Speakers
Check out some of the fantastic Plenary and Keynote speakers we have lined up for the Conference so far -
Plenary Speakers
Professor Katalin Barta
Bio
Katalin Barta is professor of Chemistry at the University of Graz, Austria. She started her independent career in 2013 at the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, University of Groningen. Since 2019 she leads the sustainable catalysis unit at the University of Graz. Her research program addresses key scientific questions to enable the transition to a bio-based, circular economy. This involves catalyst and method development, alternative solvents and the development of biorefinery concepts, focusing on lignocellulosic biomass. Focus is devoted to the development of efficient catalytic pathways to access pharmaceutically active compounds, surfactants, fuels, as well as recyclable polymers and materials from renewable resources. Her group has made pioneering contributions to emerging biorefinery concepts, especially in the area of ‘lignin-first’ chemistry. Her work has been recognized by prestigious grants and prizes, including the Research Award of the Province of Styria (2025), the Zero Emissions Award from the alpha+ Foundation/FWF (2025), the Styria Innovation Award (2022), the ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering Lectureship Award (2020), and the Netherlands Catalysis and Chemistry Conference Award (2019). She is also a recipient of three ERC Grants, coordinator of the MSCA Doctoral Network RE-Fibre, and a member of the Cluster of Excellence ‘Circular Bioengineering’. She serves as president of the division Green and Sustainable Chemistry of the European Chemical Society, chair of the editorial board of ChemSusChem, as well as an international advisory board member of the journals Green Chemistry and Chem Circularity.
Professor Guillermo Bazan
Bio
Professor Bazan obtained his B.Sc. (Honors) from the University of Ottawa and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the advisement of Professor Richard R. Schrock. After working at the California Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral fellow with advisor Professor John E. Bercaw, he started his academic career at the University of Rochester in 1992. In 1998, Gui became a Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A year later he joined the faculty of the Department of Materials (Engineering) and in June 2000, he became the Director of the Center for Polymers and Organic Solids. In 2020, he joined the National University of Singapore as the Provost’s Chair Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He also holds appointments at the Department of Pharmacology in the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, the Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), and the Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials (I-FIM). In 2024 he became the Director of the Institute for Digital Molecular Analytics and Science (IDMxS) based at Nanyang Technological University (NTU).
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Professor Jillian Dempsey
Bio
Jillian L. Dempsey is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is currently the Director of the Center for Hybrid Approaches in Solar Energy to Liquid Fuels (CHASE) and an Associate Editor for ACS Electrochemistry.Jillian received her S.B. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005 where she worked in the laboratory of Prof. Daniel G. Nocera. As an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, she carried out research with Prof. Harry B. Gray and Dr. Jay R. Winkler at the California Institute of Technology, receiving her PhD in 2011. From 2011–2012 she was an NSF ACC Postdoctoral Fellow with Daniel R. Gamelin at the University of Washington. In 2012, Jillian joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research group explores charge transfer processes associated with energy capture and conversion, including proton-coupled electron transfer reactions and electron transfer across interfaces. Her research bridges molecular and materials chemistry and relies heavily on methods of physical inorganic chemistry, including transient absorption spectroscopy and electrochemistry. She has received numerous awards including the Harry B. Gray Award for Creative Work in Inorganic Chemistry by a Young Investigator (2019), the J. Carlyle Sitterson Award for Teaching First-Year Students (2017), a Sloan Research Fellowship (2016), a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering (2015), the Agnes Fay Morgan Research Award (2020), and the University Award for Advancement of Women (2021).
Professor Thomas Klassen
Bio
Thomas Klassen holds a shared professorship as director of the Institute for Hydrogen Technology at Helmholtz-Centre Hereon in Geesthacht, and as vice president research as well as head of the Institute of Materials Technology at Helmut Schmidt University / University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Germany. His research focus lies on sustainable materials and technologies, in particular hydrogen technology based on metal hydrides, including storage and compression, from basic material functionality to system integration and efficiency maximization. His team runs different demonstrator platforms for mobile and stationary use of hydrogen energy technology.
Professor Beatriz Noheda
Bio
Beatriz Noheda is Professor at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, where she chairs the Solid State Materials for Electronics (SSME) group. In 2017, she led the start of the Groningen Cognitive Systems and Materials Center (CogniGron), of which she has been director until 2025.Her team develops materials for future electronics, with focus on ferroelectric, piezoelectric, multiferroic and memristive oxides. The aim is to achieve atomic control of the materials in order to create new functionalities at the nanoscale, as the basis for novel memory and logic devices. This includes new hardware for ultra-efficient, brain-inspired, computer architectures (goal of the research center CogniGron).Noheda received her PhD in Physics in 1996 from the Universidad Autonoma in Madrid (UAM), where she also worked aspart-time lecturer. She performed postdoctoral stays in the labs of Prof. Mike Glazer (Clarendon Lab, Oxford) and Drs. Gen Shirane and Dave Cox (Brookhaven National Lab, BNL, NY). In 1999, she earned a tenure-track Assistant Physicist position at BNL (1999-2002). After a short but inspiring period at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam (2002-2003), Noheda was awarded a Rosalind Franklin Fellowship to start her own research line as assistant professor at the University of Groningen, where she is now full professor.Noheda is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and recipient of the prestigious IEEE- Robert E. Newnham Ferroelectrics Award. She has served as member of numerous national and international committees and several editorial boards (including the BORE of Science magazine). She has been responsible (as first, last or corresponding author) of several high-impact papers and her work has been cited over 15 thousand times.
More to come...
Bio
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Keynote Speakers
Dr. Kohei Kusada
Bio
Dr. Kohei Kusada is an Associate Professor at Kyushu University. His research interests include nanomaterial synthesis, heterogeneous catalysis, and electrochemical energy conversion. His group focuses on the flow-synthesis and design of advanced multi-element catalysts for hydrogen production.
Dr. Bipasa Kar
Bio
Dr. Bipasa Kar is a postdoctoral researcher and biologist at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg (JMU), specifically in the Department of Bioinformatics at the Biocenter. She holds a Ph.D. in Biotechnology and focuses her research on host-pathogen interactions, antimicrobial inhibitors, and cell biology
To Ngai
Bio
Prof. Ngai's research has centered on interdisciplinary investigations across colloids, surface chemistry, polymers, and materials science. Within this broad scope, my work has focused on several key areas: particle berhavior at interfaces, advanced measurement techniques and biodegradable packaging.
Professor Amanda Barnard
Bio
Professor Amanda Barnard is one of Australia’s most highly awarded computational scientists. She currently leads research at the interface of computational modeling, high performance supercomputing, and applied machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). She was awarded her BSc (Hons) in applied physics in 2000, her PhD in theoretical condensed matter physics in 2003, and DSc in 2020 from RMIT University. After graduating she accepted a Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National Laboratory (USA, 2003-2005), and the prestigious Violette & Samuel Glasstone Fellow at the University of Oxford (UK) with an Extraordinary Research Fellowship at The Queen’s College (2005-2008). Prior to joining ANU she was an ARC QEII Fellow, Office of the Chief Executive (OCE) Science Leader, and then Chief Research Scientist in Data61 at CSIRO (2009-2020).With more than 20 years experience in high performance computing and computational modeling and informatics, Prof Barnard is heavily engaged in international science diplomacy and research governance, and sits on boards and panels for various institutions (particularly in the Global South region). She has been recognised for leadership, and has been awarded in five scientific disciplines, and in 2022 was appointed a Member the Order of Australia (AM).
John Warner
Bio
John Warner is a chemist, inventor, educator, and entrepreneur widely recognized as one of the founders of the field of green chemistry. With Paul Anastas, he coauthored the 1998 book Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice, which defined the field and introduced the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry. Warner earned his B.Sc. from the University of Massachusetts Boston and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Princeton University.As an industrial chemist and inventor, Warner holds more than 350 patents and has collaborated with hundreds of companies worldwide to develop safer and more sustainable technologies. His inventions have led to the founding of multiple companies in areas including photovoltaics, neurochemistry, construction materials, water harvesting, and cosmetics.In academia, Warner served as a tenured full professor of chemistry and plastics engineering at the University of Massachusetts, where he founded the world’s first Ph.D. program in Green Chemistry in 2001. He has authored more than 120 scientific publications spanning synthetic methodologies, polymer photochemistry, noncovalent derivatization, and metal oxide semiconductors.Warner cofounded the nonprofit Beyond Benign with Amy Cannon to advance green chemistry education globally and currently serves as CEO and CTO of Technology Greenhouse, supporting innovation in sustainable technologies.
Dr. Jianbo Tang
Bio
Dr Jianbo Tang is a Lecturer (Adjunct) and an ARC DECRA Fellow at the School of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney). Dr Tang received his bachelor’s degree from Xi’an Jiaotong University (Xi'an, China) in 2011 and his PhD degree from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2016, with thesis work completed at the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing, China). He was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Tsinghua University (Beijing, China) from 2016 to 2018 and at UNSW from 2018 to 2021. Dr Tang’s research interest encompasses fundamental and applied sciences of low-melting-temperature metals and alloys known as liquid metals. He leverages liquid metals’ unique properties, together with multidisciplinary knowledge and methodologies in materials science, thermal/applied physics, fluid dynamics, chemical engineering, metallurgy and nanotechnology, to exploit unprecedented opportunities enabled by this material family.
Professor Charl Faul
Bio
After obtaining his PhD in Polymer Chemistry from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, Charl moved to Germany where he held positions as postdoc and then group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Golm. He joined the School of Chemistry in 2005, where he is Professor of Materials Chemistry and University Enterprise Fellow. He has held several visiting positions, including at Aalto University and Tsinghua University. His research and enterprise activities focus on producing functional polymeric materials to address global challenges, including a) utilisation of CO2 as abundantly available precursor to produce valuable fuels and feedstocks and b) providing functional materials solutions for soft robotics. He has published more than 145 papers, has an H-index of 48, holds a number of international patents, and is involved in commercialisation of two ventures from his laboratories. Charl is also Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor (Global Engagement) for the Faculty of Science and Engineering, where he is responsible for all international partnerships and interactions.
Professor Aaron Marshall
Bio
Professor Aaron Marshall is an electrochemist in the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Canterbury, specialising in industrial electrochemistry, energy technologies, and hydrogen systems.
He is recognised for advancing electrocatalysis, electrochemical engineering and for translating fundamental discoveries into commercial impact. Aaron is a Principal Investigator with the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology and co‑founder of Zethos and Ternary.
Dr Laura Domigan
Bio
Dr. Laura Domigan is the co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Opo Bio, an Auckland-based biotech company developing cell-based ingredients for cosmetics and medical applications.
Prof Dr. Richard Dronskowski
Bio
Richard Dronskowski studied chemistry and physics in Münster and obtained his doctorate with Arndt Simon in 1990. He then was visiting scientist with Roald Hoffmann at Cornell, continued as senior scientist at the MPI for Solid State Research, and received his Habilitation with Herbert Jacobs in Dortmund. In 1996 he joined RWTH Aachen where he is Distinguished Professor and holds the Chair of Solid-State and Quantum Chemistry. In 2025 he started Wellenfunktion GmbH in Switzerland. His research comprises the quantum chemistry of solids, synthetic solid-state chemistry, chemical crystallography, and neutron diffraction. He has been awarded the Otto Hahn Medal and the Prize of Angewandte Chemie, and he has delivered the M. N. Saha Memorial Lecture, the Egon Wiberg Lecture, and the Xingda Lecture. He has edited the Handbook of Solid State Chemistry in six volumes (Wiley, 2017) and authored more than 600 publications, in addition to the seminal textbooks Computational Chemistry of Solid State Materials (Wiley, 2005), Chemical Bonding from Plane Waves via Atomic Orbitals (de Gruyter, 2023), and 化学键：用原子轨道解读平面波 (Tsinghua, 2025).
A/Prof Catherine Whitby
Bio
Catherine is Associate Professor of Chemistry at Massey University. She is a physical chemist with expertise in colloid and surface chemistry. Catherine uses nanomaterials to modify the chemistry of drop and bubble surfaces. This strategy enables her to control the structure, stability and flow of soft materials.
Professor Jonathan Nitschke
Bio
Jonathan Nitschke received his bachelor's degree from Williams College (USA) in 1995 and his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley in 2001 under the supervision of T. Don Tilley. He then undertook postdoctoral studies with Jean-Marie Lehn in Strasbourg under the auspices of a US NSF fellowship, and in 2003 he started his independent research career as a Maître-assistant (fixed-term independent PI) in the Organic Chemistry Department of the University of Geneva. In 2007 he was appointed University Lecturer at Cambridge, where he now holds a Professorship. His research program investigates the self-assembly of complex, functional structures from simple organic precursors and metal ions.