Giuseppe Carbone received the MSc degree in Mechanical Engineering (with honors) in 1998 and the PhD in Advanced Production Systems in 2002 from Politecnico di Bari (Italy). He is currently Full Professor. of Applied Mechanics and Tribology. From 2018 to 2024, he served as Head of the Department of Mechanics, Mathematics and Management at Politecnico di Bari. Since 2021, he is President of the Italian Tribology Association.
In 2010, he founded the Smart Tribology Lab at Politecnico di Bari, internationally recognized for research on tribology, contact mechanics, viscoelastic materials, adhesion, biomimetic micro-structured surfaces, and intelligent functional materials. He is currently leading the establishment of the China–Italy International Joint Laboratory on Smart Tribology, a strategic research initiative jointly developed by Nanjing University of Science and Technology and Politecnico di Bari, aimed at advancing fundamental and applied research on friction, adhesion, and advanced functional surfaces.
He has held visiting and academic positions at Imperial College London, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Eindhoven University of Technology, and the University of North Texas, and is Research Associate at the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies of the Italian National Research Council. His research has been funded by national, European, and industrial programs for several million euros. He has authored over 300 publications, including about 170 journal papers indexed in Scopus, with more than 7.000 citations and an H-index of 45. He serves as Associate Editor of Tribology International and Chaos, Solitons & Fractals.
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).
M. Clelia Righi is Full Professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Bologna University. Her research activity focuses on the development and application of computational methods to understand and predict the behaviour of materials from first principles, particularly of surface and interface phenomena.
She adopted pioneering computational approaches in tribology and applied them for understanding chemical reactions activated by mechanical stresses and designing materials to reduce friction. In 2019 she received an ERC consolidator grant for the project “Advancing solid interfaces and lubricants by first principles material design” (SLIDE).
M. Clelia Righi is visiting professor at the Imperial College London, UK. She collaborates with different multinational companies and international experimental labs. She is part of the editorial boards of Coatings, Lubricants, Lubrication Science, and Scientific Reports.
Juliette Cayer-Barrioz has been associated with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) since 2005. Her research activities at the Laboratoire de Tribologie et Dynamique des Systèmes (LTDS) in Ecole Centrale de Lyon focus on surface phenomena and dynamics of confined lubricated interfaces. Her multidisciplinary approach—based on unique experimental devices developed at the LTDS—combines physics, interfacial chemistry and mechanics, rheology and friction. She serves as an editor of Tribology Letters since 2017. She was awarded the 2025 Peter Jost Award in Tribology.
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
Prof. Kevin P. Plucknett is Professor and Killam Research Chair in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Dalhousie University. He leads a research program in advanced engineering materials, focusing on the relationships between processing, microstructure, and properties. His work spans advanced ceramics, composites, coatings, tribology, powder metallurgy, inorganic foams and porous materials, and biopolymers.
He has authored over 160 journal and conference papers and has contributed extensively to industrially relevant materials research. His work has been supported by major research grants, including NSERC Strategic Partnership projects, and he has been recognized with Dalhousie’s Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Research Chair for his leadership in materials research.
Prof. Plucknett serves on editorial boards for leading materials journals and has organized and chaired numerous international conferences and symposia in materials science and engineering. He earned his BSc (Hons) and PhD in Physics from the University of Warwick and combines decades of academic and industrial experience to advance both fundamental science and applied engineering outcomes.