Giuseppe Carbone received the MSc Mechanical Engineering Degree on February 1998 and in February 2002 the Ph. D. degree in Advanced Production Systems at Politecnico di Bari (Italy). He is currently Full Professor of Applied Mechanics, Head of the Department of Mechanics Mathematics and Management at Politecnico di Bari (Italy), and President of the Italian Tribology Association. In 2010 he founded the Tribology Lab at Polytechnic University of Bari. He has been Visiting Scientist at the Juelich Research Center (Germany) and at the Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands), Academic Visitor at the Imperial College London, and Visiting Scholar at University of North Texas. He is Research Associate at the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies of the National Council of Research - Italy. His scientific interests focus mainly on tribology, contact mechanics, viscoelastic materials, adhesion, biomimetics, mechanical transmissions, mechanical vibrations, system dynamics, soft robotics grips, swarm intelligence and complex systems. His research has been funded from National and European programmes and private companies with more than 8 million €. He is founding member of PoliMech s.r.l. a Spinoff company of Polytechnic University of Bari. He serves as Associate Editor of Chaos Solitons and Fractals, and of the Journal Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering (Tribology Section). He is member of the Editorial Board of (i) Tribology International, (ii) Biomimetics, (iii) ISRN Tribology. He also served as Guest Editor of Tribology International, Biomimetics, Coatings, Lubricants, and Applied Science. His H-index is 40 (source: Scopus). He authored about 300 publications, of which about 165 in archive journals indexed in Scopus.

Max Marian is Full Professor and Executive Director of the Institute of Machine Design and Tribology (IMKT) of Leibniz University Hannover, Germany as well as Professor for Multiscale Engineering Mechanics at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. His research focuses on energy efficiency and sustainability through tribology, with an emphasis on surface modification, such as coatings, micro-textures, and 2D materials. Besides machine elements and engine components, he expanded his fields towards triboelectric nanogenerators as well as biotribology and artificial joints. His research is particularly related to the development of numerical multiscale tribo-simulation and machine learning approaches. He has published more than 85 peer-reviewed publications in reputed journals and has been awarded with various individual distinctions as well as best paper and presentation awards. Moreover, he is in several Editorial Boards, is Associate Editor of Tribology Transactions and is chair of the AI & machine learning track at STLE’s annual meeting, a member of the steering committee of the International Colloquium Tribology from the Technical Academy Esslingen (TAE), and chairmen of the board of the Bearing World conference (FVA).

Juliette Cayer-Barrioz graduated in physics in 1998 and in engineering from the Ecole Centrale de Lyon in 2000 before obtaining her PhD in Materials Science from Centrale Lyon in 2003 and her habilitation in 2011. Since 2005, she has been associated with the CNRS. Her research activities at the Laboratoire de Tribologie et Dynamique des Systèmes (LTDS) focus on the dynamics of lubricated interfaces, integrating surface phenomena, topography and physico-chemistry. Her multidisciplinary approach - based on unique experimental devices, numerical simulation and theoretical modelling - combines physics, interfacial chemistry and mechanics, rheology and friction. Now editor of Tribology Letters, prime journal addressing the fundamentals of tribology, she develops many international collaborations and co-organises the International Nanotribology Forum.

Her teaching activities at Ecole Centrale de Lyon, and beyond, address the physics and chemistry of interfaces and the rheology of complex media.

Alessandro Ruggiero, PhD from 1999 to 2005 was Assistant Professor with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Salerno, where he has been an Associate Professor with the Department of Industrial Engineering since 2005 till today. In 2017 he received the National qualification to Full Professor in Applied Mechanics. He authored more than 220 scientific papers on prestigious indexed international journals and national and international proceedings. He is included in the “Stanford lists of the best influencer Researcher of the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 onthe world”. He serves as Editor, member of the Editorial Board and reviewer for many WoS/SCOPUS indexed International Scientific Journals, and as evaluator of national and international research projects.

He cooperates with numerous international Universities and prestigious Research Centers. He is member of the PhD Committee in Industrial Engineering (University of Salerno) and Production and Industrial Design (Polytechnic University of Madrid -SP- from 2018). He serves as vice-President of the International Advisory Board of the Czech University of Life Science in Prague (Czechia). He is member of the International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science IFToMM -Technical Committee for Tribology- and National Coordinator of Italian AIMETA Tribology Group -GAIT.

He is founder and CEO of the Academic Spinoff and innovative Startup ACOUSTICLAB srl. His current research interests are focused on (bio) tribology, biomechanics, in-silico wear calculation of artificial human synovial joints, but they include also dynamics of mechanical systems, noise and vibration measurements, mechanical measurement and diagnostic on mechanical systems.

Auezhan Amanov is currently an Associate Professor at Tampere University in Finland. He is the head of the Tribology and Surface Modification research group. He is an active member of several professional societies, including STLE and KTS. With over 170 publications in international peer-reviewed journals and a Hirsch index of 37, his research primarily focuses on enhancing the wear resistance of various materials through surface treatment techniques