LISTEN TO THE Organizing Committee Members

Michael Pecht

University of Maryland, USA

Prof Michael Pecht has a BS in Physics, an MS in Electrical Engineering and an MS and PhD in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Wisconsin. He is a co-author of the book, The True Cost of Waste: Current Issues in Electronic Waste, CALCE EPSC Press, College Park, MD, 2018. He is a Professional Engineer, an IEEE Fellow, an ASME Fellow, an ASM Fellow, and an SAE Fellow. He served as editor-in-chief of ASME Open, IEEE Access, IEEE Transactions on Reliability, Microelectronics Reliability, and Circuit World. He is currently editor-in-chief of Elsevier’s ePrime Journal of Electrical Engineering, Electronic and Energy. He has also served on three U.S. National Academy of Science studies, two US Congressional investigations in automotive safety, and as an expert to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He is the Director of CALCE (Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering) at the University of Maryland (UMd), which is funded by over 150 of the world’s leading electronics companies at more than US$6M/year.

Ivana Schwarz

University of Zagreb, Croatia

Ivana Schwarz is an Associated Professor at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Textile Technology, Department of Textile Design and Management. She has published 4 book chapters, 77 scientific papers in scientific journals and conference proceedings, co-authored 3 national patents, and edited 5 proceedings. She is the editor of the international scientific journal Textile & Leather Review and the editor of the Special Issues of the scientific journal Polymers. Her field of scientific research is the design and technological processes of woven fabric production, technical fabrics, and biodegradable non-woven textiles. At the moment, she is a coordinator for the Project “Development of multifunctional non-flammable fabric for dual use”, KK.01.2.1.02.00064, and an associate on the Project “Development biodegradable nonwoven agrotextile from natural and renewable sources”, and was an associate in 8 international and national projects.

Marc Marin-Genesca

Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain

Marc Marin-Genesca has achieved the PhD in September 2011 in Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, in a thesis based on waste composite materials, analyzing materials characteristics, from that date, his research works has been analyzed some aspects mainly focused on polymeric composites, analyzing mechanical, thermal, structure and dielectrics properties, among the possible applications for those composites. From 2015 is researcher and professor in Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) in Tarragona (Catalonia)

Denis Rodrigue

Université Laval, Canada

Denis Rodrigue obtained a B.Sc. (1991) and a Ph.D. (1996) in chemical engineering from Université de Sherbrooke (Sherbrooke, Canada) with a specialization in non-Newtonian fluid mechanics. In 1996 he moved to Université Laval (Quebec City, Canada) where he is now full professor. Since then, he has been an invited professor at the University of Guadalajara (Mexico), the Technical Institute of Karlsruhe (Germany), the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain), the University of Arts and Sciences of Hunan (China), the Technical University of Lodz (Poland) and Polytech Tours (France). His main research areas are in the characterization and the modelling of the morphological / mechanical / thermal / rheological properties of polymer foams and composites based on thermoplastics and elastomers. His main focus is related to polymer recycling and rheology.

Catarina Amorim

Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Portugal

Catarina Leite Amorim holds a B.Sc. in Biochemistry (2005) and a Ph.D. in Biotechnology with a specialization in Environmental Science and Engineering (2013).  Currently, she is researcher at the CBQF – Centre for Biotechnology and Fine Chemistry, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, at the Environment and Resources group. Her current research area concerns the treatment and valorisation of wastewater streams, with special emphasis on the application of the granular sludge technology based on microalgae and/or bacteria. The granules microbiome composition and functional dynamics are also research topics of interest. Over the past years, she has been engaged in several R&D national and international projects devoted to the treatment and valorisation of wastewater.

Patrick Lee

University of Toronto, Canada

Dr. Lee is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto. He received his B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of British Columbia, and then obtained his M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto in 2001 and 2006, respectively. Then he pursued Postdoctoral study in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Lee began his professional career at The Dow Chemical Company in 2008. He was a Research Scientist and Project Leader in Dow’s Research and Development organization. Dr. Lee joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Vermont as an assistant professor in 2014. Since joining UVM, he created his own research platform on the lightweight and smart composite structures. He joined the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at The University of Toronto starting July 1st, 2018.

Mentore Vaccari

University of Brescia, Italy

Mentore Vaccari – MSc in Civil Engineering at the University of Brescia (Italy) in 1999, he got a PhD in Sanitary Engineering at the Polytechnic of Milan in 2003. He is currently Associate Professor of Sanitary-Environmental Engineering at the University of Brescia. He is Director of CeRAR – Research Center on “Remediation and recovery of contaminated ites and brownfields”. He is Vice Director of CeTAmb – Research Center on “Appropriate technologies for environmental management in resource-limited Countries”. His main research interests are solid waste management (i.e. collection, treatment, material and/or energy recovery, disposal), contaminated site remediation, health risk assessment, wastewater treatment and reuse, circular economy and industrial symbiosis, appropriate technologies for developing Countries. He has coordinated numerous national and international research projects. He is author of around 300 scientific publications. He has been a speaker at over 120 conferences.

Nazmul Huda

Macquarie University, Australia

Dr Nazmul Huda is the Program Director of Master of Engineering Management at Macquarie University. He joined Macquarie University in January 2014 as a founding academic in the establishment of the Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering – ensuring its firm grounding in sustainability principles. Dr Huda has used the design and development of numerous courses to educate and inspire a generation of new generation of Mechanical Engineers in the practice of sustainability in topics such as energy, resources management, circular economy, life-cycle analysis, recycling, and end-of-life considerations in product design.

Christian Spreafico

University of Bergamo, Italy

Christian Spreafico is assistant professor at the University of Bergamo, where he was previously involved as research assistant since 2012. He obtained the PhD in industrial engineering from the University of Padova in 2017 and the MSc in mechanical engineering from the University of Bergamo in 2012. His main research interest is to mix eco-design with eco-assessment, systematic innovation and patent analysis. His research is carried out in collaboration with various companies of different fields. He is author of almost 50 scientific publications, between articles, conference papers and book chapters and inventor of 6 patents.

Gordon Huang

University of Regina, Canada.

Gordon Huang is currently working as a professor in Environmental systems engineering at University of Regina, Canada. He is also a Canada Research Chair and Fellow at Canadian Academy of Engineering. He completed his Ph.D. at McMaster University, Canada.

Kaveh Khalilpour

University of Technology Sydney, Australia

Professor Kaveh Khalilpour works at the Faculty of Engineering and IT, University of Technology Sydney, Australia. His core research area is process systems engineering with systems thinking perspective. His research team works on the utilisation of multidimensional decision-making frameworks considering techno-economic, social, environmental and regulative factors for the design of new products, systems, and markets. In this context, he has co-authored two books including “Community Energy Networks with Storage” published by Springer Nature, and “Polygeneration with Polystorage for Chemical and Energy Hubs” published by Elsevier. Assoc Prof Khalilpour is the editor of Nature Scientific Reports, the IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution, MDPI energies, and MDPI Sustainability.

Pedro Aguirre

Universidad de Chile, Chile

Pedro Aguirre A is a Dr. in Chemistry at the Universidad of Santiago de Chile, Chile and chemical engineer of Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile.  He is professor of the Universidad de Chile from 1996 and actually full professor of the Chemistry department. His research works has been developed catalysts for various chemical applications, synthesis of drugs, synthesis of materials for the industry and currently develops catalysts for valorization of biomass lignocellulosic in synthesis of biodiesel a renewable chemical.  In 2006 he carried out postdoctoral studies at the Univesidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain with a scholarship for Latin-American researchers in Spain.

Mattia Bartoli

Center for Sustainable Future Technologies, Italy

Mattia Bartoli is working on CO2 electrochemical and thermochemical conversion and capture and hydrogen storage at the Center for Sustainable Future Technologies – CSFT@POLITO. Dr. Bartoli recognises the interdisciplinary nature of the green energy research sector and puts all his efforts to develop not merely one-case solutions but platforms that could originate solution trees useful for solving complex scenarios by integrating material science with energy oriented approaches . The commitment to this vision has driven Dr. Bartoli’s research to achieve outstanding solutions in the field of biofuels, integrating pyrolysis and catalysis for the production of drop-in fuels streams. Furthermore, Dr. Bartoli, together with Prof. Leblanc’s group, leads the foundation of chemical formation route of the main families of carbon dots. Recently, Dr. Bartoli investigated the hydrogen storage field enlightening the relationship between ammonia borane decomposition and carbon matrix functionalities. The achievements reached by his research provided a new look to the field, allowing the rational design of new chemically hydrogen stored systems.

Xueliang Yuan

Shandong University, China

Yuan Xueliang, Professor, Taishan Scholar Young Expert, High-end Talent of Shandong Think Tank, National Registered Environmental Protection Engineer. Professor Yuan is the Vice Dean of School of Energy and Power Engineering and the Director of the Research Center for Sustainable Development at Shandong University. His research field is sustainable energy and environmental systems. He is the primary investigator for 20 government funded research projects, such as National Key Research and Development Program, National Natural Science Foundation of China and Shandong Provincial Key Research and Development Program. He has published more than 100 academic papers, with google citations more than 3000 times and H index 27. He has won 9 scientific research awards.

Yiu Fai Tsang

The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Yiu Fai Tsang is an Associate Professor of the Department of Science and Environmental Studies and Assistant Dean of the Graduate School at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). He received his BEng and PhD in Environmental Engineering from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). Prior to joining EdUHK, he was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and a Research Fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at PolyU. Currently, he is the Editor-in-Chief of Energy & Environment (SAGE), Editor of Chemical Engineering Journal (Elsevier), and Subject Editor of Process Safety and Environmental Protection (Elsevier). His research interests include wastewater and sludge treatment, microplastics and nanoplastics, and resource recovery.

Aboelkasim Diab

Aswan University, Egypt

Dr. Aboelkasim Diab is an associate professor at the department of civil engineering, Aswan University, Egypt. He has been an effective associate professor and his teaching interests include pavement materials and design, railway engineering, and transportation engineering. Also he lectures in other universities in Egypt. Dr. Diab is a licensed engineering consultant and is the responsible for the pavement materials laboratories in his university. Because of his expertise in the field of transportation consulting, he has helped design different road networks. Currently, his research group consists of fifteen graduate students under his supervision.

Woon Kok Sin

Xiamen University Malaysia, Malaysia

Dr. Woon is currently an Associate Professor and Head of Ph.D. Program of New Energy Science and Engineering at Xiamen University Malaysia, a Professional Technologist by the Malaysia Board of Technologists, and a Green RE Accredited Professional by REHDA Malaysia. He advocates achieving transformative resilience for climate and environmental sustainability. He is passionate about utilizing systems-analytical approaches on issues related to the environment-economic-social well-being nexus. He has authored 45 articles in international refereed journals and conference proceedings, including One Earth, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Journal of Cleaner Production, and Science of the Total Environment.

Ying Ma

University of Coimbra, Portugal

Ying Ma is the Researcher, Independent Principal Investigator at Centre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Portugal. Her research interest is to use Microbial Biotechnology in both sustainable agriculture and environmental decontamination under global climate-change scenarios, with a focus on the mechanisms underlying plant-microbe-soil interactions, which comprises the combination of fundamental biological principles with applied technologies. I work in an interdisciplinary manner to effectively address complex problems and emerging threats that challenge agricultural production and bioremediation efficiency.