Professor Geoffrey Mitchell studied in Sheffield and London before obtaining a PhD working with Alan Windle at the University of Cambridge, UK. His PhD thesis focused on the study of the local structure of polymer melts and glasses using x-ray scattering and computational modelling. He spent a period in Cambridge as a research fellow with a programme centered on the study of liquid crystal polymers. This was followed by a spell at Hokkaido University, Japan with Professor Akira Odajima applying nmr and dielectric measurements to main-chain liquid crystal polymers. In 1984 he took up a lectureship in physics at the University of Reading, was appointed Reader in Polymer Physics in 1992 and Professor of Polymer Physics in 1995. He was the Founding Coordinator of the Polymer Science Centre a collaborative research programme in polymer science involving the Departments of Physics and Chemistry. In 2005 he was the founding Director of the Centre for Advanced Microscopy at Reading which was University wide centre of excellence. In 2013 he was appointed Emeritus Professor. In 2010 he joined the staff of the Centre for Rapid and Sustainable Product Development at the Institute Polytechnic of Leiria. Previously he had been Visiting Professor of IPL since 2004. He is now Vice-Director of CDRSP since 2014.
Professor Mitchell has a broad experience of materials research ranging from non-linear optics through smart materials to the microstructural study of technologically important materials. He has developed novel time-resovig techniques in x-ray and neutron scattering for the study of both local structure and the influence of external fields (shear and extensional flow, stress, magnetic, electric) on polymer melts, glasses, liquid crystal polymers and crystallisable polymers. He has combined such scattering techniques with computational modelling to reveal quantitative information about the segmental packing in polymer melts and glasses. He has pioneered the study of liquid crystal elastomers including both chiral networks and the use of such networks as smart materials. He was one of the first to develop photoactive materials for a variety of applications, including non-linear optics, optical fibre switches, coatings and smart systems. In the last 15 years he has developed strong interest in additive manufacturing, firstly with the development of a novel UV/IR Stereolithography process and then the influence of 3-d printing processes of the structure and morphology of the final products. He has developed a strong interest in electrospinning and was amongst the first to evaluate the effect of the electrospinning parameters on the polymer structure of the fibres. He initiated and has chaired a highly successful conference series on electrospinning. This has led to a book ‘Electrospinning: principles, practice and possibilities’ published by the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2015. He is just completing a further book to be published by Springer ‘Controlling the Morphology of Polymers: Multiple Scales of Structure and Processing’.
Mark Jackson, a professor in mechanical engineering technology at K-State Polytechnic, has collaborated on two new publications focusing on metal and medicine.
Jackson co-edited the book "Advances in Medical and Surgical Engineering," which demonstrates the connection between engineering and medical science. Released in March, it examines technology in health care facilities and how it is used in specific procedures. The book is meant to be a resource for students, medical practitioners and even policymakers.
Additionally, Jackson teamed up with research colleagues from various universities in Brazil to co-author an article in the upcoming July edition of the Journal of Manufacturing Processes. Centered around the nickel-based superalloy Inconel 625, the scholarly paper Jackson helped pen explores the metal's machinability. While it stands up well to corrosion and oxidation because of its strong properties and resistance to high temperatures, Inconel 625 is challenged during the grinding process. Titled "Influence of Grinding Parameters on Inconel 625 Surface Grinding," the study evaluates surface integrity, grinding forces and specific grinding energy during a variety of experiments.
Jackson says the research is particularly relevant to K-State Polytechnic because Inconel 625 is used in the manufacturing of aircraft jet engine blades and the information could be valuable to students studying aviation maintenance management or be used in future-proposed programs.
Jackson's areas of expertise in mechanical engineering technology include manufacturing, materials science and nanotechnology.
Gianluca Fiori is Professor of Electronics at University of Pisa, from which he obtained the PhD in 2005. Prof. Fiori’s field of activity includes the modelling, the fabrication and electrical characterization of novel devices based on new architectures and new materials. Prof. Fiori has a renowned expertise in assessing device performance against Industry requirements, through the exploitation of purposely-devised multi-scale, multi-physics in-house atomistic simulators.
Prof. Fiori’s interest also focuses on printed electronics, aiming at obtaining fully printed integrated circuits on flexible substrates as paper.
Paolo Samorì is Distinguished Professor at the University of Strasbourg and Director of the Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaires (ISIS), where he leads the Nanochemistry Laboratory. He obtained a master’s degree (Laurea) in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Bologna, Italy in 1995 and a PhD in chemistry from the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany in 2000. He was appointed Permanent Researcher at the National Research Council (CNR) in Bologna in 2001, Visiting Professor at ISIS in 2003 and Full Professor in 2008.
The current research activities of Paolo Samorì are focused on the chemistry of two-dimensional materials, smart supramolecular systems as well as high-performance multifunctional materials and (nano)devices in order to develop an “Internet of functions” for energy, sensing and optoeletronic applications.
Paolo Samorì was elected Junior Member of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) in 2010, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2012, Member of the Academia Europaea and of the European Academy of Sciences (EURASC) in 2014 and Foreign Member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (KVAB) in 2019. He also received numerous prestigious awards, including the Guy Ourisson Prize from the Cercle Gutenberg in 2010, the CNRS Silver Medal in 2012, the Spanish-French Catalán–Sabatier Prize from the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (RSEQ) and the German-French Wittig–Grignard Prize from the German Chemical Society (GDCh) in 2017, the RSC Surfaces and Interfaces Award, the Pierre Süe Prize from the French Chemical Society (SCF) and the Blaise Pascal Medal in Materials Science from EURASC in 2018, the ERC Advanced Grant (2019), the “Étoiles de l’Europe” Prize (2019), the ERC Proof of Concept Grant (2020), the RSC/SCF Joint Lectureship in Chemical Sciences (2020) and MRS fellow (2021).
Paolo Samorì is Associate Editor of Nanoscale and Nanoscale Advances (RSC) and Member of the Advisory Board of Advanced Materials, Small, ChemPlusChem, ChemNanoMat, ChemPhysChem, ChemSystemsChem (Wiley-VCH), Chemical Society Reviews, Nanoscale Horizons, Journal of Materials Chemistry, Chemical Communications (RSC), ACS Nano, ACS Omega (ACS) and BMC Materials (Springer Nature).
Prof Ordejón is Director of the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2). He earned his degree in Physics (1987) and PhD in Science (1992) at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA) from 1992 to 1995, and as assistant professor at the Universidad de Oviedo from 1995 to 1999. In 1999 he obtained a research staff position at the Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC). In 2007 he moved to CIN2 (now ICN2) as the leader of the Theory and Simulation Group, where he is currently a Distinguished Researcher and Director.
He is known for being one of the main developers of the popular SIESTA software for first-principles calculations. He has published more than 200 scientific articles, which have received over 30,000 citations (h-index of 60). Since 2009 he has served as co-editor of EPL (formerly Euro Physics Letters) and since 2004 as regional editor of physica status solidi. He oversaw the Condensed Matter Physics subject area of the Physics Panel of the Spanish National Evaluation and Foresight Agency (ANEP) from 2003 to 2006, and was the head of the Physics and Engineering Panel of the Access Committee to the Spanish Supercomputing Network from 2005 to 2011. He became a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2005, and in 2017 was elected a member of the Academia Europaea.
PhD in Mechanical Engineering from University of California at Berkeley. Morris M. Bryan Jr. Professor in Mechanical Engineering for Advanced manufacturing Systems at Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. Research on modeling, monitoring, and control of precision machining and additive manufacturing processes and systems. Supervised over 80 Post-Doctoral studies, Ph.D. dissertations, and M.S. theses. Research work disseminated in over 600 archival articles, 5 books, and 40+ international conference keynotes. Served as President of NAMRI/SME, Chair of MED/ASME, and President of a publicly traded company of $6B revenue with global footprints. Presently Technical Editor of International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing and Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Manufacturing and Materials Processing. Accolades include Robert B. Douglas Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award of SME, Ralph R. Teetor Education Award of SAE, Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award of ASME, Outstanding Service Award of ASME, Milton C. Shaw Manufacturing Research Medal of ASME, Most Influential Professor in Smart Manufacturing of SME, Outstanding Lifelong Service Award of SME, and Gold Medal of SME. Fellow of ASME, SME, and AET.
Anna Maria Coclite is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Solid State Physics of the Graz University of Technology, from January 2018, after being assistant professor at the same institution from 2013. From 2010 to 2013, she has been postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under Professor Karen Gleason. She received her Ph.D. degree in Chemical Science from the University of Bari, Italy in 2010.
Anna Maria Coclite has published more than 65 peer-reviewed publications and she has over 1000 citations. She is the Leader of the “Advanced Material Science” inter-faculty Field of Expertise at TU Graz since 2020. Her research interests focus on materials science and advanced methods for thin film growth, including thin film technologies, nanomaterials, and surface chemistry. Her research has been funded by various programs, including the Marie Curie-Skłodowska Actions research fellowship. In 2016, she won the European Research Council (ERC) Starting grant to fund her research on “Smart Core-shell sensor arrays for artificial skins”.
Bin Zhu, PhD, Head of Fuel cell/Solar cell (FSC) group, KTH (Royal Institute of Technology) and Chair Professor, director for New Energy Conversion Lab. in Hubei University. He received M.Sc., in 1987 from University of Sci. & Tech. of China and 1995 for Ph.D. from Chalmers University of Technology, Physics and Engineering Physics, Sweden and 10/ 95-12/97 for Postdoc. in Uppsala University (Ångström Lab.). Since 1998 moved to KTH and 1999 became associate professor in Dept of Chemical Engineering and Technology, and now in Dept of Energy Technology, KTH. He has been visiting professor for Aalto University and Nanyang Technological University as well as acted as guest professor and professor in several Chinese universities to co-supervise the research projects and Ph.D students.
Dr. Zhu has more than 250 publications with the citation around 4500 (google scholar). He has been recently selected by Hubei Provincial 100-talent program to establish large research team/network for frontier research in fuel cells and solar cells. He is coordinating for EC - China NANOCOFC (Nanocomposites for advanced fuel cells) research network. He is one of the Most Cited Researchers in energy sector reported by Elsevier for 2014 and 2015.
Zhu’s research has resulted in highly international impacts as leading role evaluated by Swedish national programs from e.g. "Evaluation of The Swedish Energy Agency Research Programme for Stationary Fuel Cells" and the Swedish Research Council international evaluation, with outstanding milestones achieved for: i) NANOCOFC Science and technology - a new field explored and established since last 10 years, with Zhu’s pioneer work followed by the world activities as a new fuel cell R&D; The nanoncomposites make use of interfaces and interactions in the interfacial regions between constituent phases, resulting in interfacial ionic conduction highways, i.e. superionic conduction, oxidation and reduction redox reactions for catalysis, electrolysis and fuel cell. It thus results in advanced low temperature, 300-600oC SOFCs and ii) A great breakthrough- electrolyte-free fuel cell (EFFC). The fuel cell reactions are realized through the direct combination of protons and oxygen ions on the surface of the particles. Based on EFFCs Zhu is leading the development of the new functional semiconductor-ionic materials (SIMs) and various junctions (p-n, Schottky, hybrid and bulk heterojunction) fuel cells (1-3) without using the electrolyte layer and establishing the semiconductor-ionics (SEMIONICS) for next generation fuel-electricity and chemical and physical energy conversions.