994 respectively. Prof. Chao has over 25 years of research and project coordination experience in numerous areas of energy and environmental engineering. He is Director of Building Energy Research Center. Prof. Chao is Fellow of Five professional societies, and has published 100+ journal articles.

Advanced Material in Energy and Built Environment: Aerosol Transport in Indoor Environments; Respiratory Infectious Disease Transmission and Risk Assessment; Ultrafine Particle Dynamics; Contaminant Transport in Indoor Environments; Heat and Mass Transfer; Energy Transport, Conversion and Storage; Passive Radiative Cooling; Smart Green Buildings; Adsorption Cooling and Refrigeration; Combustion.

Devki N. Talwar graduated from Allahabad University in India in 1976 with a PhD degree in Condensed Matter Physics. From 1977-80 he worked as a Visiting Scientist at the Commissariat a’l Energie Atomic, Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France with Professor M. Vandevyver. In January 1980 he joined the Physics Department, University of Houston as a Visiting Professor and supervised a PhD student. From 1982-87 he was a faculty at Texas A & M University. He joined the Physics Department at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1987, supervised 23 MS theses. From 2007-2014 Dr. Talwar served as the Chairperson of the Physics Department.

Research on defects in semiconductor materials used for various electronics and opto-electronics.

Dr. Xiaoliang Wei completed his PhD in chemistry at Brown University and postdoctoral studies at Case Western Reserve University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Currently he is a senior scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He has published more than 40 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 8 patent applications, and 1 book chapter. His research interest includes electrochemical energy conversion and storage. He has been serving as an editorial board member for Scientific Reports and Cogent Engineering. He has earned a Ronald L. Brodzinski Early Career Exceptional Achievement Award and an Exceptional Contribution Award at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

-Redox flow batteries -Rechargeable zinc batteries -Materials science and system engineering -Development of electroactive materials, electrolytes, electrodes, membranes -Degradation mechanisms.

Muge Acik is currently an Argonne Scholar-Named Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory. She obtained a B.S. in chemistry from Izmir Institute of Technology (Turkey), a M.S. in materials science and nanoengineering from Sabanci University (Turkey), and a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the University of Texas at Dallas. Prior to Argonne, she also worked for Texas Instruments Inc. as a Process Development Engineer for memory device production. Her work as the PI covers the analysis of surfaces and interfaces of the graphene-based thin films using in situ spectroscopy, and the discovery of new perovskite growth methods for energy harvesting and nanoelectronics. Indeed, she is the recipient of 2015 Distinguished Joseph Katz Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2011 MRS Graduate Student Silver Award, and 2011 MRS Best Poster Award.

Address stability issues by discovering new methods for the crystal growth of perovskites, perform their characterization using in situ spectroscopy techniques to investigate the growth and nucleation mechanisms, study the analysis of surfaces and interfaces between the metal halide perovskites and the graphene-based thin films, understand interfacial defect mechanisms to consult on the improvements for the film quality and the device performance, search for the possible applications for energy harvesting and nanoelectronics.

Dr. Bahman Zohuri is currently at the University of New Mexico as Associate Research Professor and Consulatnat at Sandia National Lab as well as Galaxy Advanced Engineering, Inc. a consulting company that he stared himself in 1991 when he left both semiconductor and defense industries after many years working as a chief scientist. After graduating from University of Illinois in field of Physics and Applied Mathematics, he joined Westinghouse Electric Corporation where he performed thermal hydraulic analysis and natural circulation for Inherent Shutdown Heat Removal System (ISHRS) in the core of a Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR) as a secondary fully inherent shut system for secondary loop heat exchange. All these designs were, used for Nuclear Safety and Reliability Engineering for Self-Actuated Shutdown System. He designed the Mercury Heat Pipe and Electromagnetic Pumps for Large Pool Concepts of LMFBR for heat rejection purpose for this reactor around 1978 where he received a patent for it. He then was, transferred to defense division of Westinghouse later, where he was responsible for the dynamic analysis and method of launch and handling of MX missile out of canister. He has later on joined Lockheed and Rockewell International working on Sattelite system for SDI as well as working and developing sensor system on board for remote sensing as well GIS. He later on was a consultant at Sandia National Laboratory after leaving United States Navy. Dr. Zohuri earned his first Bachelor's in Applied Matematics and his second one in Physics along with his Master’s degrees in Physics from the University of Illinois and his second Master degree in Mechanical Engineering as well as his Doctorate in Nuclear Engineering from University of New Mexico. He has been, awarded three patents, and has published 32 textbooks and numerous other journal publications.

Recently he has been involved with Cloud Computation, Data warehousing, and Data Mining using Fuzzy and Boolean logic. He has published more than 25 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an editorial board member of repute.

Prof. Hyoyoung Lee has completed his PhD from Department of Chemistry, University of Mississippi, USA, in 1997 and did his postdoc at North Carolina State University. He worked at ETRI, Korea and then moved to Dept. of chemistry, Sungkyunkwan University as a full professor. He served as a director of National Creative Research Initiatives and now as an associate director of Centre for Integrated Nanostructure Physics, Institute of Basic Science. His current research area is semiconducting materials. He has written more than 140 journal articles in top-tier journals and has been serving as an editorial board member of reputed journals.

Materials Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Catalysis, Graphene Based materials,Nano Science, Nano Electronics

Zhifeng Ren is currently the M.D. Anderson Chair Professor in the Department of Physics and TcSUH of the University of Houston. He obtained Ph.D. degree from the Institute of Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1990, specializes in materials synthesis and applications, especially in nanostructured thermoelectricmaterials, devices, and systems for more efficient energy conversion using the enhanced thermoelectric materials. He is a fellow of APS and AAAS. He has published more than 270 papers with a total citation of 15,000 and an H-index of 57. He is ranked at 49th of the materials scientists in the world.

His research interest is in materials synthesis and applications, especially in nanostructured thermoelectricmaterials, devices, and systems for more efficient energy conversion using the enhanced thermoelectric materials.

Dr. Y.L. Mo, F.ASCE and F.ACI, is Professor at the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, University of Houston (UH). He is also Tsinghua Chair Professor, Institute of Future City and Infrastructure, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Dr. Mo’s technical interests are multi-resolution distributed analytical simulations, network analysis, large-scale concrete structure testing and field investigations of the response of complex networks and structures, on which he has more than 400 research publications, including 197 referred journal papers, many conference, keynote and prestige lectures, research reports, books and book chapters, magazine articles and earthquake field mission reports. Dr. Mo has successfully supervised six post-doc, 23 PhD and over 40 Masters Theses as well as 25 visiting scholar studies. Many of his students hold significant positions in industry, academia and government around the world. In the past several years, Dr. Mo has focused on periodic material research, especially application of periodic material to dynamic isolation of energy infrastructures.

Dr. Mo has focused on periodic material research, especially application of periodic material to dynamic isolation of energy infrastructures.