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Prof Zhou is an environmental engineer. With a PhD in environmental technology at the University of Manchester, UK, he has extensive research experience in soil and water pollution control using adsorption, advanced oxidation, chemical reduction, biodegradation and hybrid treatment technology. He is an expert evaluator for various funding bodies such as the EU Horizon, UK (EPSRC, NERC, Defra, Royal Society), Luxembourg National Research Fund, US-Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Italy Fondazione Cariplo. He has published approximately 330 SCI papers with a citation of 21,000, and an h-index of 84. He is a World’s Top 2% Scientist (2019-2023), ranked by Stanford University; Mendeley Top 100,000 Cited Researcher in the World; and Highly Cited Researcher 2021-2023.
Dr. Teik-Thye Lim is a Professor in environmental engineering at the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He is a research cluster leader in the Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute (NEWRI) at NTU. Dr. Lim has engaged in pioneering R&D endeavors centered on environmental technologies for water treatment and reclamation, environmental nanotechnology for pollution abatement, waste-to-energy conversion, resource reclamation, and assessment and remediation of contaminated sites. Through his innovative works, he aims to offer sustainable solutions to the pressing environmental challenges confronting humanity. At NTU, he has led or co-led numerous research initiatives, securing a cumulative funding exceeding US$16 million. His groundbreaking inventions have resulted in the filing of 16 intellectual properties, including PCT patents and technology licensing agreements. Dr. Lim has played diverse roles in the water and environmental industry, serving as a consultant, advisor, technology assessor, trainer, mentor to startups, and member of technical and working committees shaping industry standards and practices. He has published over 240 journal papers and book chapters, with Scopus citation count of 19,000 and h-index of 75. Beyond his academic pursuits, Prof. Lim extends the reach of his water treatment technologies to provide safe drinking water to underserved communities in Asia, exemplifying his commitment to alleviating real-world societal impact.
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Robbert Kleerebezem is Associate Professor at the department of Biotechnology of the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands. His research and teaching interests are in the field of bioprocess engineering, environmental thermodynamics, microbial ecology, and computational modelling. Robbert works on processes based on Microbial Community Engineering, the research field that is based on understanding and controlling of microbial competition and interactions, and that aims for development of bioprocesses for recovery of resources from low-value feedstock like agroindustrial wastewater and biomass waste. Specific topics that Robbert works on include polyhydroxyalkanoate (bioplastic) production, syn gas fermentation, and anaerobic fermentations for production of a defined range of organic acids and/or alachols. He is currently working on the implementation of Unlock, an open research facility (www.m-unlock.nl) that aims for exploring new horizons for research on microbial communities through integration, parallelization, and standardization of experimental procedures.
Prof. Xin Yang is now a professor at the School of Environmental Science and Engineering at Sun Yat-sen University. She received a B.S. in Environmental Science from Nankai University in 2002 and obtained her M.Phil. and Ph.D. degree in Environmental Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology at 2004 and 2007, respectively. She was a postdoctoral fellow, working with Prof. Philip C. Singer at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill between 2007 and 2009. She joined Sun Yat-sen University in 2010. Her research focuses on the formation mechanisms and control strategies of disinfection byproducts in water treatment and the fate of emerging micropollutants in aqueous environments. She is now a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry and gets the Environmental Science & Technology Super Reviewer Award.
Dr. Zhao is a Professor and the Department Chair of the Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering Department of San Diego State University. Before this post, Dr. Zhao was the Endowed Distinguished Professor of Environmental Engineering at Auburn University. He received his Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Lehigh University in 1998. His group is internationally recognized for their pioneering work in developing novel stabilized nanoparticles for in situ degradation of organic pollutants and immobilization of metals in soil and water. Zhao’s group is also recognized for their pioneering work in developing adsorptive photocatalysts for destruction of persistent organic pollutants such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in contaminated waters. In addition, the group made significant contributions in the transformation and environmental fate of spilled oil in seawater and costal sediment. Dr. Zhao has served as PI or Co-PI for ~50 research projects totaling ~$9.6 million. He and co-workers have published more than 230 SCI-indexed journal papers, 1 textbook, 15 book chapters, and 250+ other publications. He has delivered 140+ invited or keynote presentations/lectures worldwide, and has been granted 7 U.S. patents. His work has been cited more than 20,000 times with an h-Index of 72 according to the Google Scholar. He is included in both the Clarivate World’s Top 1% Scientists and the Stanford World’s Top 1% Most Cited Scientists. He has served on numerous scientific review panels of various major funding agencies in the U.S. (NSF, EPA, SERDP/ESTCP) and worldwide. In addition, he has been serving as Editors for three journals: Water Environment Research, Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering, and Current Pollution Reports, and he is an editorial board member of three other international journals. Dr. Zhao and his group have been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2021 Auburn University Creative Research and Scholarship Award, Auburn Engineering Council Endowed Distinguished Professorship, Huff Endowed Professorship, the 2021 Geosyntec Best Paper Award (with student), the ESPR 2019 Best Paper Award, the FESE 2020 and 2023 Best Editor Awards, and the Outstanding Oral Presentation Award (American Chemical Society, 2019), to name a few.
Dr. Despo Fatta-Kassinos is a Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Head of Gaia, the Laboratory of Environmental and Engineered Water Processes and Systems, at the University of Cyprus. Her research expertise focuses on wastewater treatment and reuse, contaminants of emerging concern, advanced chemical oxidation processes, and antimicrobial resistance in the environment and wastewater technical systems. She was the Chair of the Scientific and Technological Advisory Board of the European JPI 'Water Challenges for a Changing World' during 2015-2019. She has coordinated numerous international projects with a total budget of 14.3 million EUR, while she is serving on the advisory boards of various research centers in Europe, Africa and in Australia. She is Executive Editor of the Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering, and Editor of Water Research, Elsevier. Among other prizes, in 2012 she received the distinguished national research award by the Research and Innovation Foundation of Cyprus, while in 2022 the Noack Laboratorien Outstanding Science Career Award by The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). Her publication record includes 190 papers in refereed journals, with >32,000 citations and an h-index of 80 (Google Scholar). She is a Highly Cited Researcher since 2018.
Dr. Cao Bin is an Associate Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and a Principal Investigator in the Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research efforts are focused on understanding biofilm-mediated environmental processes and harnessing the power of microbial biofilms to address environmental issues (www.bcaolab.org). Specifically, his research team uses environmental engineering, (bio)chemical engineering, microbiology, and molecular/synthetic biology tools and develop new tools to (i) understand biofilm-mediated environmental processes and biofilm-contaminant interactions, (ii) engineer microbial biofilms with defined structural and functional characteristics, and (iii) develop biofilm-enabled approaches for environmental biotechnological applications. Ongoing projects in his group include biofilms as a source of extracellular DNA in natural and engineering environments; biofilm-plastic interaction; and engineering controllable biofilms for environmental biotechnological applications.
Prof. Rosa Maria Marcé is Full Professor in Analytical Chemistry of the Analytical and Organic Chemistry Department at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) in Tarragona since 2010 and Distinguished Professor of URV since 2018. Her main interest is the development of new chromatographic methods to determine contaminants of emerging concern in environmental samples. This interest includes the improvement of the extraction techniques and the development and application of new materials for the sorptive extraction techniques, which combined with high-tech liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry techniques, enable environmental analytical problems to be solved. The results of her research have been published in more than 270 papers in peer-reviewed journals and 13 book chapters.
Dr Chao Chen graduated from Tsinghua University at 2005 and got the Ph.D. of Civil Engineering. He joined School of Environment, Tsinghua University as faculty at 2008 and got promoted to be an associate professor at 2010. He worked as a visiting scholar in Department of Environmental Health Sciences, UCLA, U.S.A. in 2012-2013 and gave 2 courses (in English) as a visiting professor in Venice International University, Italy for half year in 2019. His research is mainly focused on the chemical risk identification and control for drinking water, especially on the following focuses: (1) Regulated and emerging disinfection by-products (DBPs) identification and control; (2) Water chemical stability in distribution system and control; (3) Emergency response for drinking water treatment plants to fight against chemical spills. He has published about 100 papers in international journals and about 100 papers in Chinese journals, edited over 10 books in Chinese or English, and won over 20 granted Chinese patents. He also devoted himself into several severe emergency response practices in China, including the odorous water problem in the Taihu Lake, Wuxi city in 2007, the emergency response for environmental safety assessment and water supply in the Wenchuan Earthquake affected area in 2008, the Cadmium contamination accident in the Longjiang River in 2012 and the Cyanide spill in the explosion accident in Tianjin in 2015. He now serves as the editorial member for several Chinese and international journals. He has been elected as the chairman of specialist group of disinfection of IWA since 2019, the strategic council member of IWA during 2015-2021, a management committee member of specialist group of tastes, odors and algal toxins in water of IWA. He has won the Second Prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award of China, the Collaborative Innovation Award between Industry and Academic in China, the Silver Medal of Geneva Inventions Salon.