UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA, Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA;
Dr. Li Yang is a research associate professor in the UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute and Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK), USA. She holds a master’s degree in atomic and molecular physics from Sichuan University (SCU) and a PhD degree in condensed matter physics from University of Electronic Science & Technology of China (UESTC). Her research focuses on multiscale modeling of defects/impurities in materials and their impact on properties. She has more than 20 years of research experience at SCU, UESTC, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and UTK. To date, Dr. Yang has published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles in Nature Communications, Nuclear Fusion, Acta Materialia, Applied Physics Letters, Physical Review B, Nanoscale, and others.

Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, NCSR Demokritos, Athens, Greece;
Dr. Thomas Stergiopoulos (Chemist) conducted his pHD thesis in the field of dye-solar cells at the National Centre for Scientific Research Demokritos (NCSRD), while being a visiting researcher for one year at the CNRS-University Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris, France). At 2014, he moved to the University of Oxford to work on perovskite solar cells with Prof. Henry Snaith, FRS under a Marie Curie IEF fellowship grant and he then became a Long-term Visiting Researcher for the following 5 years. In 2015, he joined the Department of Chemistry at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki as a Senior Lecturer (until 2017) and then as an Assistant Professor until February 2022. He is currently a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in NCSRD with his own group working on polycrystalline and nanocrystalline, perovskite and chalcogenide solar cells and LEDs. T. S. is currently implementing an ERC Consolidator Grant (MIX2FIX) on hybrid chalcogenide optoelectronics.

Low Energy and Novel Casting Sustainable Manufacturing Systems Centre, The School of Aerospace, Transport and Manufacturing, Cranfield University, Bedford, UK;
Dr K. Georgarakis is a the Course Director of Aerospace Manufacturing MSc Course and a Reader in Low Energy and Novel Casting at the Sustainable Manufacturing Systems Center (SMSC). Bofore joining Cranfield in 2016, he was an Assistant Professor at Tohoku University, Japan and a visiting scientist at the Institute Polytechnique de Grenoble, France. He holds a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering form the National Technical University of Athens, Greece and an Engineering degree in Metallurgy and from the same University. He is a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece and a chartered Metallurgical Engineer. Dr Georgarakis has extensive experience in rapid solidification and casting, bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) and nanostructured materials. He has participated in numerous research projects as a principal-investigator or co-investigator, related to the synthesis, structure and properties of advanced non-equilibrium materials, funded by EU and Japanese research agencies. He has authored more than 65 original full articles in ISI journals and conference proceedings, numerous technical reports for industrial partners and he holds three international patents. He often serves as invited speaker at international conferences and research institutes and he has co-organized several scientific conferences and workshops. He serves as a member of the editorial board and as a reviewer for numerous scientific journals and national funding agencies in Europe. He received a number of awards and distinctions including the 2010 Young Scientist Award of the International Symposium for Metastable Amorphous and Nanostructured Materials.

Department of Chemical Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan, Malaysia;
Dr. Mohamad Azuwa Mohamed is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Chemical Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), and a researcher in renewable energy and environmental catalysis. He earned his Ph.D. in Hydrogen Energy from UKM, along with multiple top academic honors, including the Doctorate Golden Award and the Tan Sri Datuk Ong Kee Hui Medal. Recognized among the World’s Top 2% Scientists since 2019 (Elsevier BV and Stanford University), Dr. Mohamed has received numerous national and international accolades, including the Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Fellowship, the UKM Bitara Award, and the Malaysia Young Scientist Award 2023. His pioneering research focuses on cost-effective bio-inspired semiconductor photo(electro)catalysts for sustainable energy and environmental solutions.

Department of Science and Technological Innovation, Università del Piemonte Orientale, Alessandria, Italy;
Maurizio Cossi obtained the degree in Theoretical Chemistry in 1991 at the Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa), where he concluded also his PhD in 1995. Since 1995 to 2001 he has been Researcher in the Department of Chemistry of the University of Naples "Federico II", since 2001 to 2006 Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry in the same Department. Since 2006, October he is Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry in the Department of Advanced Sciences and Technologies (DISTA) of the Università del Piemonte Orientale. His main research interests involve the development of theoretical models and computational algorithms for the quantum mechanical calculation of molecular properties, with a particular focus on solute-solvent interactions and on molecular layers adsorbed on conductor and semiconductor surfaces.

Department of Management and Production Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy;
Since 2021, Eleonora Atzeni is a Full Professor in the "Technologies and Manufacturing Systems" sector at the Politecnico di Torino - Department of Management and Production Engineering. Previously, from 2005 to 2016, she was a Researcher, and from 2017 to 2020 she was an Associate Professor at the same Department of the Politecnico di Torino. She is a member of the Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMTech) research group at the Interdepartmental Integrated Additive Manufacturing Center at the Politecnico di Torino (IAM@PoliTo). The main research topics are those relating to Additive Manufacturing technologies and the modeling of production processes. In parallel, she developed other activities on the mechanical and technological characterization of materials, both traditional and innovative, and the study of the correlations between the process parameters and the microscopic and macroscopic characteristics of the manufactured components. In the field of the above-described studies and researches, she has participated in and spoken at numerous congresses and study meetings. She is the author of more than 80 scientific publications, and she is a reviewer for several international journals.

Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA;
Khachatur Manukyan is an Associate Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Notre Dame, where he leads interdisciplinary research on materials at the Nuclear Science Laboratory. His work spans nuclear materials and irradiation studies, ultrafast synthesis of advanced materials, energy-efficient recycling of lithium-ion battery materials, and the scientific analysis of cultural heritage objects. He has authored numerous publications and a textbook, and is dedicated to mentoring students while building national and international collaborations that connect fundamental discovery with societal impact.

1. Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia, 2. Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia;
Samo Kralj was awarded PhD in physics from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 1991. He carried out postdoctoral education at School of Mathematics, University of Southampton (UK, 1992) and at Solid State Department, Jožef Stefan Institute (Ljubljana, 1993-1996). Currently, he is full professor at Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at University of Maribor in Slovenia, where he is the head of the laboratory Physics of Complex Systems, vice-head of the Department of Physics, and head of the PhD study in Physics. He is also employed as Senior researcher at Solid State Department, Jozef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana. His research interests include soft materials, biophysics and nanomaterials. On these topics he has so far published about 150 papers in international journals which acquired about 3000 citations. Among others he was General chair of the 11th European Conference on Liquid Crystals (2011, Maribor, Slovenia) and General chair chair of the ESF Exploratory Workshop “Defect assembled soft matter for nanoscience and nanotechnology” (2013, Rogaska Slatina, Slovenia). He is very active as a science promotor for which he obtained “Prometej of Science” reward from the Slovenian Science Foundation (2009) and “Golden Reward” from the Society for Technical Culture of Slovenia (2015). He was rewarded for outstanding educational achievements and constantly highest marks in students’ assessments from Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (University of Maribor, 2015) and exposed as a distinguished referee of the European Physical Journal (2015 and 2016). He is also piano player in PhD Big Bang Band at Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at University of Maribor and active as cartoonist.

Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT), Los Alamos National Laboratories, USA;
Dr. Chang received his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison with a minor in Materials Science. He was formerly a postdoctoral research associate in the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and afterwards an assistant professor at National Taiwan Normal University. Dr. Chang is currently a staff scientist in CINT Nanophotonics and Optical Nanomaterials (NPON) thrust and Laboratory for Ultrafast Materials and Optical Science (LUMOS) at LANL. His research interests include metamaterials, plasmonics, terahertz science and technology, semiconductor optoelectronics, and light-matter interactions in low-dimensional and emergent materials.

University of Colorado Boulder, USA;
Ivan I. Smalyukh is a tenured professor at the Department of Physics, University of Colorado at Boulder, which he joined in 2007 (promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor with tenure in 2014 and from Associate to Full Professor in 2017). He is also the Founding Director of the International Institute for Sustainability with Knotted Chiral Meta Matter, as well as the founding fellow of Renewable Sustainable Energy Institute, a joint institute of CU-Boulder and NREL. He is an elected fellow of APS, AAAS, Optica and SPIE. He received many awards, including the Bessel and Glenn Brown Awards, Gray Medal, NASA iTech award and Mid-Career Award of the International Liquid Crystal Society, the PECASE Award from the Office of Science and Technology of the White House and the GSoft Award from the American Physical Society.

Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark;
Tianbo Yu is a senior researcher in the Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at Technical University of Denmark (DTU). He has a bachelor’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Tsinghua University (China) and a PhD degree in Materials Science from Risø DTU (Denmark). His research focuses on the microstructure of metallic materials, including experimental characterization by electron microscopy and synchrotron X-ray techniques, understanding the mechanisms of microstructure evolution during manufacturing and application, and establishing the microstructure–mechanical property relation. At present, his main focus is on microstructural engineering of additively manufactured (AM) metals.

Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands;