Prof. Walid Daoud
City University of Hong Kong, China

Prof. Daoud is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong. He graduated from the University of Technology Graz, Austria, with a Dipl-Ing degree (BS and MS) in Chemical Engineering and received his PhD in flexible bilayer photovoltaic cells from the University of Sheffield, UK. Prof. Daoud’s current research is mainly focused on the areas of energy harvesting and smart wearable technologies. His group is developing approaches for harvesting free or waste energy, such as light and kinetic energies. Being intermittent sources, it is equally important to find storage solutions for this form of energy. Therefore, the group is interested in the modelling and design of compatible batteries. He has received international renown and several awards for his pioneering research on wearable solar and kinetic energy harvesting technologies. His research has featured in Nature (2004) and Science (2008) and broadcasted through interviews by major international media, such as Reuters (2014), BBC (2015) SCMP (2017), Physics World (2021) and PV Magazine (2022). He has been invited to present Plenary and Keynote lectures at international conferences and is currently serving as the Chief Editor of Wearable Electronics, Frontiers in Electronics and Editorial/Advisory Board of Journal of Power Sources Advances and Industrial Chemistry & Materials.

Prof. Weimin Huang
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Prof. Weimin Huang from School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. With over 25 years of experience on various shape memory materials (alloys, polymers, composites and hybrids), he has published over 200 papers in journals, such as Materials Today, Accounts of Chemical Research, and Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, and has been invited to review manuscripts from over 300 international journals (including Progress in Polymer Science, Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, and Advanced Functional Materials, etc), project proposals from American Chemical Society, Hong Kong Research Grants Council, etc, and book proposals from Springer, Elsevier  and CRC. He has published two books (Thin film shape memory alloys – fundamentals and device applications, Polyurethane shape memory polymers) and is currently on the editorial board of over three dozen of journals.

 

Prof. Katsuyuki Kida
University of Toyama, Japan

Professor Katsuyuki Kida was born in 1968 in Osaka, where he studied mechanical engineering at Osaka University from 1988. Apart from course work, he studied rolling contact fatigue (RCF) occurring in TiC and TiN coated steels using both X-ray diffraction and scanning acoustic microscopy. After graduation he pursued his academic career and obtained a Ph.D. in engineering mechanics in 2000, investigating RCF problems of all-Si3N4 bearings. By observing cracking and flaking failure under RCF, he succeeded in explaining the material`s features from the viewpoint of fracture mechanics. From 2000 he focused his work on investigating the contact problems of several materials used in machine elements. He has also continued fundamental research on contact problems, for which he received ‘The Best Paper Prize (FFEMS PRIZE)’ from ‘Fatigue & Fracture of Engineering Materials & Structures’ journal in 2005. The awarded papers reported establishing a crack growth mechanism under contact pressure, a problem previously unsolved for over 70 years since S. Way’s proposed theory. His research interests now include the development of three dimensional scanning Hall-probe microscope technologies, fatigue phenomena in polymer bearing, crack growth mechanism under contact stresses and refinement of high-carbon steels.　 He holds and has held a number of prestigious leadership roles in academy-industry corroboration programs: refinement of steels, new joint system in humanoid robots and fatigue of polymer bearings in "Strategic Fundamental Technologies Strengthening Assistance Programs" (Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry, Japan, 2009-2013); scanning Hall-probe microscopy in "Fundamental Studies on Technologies for Steel Materials with Enhanced Strength and Functions" (Consortium of the JRCM, Japan, 2008-2012); and ceramic bearing elements in the project supported by "Japanese Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization" (NEDO, Japan, 2007-2011).” As a chairperson of department of mechanical engineering in University of Toyama, Professor Kida is heading education and research projects (2019-).

 

Prof. Ali Reza Kamali
Northeastern University, China

Ali Kamali is a Distinguished Professor at the School of Metallurgy, Northeastern University (China) and director of the Energy and Environmental Materials Research Centre. He is a former Senior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge and the co-founder of four materials companies. He is the inventor/co-inventor of several technologies concerning the large-scale green preparation of carbon nanotubes, graphene, nanodiamonds, metal powders and intermetallic alloys, some of which have been transferred to industry. Ali is the corresponding/first author of more than 100 technical papers and has received several awards, including the International Khwarizmi Award (2005), NSFC International Scientist Fellowship (2017) and the Rose Award (2019). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

 

 

Assoc. Prof. Dan Sun
Queen’s University Belfast, UK

Dr. Sun Dan is currently an associate professor at the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Queen's University Belfast in the United Kingdom. She obtained her bachelor's degree in Materials Engineering and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. She subsequently earned her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom. In 2009, she joined the Northen Ireland Nanomaterials and Bioengineering Centre at Ulster University as an industrial fellow. She joined Queen's University Belfast in 2014, one of the prestigious Russel Group universities in the United Kingdom, becoming the first Asian female to obtain a permanent tenure track position in the department in its 104-year history.

Dr Sun’s research interests are diverse and have received funding from prestigious funding bodies such as the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Royal Society and the EU Horizon 2020 Program. Currently, her primary research focuses on the development of novel multifunctional composite materials and their wide-ranging applications. In recent years, Sun Dan has pioneered her research advanced manufacturing of thermoplastic composite materials, with her groundbreaking scientific discoveries published in top journals such as Composite Part A, Composite Part B, and the Journal of Materials Processing, etc, gaining recognition worldwide.

As of now, Sun Dan has published 92 peer reviewed SCI journal, with over 3800 citations and an h-index of 40. Additionally, she serves as a Chartered Engineer with the UK Engineering Council, a reviewer for EPSRC, a guest editor for Frontier of Materials, and a peer reviewer for high ranking journals such as ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Chemical Engineering Journal, Composite Part A, Composite Part B, and Composite Structures, etc.

 

 

Assoc. Prof. Koshiro Mizobe
University of Toyama, Japan

Koshiro Mizobe is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Toyama, Japan. He has published over 50 papers in various research fields including: evaluation of stress intensity factors, repeated heating, homology evaluation of microstructure, and polymer bearings. Koshiro studied mechanical engineering at Kyushu University, Japan, graduating in 2013. He studied the repeated quenching refinement method of high-carbon chromium steels in his PhD course. For this work he received the Research Fellowship for Young Scientists in 2013-2014 from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science as well as Top Young Researcher Award in 2012 from Kyushu University. Since 2015 he has been an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Toyama. He has won some best paper awards from international committees (ICMDME, CMPSE and ICMTM) and received some grants (25th ISIJ research promotion grant from the Iron and Steel Institute of Japan and research promotion grant from JKA). His current research topics with a brief explanation are as follows. Repeated heating method Martensitic high-carbon high-strength bearing steel is one of the main alloys used for rolling contact applications where high wear resistance is required. Refining the prior austenite grain size through repeated heating is a process commonly used to enhance the material’s strength. He studied the effect of repeated heating on the microstructure near inclusions through the rolling bending fatigue tests. Development of hybrid polymer bearings Koshiro is focusing on polymer bearings because it is suitable for the no lubricant situation and the corrosive situations. In particular, he focuses on PEEK which is a tough semi-crystalline thermoplastic polymer and PTFE which has low friction coefficient. Now, he develops the combination of PEEK races-PTFE retainer bearings.

 

Prof. Laichang Zhang
School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia

Prof Laichang Zhang was awarded his PhD of Materials Engineering at the Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Laichang is currently a Professor of Materials Engineering and Program Leader Mechanical Engineering in the School of Engineering. Prior to joining the Edith Cowan University, Dr Zhang has worked at The University of Western Australia (Perth, Australia) in 2009-2012, University of Wollongong (Wollongong, Australia) in 2007-2009, Leibniz-Institute for Solid State and Materials Research (IFW) Dresden (Dresden, Germany) in 2006-2007 and Darmstadt University of Technology (Darmstadt, Germany) in 2005-2006.

Prof. Zhang has considerable expertise and extensive cross-disciplinary research activities in advanced manufacturing of different types of materials (including nanocrystalline / ultrafine-grained materials, bulk metallic glasses, biomaterials, and high-strength steels) and the understanding of their processing, microstructure and properties (e.g. mechanical properties, fatigue properties, corrosion behavior and catalytic performance). Laichang has extensively contributed to a number of research grants supported by Australian Research Council, European Union, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Science and Technology of China. Laichang has been serving as Editorial Board Members for many prestigious academic journals such as Advanced Engineering Materials, Materials Science and Technology, Metals, Heliyon and so on. He also has good links to industry both for teaching and research.