The 2nd International Electronic Conference on Horticulturae
The 2nd International Electronic Conference on Horticulturae
Part of the International Electronic Conference on Horticulturae series
Event's Timezone: Central European Summer Time
17 February 2025
14 March 2025
30 April 2025
Cutting-Edge Horticultural Research, Precision Horticulture, Innovative Systems, Protected Horticulture, Crop Stress Physiology, High Quality Products, Sustainability
Abstract submissions for IECHo 2025 is now EXTENDED!
Register for the conference HERE.
Stay Tuned!
We will update important announcements here.
Exciting Update:
ALL participants with accepted abstracts now have the opportunity to upload and display their posters at the Poster Gallery on the conference website!
Replacing the live poster session, the poster gallery would be ‘LIVE’ throughout and available for viewing during and permanently after the event!
Click here for more information and instructions on the poster submission.
Welcome from the Chairs
The 1st International Electronic Conference on Horticulturae held shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic was a great success. The event proved the invaluable role of virtual conferences in promoting global collaboration and knowledge exchange among researchers and other stakeholders all over the world.
Therefore, we are excited to invite you to join the 2nd International Electronic Conference on Horticulturae (IECHo2025), where we will explore the forefront of research in horticultural science. This conference will serve as a platform for vibrant collaboration and innovation in a world facing the challenges of climate change, a growing population, and the increasing demand for high-quality and sustainable horticultural products, ranging from fruits and vegetables to ornamental plants.
The conference will feature multiple sessions that cover the key research areas in horticultural science such as the following:
S1. Genomics and Molecular Biology;
S2. Abiotic and Biotic Stress;
S3. Precision Horticulture;
S4. Greenhouse and Indoor Farms;
S5. Postharvest Physiology and Technology;
S6. Politics and Economy.
We look forward to seeing you present and share your latest research work and ideas at this conference. The virtual format offers numerous advantages, including the elimination of registration fees and travel expenses, saving time, and enhancing personal comfort, which on-site events may not provide. Moreover, your presentation will reach hundreds of researchers worldwide.
This conference is hosted by MDPI, and all accepted abstracts will be published as one dedicated volume in Proceedings.
The Conference Committee will recommend manuscripts to be published in one Special Issue of Horticulturae (20% discount on APC) after the conference.
Prof. Dr. Luigi De Bellis & Prof. Dr. Alberto Pardossi
Chairs of the 2nd International Electronic Conference on Horticulturae
Event Chairs
Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies (DiSTeBA), Salento University, Lecce, Italy
Prof. Dr. Luigi De Bellis is a full professor of plant physiology at the University of Salento in Lecce, Italy. He obtained his Ph.D. in Horticulture from the University of Pisa in 1987. His research interests include agricultural physiology/genetic characterisation of cereals/olive trees, plant-pathogen interactions, and the nutraceutical characteristics of secondary metabolites found in plants. From 2012 to 2020, he was the director of his university department, and from 2017 to 2020, he served on the board of the CMCC (Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change in Lecce, Italy). He was the project or team leader for numerous international and national research projects. He is also a reviewer for several journals and the Editor in Chief of Horticulturae.
Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, Alimentari e Agro-ambientali (DiSAAA-a) University of Pisa, Italy
Prof. Alberto Pardossi received a PhD in Horticulture at the University of Pisa (1989), where I was a research assistant from 1988 to 1998, when he moved to the role of Associate Professor of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops at the University of Milan. In 2001, Prof. A. Pardossi returned to the University of Pisa, where he has held the position of Full Professor since 2012 and served as the Director of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment from 2016 to 2020. His main research interests regard greenhouse horticulture, hydroponic technology, irrigation management, and plant nutrition. Prof. A. Pardossi was project or team leader in several international or national research projects, and a reviewer of many international journals. He is currently Section Editor in Chief of Horticulturae.
Session Chairs
Prof. Antonio Ferrante
Sant'Anna Scuola Universitaria Superiore Pisa, Pisa, Italy
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Antonio Ferrante is a full professor in Vegetable and Ornamental Crops at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa. Previously he was Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor at the University of Milano from 2004 to 2023. His research activities include crop abiotic stress responses, biostimulants characterization and use, mineral nutrition, products quality, postharvest physiology, and technology. He is President of Italian Society for Horticultural Science since 2022. He is member of Accademia dei Georgofili. Research results have been published in several scientific journals. He is author or co-author of 255 papers in Scopus with 42 h-index
Prof. Gianfranco Romanazzi
Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, Marche Polytechnic University, 60131 Ancona, Italy
chitosan; essential oils; gray mold; postharvest decay; seedborne pathogens
After degree in Agricultural Sciences (1995) and PhD in Crop protection (1999) at University of Bari, in 2002 he moved to Ancona, where he is full professor of Plant pathology at Marche Polytechnic University. He has experience in the management of pre and postharvest plant diseases with alternatives to synthetic fungicides (physical means and natural compounds). He studied the applications of chitosan and other basic substances for the management of diseases of grapes, stone fruits, strawberries and seed-bearing vegetable crops, with a particular focus on Botrytis cinerea and Monilinia spp. Mechanisms of actions were investigated, highlighting induced resistance in host plants and appropriate strategies for their triggering. Sequencing of Monilinia laxa, M. fructigena and M. fructicola was also recently run. He Coordinated PRIMA StopMedWaste project (2019-2023), and he is Chair of COST FoodWaStop (2023-2027). He is President of Italian Association for Plant Protection (AIPP) and Chair of ISPP Seed Pathology Committee. Scopus database reports 166 papers, H-Index 44.
Prof. Anabela A. Fernandes-Silva
Centre for Research and Technology of Agro-Environmental and Biological Sciences, UNIVERSIDADE DE TRÁS-OS-MONTES E ALTO DOURO Quinta de Prados, 5000-801 Vila Real, Portugal
precision irrigation, evapotranspiration, water stress indicators
Prof. Anabela Afonso Fernandes Silva earned the PhD in Agronomy at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (2008), where she is Assistant Professor in the of Agronomy Department. She is integrated member of the Centre for Research and Technology in Agro-Environmental and Biological Sciences (CITAB). She specialises in agrometeorology, crop water requirements and olive cultivation. Her research interests include irrigation management, crop response to water deficit, sustainable agriculture,water relations in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum, plant-based sensors; precision irrigation. Prof. A. Fernandes-Silva has been coordinator of a national project and has participated in several national and international projects, as well as reviewer of many international journals.
Dr. Pedro Marques
University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal
remote sensing; digital image processing; precision agriculture; UAV; algorithms
Pedro Marques is a Ph.D. student in Agricultural Production Chains – From Fork to Farm at the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD), where he also completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Computer Science. His doctoral research focuses on irrigation management in olive orchards, integrating geomatics to advance precision agriculture practices. Pedro’s expertise includes computer science, remote sensing, machine learning, and precision agriculture, with a strong emphasis on UAV and satellite image processing, digital image processing, segmentation, classification, and data analysis. He has performed research on crops such as chestnut, olive trees, and vineyards, using advanced algorithms and remote sensing techniques to improve agricultural productivity and sustainability. Dedicated to harnessing technology for addressing practical challenges in agriculture, he is skilled in developing innovative methods for crop monitoring and resource management.
Dr. Konstantina Argyropoulou
Agricultural University of Athens, Iera Odos 75, 11855 Athens, Greece
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Ms. Konstantina Argyropoulou was born in Greece. She is a graduate of the Plant Production Department of the Technological Educational Institution of Crete (2005) - Hellenic Mediterranean University, and owner of PhD from Cranfield University on subject "Response of two, or more, greenhouse pepper hybrids to NaCl salinity" (2012). From 2006 to 2011 and from 2014 to 2016 she worked as a Laboratory Associate in the Departments Plant Production and Organic Greenhouse Crops and Floriculture of the Technological Institute of Heraklion, in the courses "Cytology, Anatomy, Plant Morphology", "Plant Physiology", "Applied Physiology", "Genetics" and "Tissue Culture". As an author she has 3 papers published and 7 abstracts at national and international conferences. She has participated in 9 research projects and during this period she is a member of the research team of two European projects, ECONUTRI and InplasTwin, at the Laboratory of Vegetable Crops at the Agricultural University of Athens. Her research interests are focused on: a) plant physiology, b) issues related to stress in plants due to environmental factors, as well as the way plants defend themselves, c) the study of plant enzymes, and d) propagation of plants by the tissue culture method.
Dr. Isabel Lara
Department of Chemistry, Physics, Environmental and Soil Sciences, Universitat de Lleida (UdL) - AGROTÈCNIO-CERCA Center, Lleida, Spain
Fruits and Vegetables; Postharvest; Quality; Ripening; Shelf life and Storage Potential.
Dr. Isabel Lara obtained her PhD in Plant Physiology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB, Spain). Since 1996, she has held an academic position at the School of Agrifood and Forestry Science and Engineering (ETSEA) of Universitat de Lleida (UdL, Spain). She is a member of the Postharvest Unit, a consolidated research group within the Catalan research system (Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain), and a member of the Postharvest Biology and Technology group at the AGROTÈCNIO center (UdL). She has also taken institutional responsibilities as the Coordinator of the UdL Doctorate Program on “Agricultural, Forest and Food Science & Technology” (2005-2010), and as the Deputy Head of Studies at the ETSEA (2010-2012). Isabel’s experience in postharvest research spans over 30 years and has focused on diverse aspects of fruit ripening and quality. She has published 67 research and review articles in JCR-indexed periodicals, as well as numerous papers in other scientific and technical journals and 90 contributions to national and international symposia. Current research interests include the role of fruit cuticle in modulating postharvest quality, storage potential and the response to environmental conditions. Further information can be retrieved at https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5169-7333.
Dr. Maria Dulce Carlos Antunes
Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Algarve, Campus de Gambelas, 8005-139 Faro, Portugal
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Maria Dulce Carlos Antunes is graduated in Agricultural Engineering, has a master degree in Protected Crop Cultivation and a PhD in Horticultural Production-Agricultural Sciences by the University of Algarve. Her domain of specialisation is postharvest physiology and technology of horticultural products, with present research interests in development of postharvest technologies to improve storage life of horticultural commodities, which keep the quality and food safety and minimize the environmental impact and the physiology and biotechnology of the metabolic processes that occur during ripening and senescence of horticultural commodities. She has published more than 100 papers in scientific journals and international conferences. She is an active member of the Portuguese Society of Horticulture (APH) and the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS). She is a faculty member in the Department of Biological Sciences and Bio-engineering at the Faculty of Science and Technology in the Algarve University. Presently is head of the Post-harvest Laboratory, coordinating research projects on Postharvest science and technology of horticultural crops. Link to Ciência Vitae CV: https://www.cienciavitae.pt/portal/C11B-9B05-217E
Prof. Gianluca Brunori
Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa, Via del Borghetto, 80–56124 Pisa, Italy
rural development strategies; sustainable food systems; marketing of local food; innovation in agriculture and rural areas; small farms; food security; digitalisation
I am full Professor of Food Policy and a researcher with 30+ years of experience in research projects at international, EU, national, regional and local levels. My research focusses on sustainable rural development and the sustainability of food systems, as well as the related innovation processes. By now, this work has resulted in 90+ scientific publications, 15+ book chapters, several books and other academic contributions. In the last 20 years, I have been involved in nearly 20 EU-funded research projects and coordinated four of them: TRUC (Transforming Rural Communication), GLAMUR (Global and Local food Chain Assessment: a multidimensional performance-based approach), DESIRA (Digitisation: Economic and Social Impacts in Rural Areas’) and CODECS (Maximising the CO-benefits of agricultural Digitalisation through conducive digital ECoSystems).
Event Committee
Laboratory of Pomology, School of Agriculture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Assistant Professor of the Pomology laboratory of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) from 2024. My research interests focus on the study of nutritional elements related to fruit physiology and ripening, factors affecting fruit quality and the understanding of molecular mechanisms in abiotic stresses of fruit trees using high-throughput molecular techniques (-omics) such as metabolomics, proteomics and comparative genomic analysis. From my research activity until now, 48 scientific papers, 1 literature review article, 1 chapter in an international book and 1 editorial letter in peer-reviewed scientific journals have been published. My h-index is 19/21 and the total citations are 899/1089 based on data from www.scopus.com and scholar.google.com databases, respectively.
agriculture; plant nutrition; fertilizers; proteomics; horticulture; fruit quality; fruit science; postharvest physiology; postharvest; postharvest biology; pomology; sweet cherry; metabolomics; transcriptomics
Food Functional Research Unit, National Center for Agriculture Utilization Research, Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Peoria, IL 61604, USA
postharvest technology; fresh-cut produce; biopolymers; nanotechnology; food quality
Department of fruit growing, viticulture, horticulture and landscape architecture, University of Novi Sad, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia
Mirjana Ljubojević is a full professor at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Novi Sad, Serbia. She received, from the University of Novi Sad, a B.Sc. (2007), a M.Sc. (2008), and a Ph.D. (2012). She also holds membership in the Serbian Genetic Society and the Serbian Pomological Society. Her fields of research include horticulture and landscape architecture. She has conducted research, training, and teaching in different European countries and the USA and published more than 300 papers in international and national scientific journals or congress proceedings. She is the author of 65 papers with an impact factor, an h index of 12, and more than 700 citations.
breeding; invasive alien species; green solutions; fruit species; rootstock breeding; genetic resources; abiotic stress; biotic stress; urban gardening; food safety; fruit production; sustainable practices; circular economy; urban green; hydrogel
I am a Senior Researcher at the University of Pisa, with over a decade of experience in international, national, and regional research initiatives. My career is defined by a commitment to addressing complex environmental, agricultural, and socio-economic challenges through an interdisciplinary approach that bridges diverse research fields. This dedication has resulted in active contributions to 11 EU-funded projects, leadership roles in Work Packages, and 22+ scientific publications in high-impact journals. I earned my Ph.D. in Agricultural, Environmental, and Food Sciences and Technologies from the University of Bologna, where I investigated the design and evaluation of economic incentives for improving the cost-effectiveness of EU agri-environmental measures. My doctoral research provided a foundation for exploring policy innovation and sustainability in agriculture, focusing on topics such as contracts, information asymmetries, property rights, and experimental economics. Since joining the Department of Agriculture, Food, and Environment at the University of Pisa in 2016, I have expanded my research into transdisciplinary methodologies, participatory frameworks, and sustainable policy development. I am currently involved in Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020 projects that address innovative business models for soil health, the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), biodiversity conservation, sustainable digitalization in agriculture, transformative change and innovative systemic governance approaches.
agricultural and environmental economics; natural resource management; wine economics and wine sustainability; experimental economics; digitalization
Institute of Crop Science, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy
antioxidant; chlorophyll fluorescence; fruit quality; tree; heavy metals; phytoremediation; xenobiotic
Department of Horticultural Sciences, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan
Dr. Faisal Zulfiqar is a highly cited researcher 2024 by Clarivate (Web of Science) and his main area of research is abiotic stresses and postharvest performance of cut flowers.
biostimulants; horticulture; agriculture; abiotic stress; oxidative stress; salt stress
Dr. Rhuanito Soranz Ferrarezi is an Associate Professor of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Crop Physiology and Production at the University of Georgia’s Athens campus. He received his B.Sc. degree in Agronomic Engineering at the University of Santa Catarina (Brazil) in 2002, M.Sc. in Horticulture at the Agronomic Institute of Campinas (Brazil) in 2006, and Ph.D. in Ag Engineering at the University of Campinas (Brazil) in 2013. Dr. Ferrarezi’s specialties include soil moisture sensors, ebb-and-flow subirrigation, the development of new tools for improved irrigation and fertilization management, enhanced plant nutrition, sap analysis for CEA crops, high-throughput phenotyping, lighting, variety screening and adaptation to CEA, hydroponics, and the improvement of cultural practices such as substrate and biostimulant testing. In his instructional role, Dr. Ferrarezi focuses on workforce development by teaching undergraduate and graduate students in courses such as HORT 3200 “Hydroponics and CEA” and HORT 4050/6050 & 4050L/6050L “Greenhouse Management I”. Dr. Ferrarezi has published more than 80 refereed articles in top-ranked and traditional scientific journals in the horticultural sciences and numerous abstracts, book chapters and extension publications. His program has secured over $6 million in extramural funding from federal and state agencies and private companies to support research projects. His lab collaborates with several agricultural companies based in Georgia and maintains strong connections with growers, agricultural professionals, community leaders, researchers, and others committed to building a robust CEA industry in Georgia.
precision irrigation; water management; plant mineral nutrition; nutrient management; cropping systems; crop physiology, lighting, biopharmaceutical, greenhouses; vertical farms
Institute of Horticulture, Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Kaunas Str. 30, 54333 Kaunas, Lithuania
photophysiology; physiology of plant productivity; stress physiology; horticulture
Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Catania, Via S. Sofia, 100 - 95123 Catania, Italy
agronomic management in horticulture and floriculture; breeding of horticultural crops; crop physiology; vegetables quality; secondary metabolites
Department of Soil, Plant and Food Sciences, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Via Amendola 165/A, 70126 Bari, Italy
vegetables quality; agrobiodiversity; biofortification of vegetables; wild edible plants; underutilized crops
Faculty of Modern Agricultural Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, China
agricultural Internet of Things; robot vision; image processing
Invited Speakers
Department of Agricultural, Food and Agro-Environmental Sciences, University of Pisa, 56124 Pisa, Italy
Treatments to preserve the quality of horticultural products
Alice Trivellini PhD, is an associate professor of horticulture since September 2023. She graduated in Plant Biotechnology and Microorganism at the University of Pisa with 110/110 cum laude in 2006. She earned the PhD in Crop Science at the University of Pisa in 2010 and postdoc specialization in physiological, molecular, and technological aspects related to the maintenance of quality during the preservation of vegetables and ornamental plants using destructive and non-destructing methods. Her research activity is mainly focused on post-harvest and quality of vegetables and ornamental products, crop abiotic stresses, protected cultivation, hydroponics, and crop physiology with special attention to horticultural species. The research activity is documented with more than 120 publications, 69 indexed in Scopus; H-index 29; citations > 2900.
Treatments, product quality, senescence
Registration
The registration for IECHo 2025 will be free of charge! The registration includes attendance to all conference sessions.
When registering with several people under the same registration, please do not use the same email address for each person, but their individual university email addresses. Thank you for your understanding.
Please note that the submission and registration are two separate parts. Only scholars who registered can receive a link to access the conference live streaming. The deadline for registration is 30 April 2025.
Instructions for Authors
The 2nd International Electronic Conference on Horticulturae will accept abstracts only. The accepted abstracts will be available online on Sciforum.net during and after the conference.
Important Deadlines
Deadline for abstract submission: 27 January 2025 17 February 2025
Announcement of oral and poster abstract results: 14 March 2025. You will be notified of the acceptance of an oral/poster presentation in a separate email.
Abstract submissions should be completed online by registering with www.sciforum.net and using the "New Submission" function once logged into the system. No physical template is necessary.
1. The abstract structure should include Background/Introduction; Goals; Methodology; Results; Conclusions sections of about 300–400 words in length.
2. All abstracts should be submitted and presented in clear, publication-ready English with accurate grammar and spelling.
3. You may submit multiple abstracts. However, only one abstract will be selected for oral presentation.
4. The abstracts submitted to this conference must be original and novel, without prior publication in any journals or it will not be accepted to this conference.
1. The submitting author must ensure that all co-authors are aware of the contents of the abstract.
2. Please select only one presenter for each submission. If you would like to change the presenter after submission, please email us accordingly.
Oral Presentation and Slides Submission
The slot for the oral presentation is 15 mins. We advise that your presentation lasts for a maximum of 12 mins, leaving at least 3 mins for the Q&A session.
Authors are encouraged to prepare a presentation in PowerPoint or similar software, to be displayed online along with the abstract. Slides, if available, will be displayed directly on the website using the proprietary slide viewer at Sciforum.net. Slides can be prepared in exactly the same way as for any traditional conference where research results are presented. Slides should be converted to PDF format prior to submission so that they can be converted for online display.
Poster Gallery
Your poster submission should include the title, authors, contact details and main research findings, as well as tables, figures, and graphs where necessary.
- File format: PDF (.pdf).
- Size in pixel: 1,080 width x 1,536 height–portrait orientation.
- Size in cm: 60 width x 80 height–portrait orientation.
- Font size: ≥20.
- Maximum size: 250 M
Examples of successful submissions can be viewed here at the following links: (1), (2), (3)
You can use our free template to create your poster. The poster template can be downloaded here.
How to upload the posters?
Step 1 https://sciforum.net/dashboard/author/submissions;
Step 2 Choose the correct conference and submission id, click upload button;
Step 3 Upload poster (not oral presentation slides) and click submit button.
Certificates of Participation are available in your logged-in area on sciforum.net, under "My Certificates" after the conference.
Copyright
MDPI, the publisher of the Sciforum.net platform, is an open access publisher. We believe authors should retain the copyright to their scholarly works. Hence, by submitting an abstract to this conference, you retain the copyright to the work, but you grant MDPI the non-exclusive right to publish this abstract online on the Sciforum.net platform. This means you can easily submit your full paper (with the abstract) to any scientific journal at a later stage and transfer the copyright to its publisher if required.
Event Awards
To acknowledge the support of the conference's esteemed authors and recognize their outstanding scientific accomplishments, we are pleased to announce that the conference will provide 5 awards including Best Oral Presentation Award and Best Poster Award.
The Awards
Number of Awards Available: 5
The Best Oral Presentation Award is given to the paper judged to make the most significant oral contribution to the conference.
The Best Poster Award is given to the submission judged to make the most significant and interesting poster for the conference.
There will be five winners selected for this award. The winner will receive a certificate and 200 CHF each.
Publication Opportunity
1. Horticulturae Journal Publication
Participants in this conference are cordially invited to contribute a full manuscript to the Special Issue published in Horticulturae (ISSN: 2311-7524 , IF 3.1), with a 20% discount on the publication fee. Special Issue information will be updated after the conference. All submitted papers will undergo MDPI’s standard peer-review procedure. The abstracts should be cited and noted on the first page of the paper.
Please note if you have IOAP/association discounts, conference discounts will be combined with IOAP/association discounts. Conference discounts cannot be combined with reviewer vouchers.
2. Proceeding Paper Publication
All accepted abstracts will be published in the conference report of The 2nd International Electronic Conference on Horticulturae in the Biology and Life Sciences Forum (ISSN: 2673-9976), if you wish to publish an extended proceeding paper (3-5 pages), please submit it to the same journal after the conference. Publication of the proceedings will be free of charge.
Authors are asked to disclose that it is a proceeding paper of the IECHo 2025 conference paper in their cover letter. Carefully read the rules outlined in the 'Instructions for Authors' on the journal’s website and ensure that your submission adheres to these guidelines.
Proceedings paper submission deadline: TBD.
Manuscripts for the proceedings issue must be formatted as follows:
- Title
- Full author names
- Affiliations (including full postal address) and authors' e-mail addresses
- Abstract
- Keywords
- Introduction
- Methods
- Results and Discussion
- Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- References.
You can download the template for the proceeding paper here.
Sponsors and Partners
For information regarding sponsorship and exhibition opportunities, please click here.
Organizers
Media Partners
Conference Secretariat
Ms. Canna Ren
Ms. Judith Yang
Ms. Sophia Gan
Ms. Wong Jolin
Email: iecho2025@mdpi.com
For inquiries regarding submissions and sponsorship opportunities, please feel free to contact us.
