Jan Anton Koster received his PhD in Physics from the University of Groningen in 2007. After his PhD, he worked as a postdoc at the universities of Cambridge and Eindhoven. Having obtained a VENI grant for organic solar cell modelling, he moved back to Groningen to continue his work on organic semiconductors. In 2013 he became a tenure-track assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor (with ius promovendi) at the University of Groningen in 2017. Currently, his main research interests include hybrid perovskite solar cells, organic solar cells and organic thermoelectrics.

Philip Schulz holds a position as Research Director for Physical Chemistry and New Concepts for Photovoltaics at CNRS. In this capacity he leads the “Interfaces and Hybrid Materials for Photovoltaics” group at IPVF via the “Make Our Planet Great Again” program, which was initiated by the French President Emmanuel Macron. Before that, Philip Schulz has been a postdoctoral researcher at NREL from 2014 to 2017, and in the Department of Electrical Engineering of Princeton University from 2012 to 2014. He received his Ph.D. in physics from RWTH Aachen University in Germany in 2012.

Stefan Weber (born 1981) studied Physics at the University of Konstanz. Already as an undergrad student he started to work with an SFM in the group of Prof. Leiderer. For his diploma thesis under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Johannes Boneberg he studied the interaction of gold nanoparticles with pulsed laser light. In 2007, he joined the group of Prof. Butt at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Reaearch (MPI-P), Mainz. During his PhD, he spent six months at Seoul National University, Korea, in the groups of Prof. K. Char and Prof. C. Lee. In 2010 he received a joint doctoral degree from Mainz University and SNU. In 2011 he went to University College Dublin as a Feodor Lynen Fellow (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation) to join Prof. Brian Rodriguez and Prof. Suzi Jarvis. In 2012 he became a group leader in the Physics of Interfaces group in the department of Prof. Hans-Jürgen Butt at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P), Mainz. From 2015 to 2023 he held a junior professor postition in the Physics department of Mainz University. Sind June 2023, he is a permament group leader at the Institute for Photovoltaics at University Stuttgart, where he heads the Nanoscale Microscopy and Characterization group. In 2024, he won an ERC Consolidator grant for the development of a Photovoltaic Microscope that combines nanoscale electrical imaging with high-resolution optical microscopy and ultrafast spectroscopy

Hendrik (Henk) Bolink obtained his PhD in Materials Science at the University of Groningen in 1997 under the supervision of Prof. Hadziioannou. After that he worked at DSM as a materials scientist and project manager in the central research and new business development department, respectively. In 2001 he joined Philips, to lead the materials development activity of Philips´s PolyLED project.

Since 2003 he is at the Instituto de Ciencia Molecular (ICMol )of the University of Valencia where he initiated a research line on molecular opto-eletronic devices. His current research interests encompass: inorganic/organic hybrid materials such as transition metal complexes and perovskites and their integration in LEDs and solar cells.

Antoine Kahn is a professor of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University. He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University in 1978. His current research interests include the structural, electronic and chemical properties of surfaces and interfaces of intrinsic and doped organic and hybrid semiconductor films. Recent work includes (i) the physics and applications of n- and p-type molecular dopants in organic thin films, (ii) organic/organic heterojunctions, (iii) transition metal oxides in organic electronics, and (iv) organo-metal perovskites. Kahn has co-authored over 380 refereed regular and review articles. He was the recipient of a Presidential Young Investigator Award (1984-85), of the Joseph Meyerhoff Visiting Professorship (2002) and of the Weston Visiting Professorship (2009-12), Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. He is a Fellow of the AVS (1999) and APS (2002). He was listed among the “World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds”, Thomson Reuters 2014.

Maksym Kovalenko has been a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at ETH Zurich since July 2011 and Associate professor from January 2017. His group is also partially hosted by EMPA (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) to support his highly interdisciplinary research program. He completed graduate studies at Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria, 2004-2007, with Prof. Wolfgang Heiss), followed by postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago (USA, 2008-2011, with Prof. Dmitri Talapin). His present scientific focus is on the development of new synthesis methods for inorganic nanomaterials, their surface chemistry engineering, and assembly into macroscopically large solids. His ultimate, practical goal is to provide novel inorganic materials for optoelectronics, rechargeable Li-ion batteries, post-Li-battery materials, and catalysis. He is the recipient of an ERC Consolidator Grant 2018, ERC Starting Grant 2012, Ruzicka Preis 2013 and Werner Prize 2016. He is also a Highly Cited Researcher 2018 (by Clarivate Analytics).

Paulina Plochocka, Directrice de recherché de 2e classe (DR2) in Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Intenses (LNCMI), CNRS in Toulouse.

P. Plochocka obtained her PhD cum-laude in 2004 at the University of Warsaw working on the dynamics of many-body interactions between carriers in doped semi-magnetic quantum wells (QW). During her first post doc at Weizmann Institute of science, she started working on the electronic properties of a high mobility 2D electron gas in the fractional and integer quantum Hall Effect regime. She continued this topic during second post doc in LNCMI Grenoble, where she was holding individual Marie Curie scholarship. At the same time, she enlarged her interest of 2D materials towards graphene and other layered materials as TMDCs or black phosphorus. In 2012 she obtained permanent position in LNCMI Toulouse, where she created the Quantum Electronics group, which investigates the electronic and optical properties of emerging materials under extreme conditions of high magnetic field and low temperatures. Examples include semiconducting layer materials such as transition metal dichalcogenides, GaAs/AlAs core shell nanowires and organic inorganic hybrid perovskites.

Shuxia Tao is a compuational materials scientist and she studies how photons, electrons and ions interact with each other and how such interactions determine the formation, function and degradation of materials. Currently, she leads the Computational Materials Physics group at the department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands.

Tao's group focuses on multiscale modelling of energy and optoelectronic materials, studying the growth of nanomaterials and developing theory of light-matter interactions. The ultimate goal is perfecting the quality of these materials and maximizing their efficiency for converting and storing energy and information. Her recent contribution to PV materials focuses on halide perovskites, where she made important contribution in the understanding of the electronic structure, the defect chemistry/physics and the nucleation and growth of halide perovskites. Recently, she also expanded the research to the interactions of perovskites with other contact materials in devices and novel optoelectronic properties, such as optical chirality and chiral induced spin selevetivity. 

Aldo Di Carlo is Director of the Institute of Structure of Matter of the National Research Council and Full Professor of Optoelectronics and Nanoelectronics at the Department of Electronics Engineering of the University of ROme "Tor Vergata". His research focuses on the study and fabrication of electronic and optoelectronic devices, their analysis and their optimization. Di Carlo founded the Center for Hybrid and Organic Solar Cells (CHOSE) which nowadays involve more than40 researchers dealing with the development of III generation solar cells (DSC, OPV and Perovskite) and on scaling-up of these technologies for industrial applications. CHOSE has generated 6 spin-off companies and a public/private partnership. Di Carlo is author/coauthor of more than 500 scientific publications in international journals, 13 patents and has been involved in several EU projects (three as EU coordinator)

Emil List-Kratochvil graduated from the Napier University Edinburgh with a first class BSc (Hons) in Applied Physics in 1996, followed by a first class Master Degree in 1998 and a first class degree of a Doctor Technicae in 2000, both from Graz University of Technology (TU Graz).

He received his Habilitation (Venia Docendi) in Solid State Physics in 2003 at TU Graz. At that time, he was a Christian-Doppler-Society funded Research Associate (2000-2007), directing a laboratory for “Advanced Functional Materials” focusing on an applied research agenda in collaboration with Industry. In 2004 he was appointed Associate Professor in Solid State Physics at TU Graz. In 2004 Professor List-Kratochvil was awarded the Fritz Kohlrauschpreis (ÖPG) and the Basic Research Nanotechnology Award (Province of Styria).

In 2006 he got the offer to found the NanoTecCenter Weiz Forschungsgesellschaft mbH, which he directed as Scientific Managing Director until 2015, in parallel to his appointment at TU Graz.

In 2015 he joined Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin as full professor (W3) at the Departments of Physics and Chemistry as well as a member of the Integrative Research Institute for the Sciences (IRIS Adlershof).

In August 2018 he also accepted the offer of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin to found and lead a Joint Laboratory as well as Joint Helmholtz Research Group on “Generative Manufacturing Processes for Hybrid Devices”.

Ji-Youn Seo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nanoenergy Engineering at Pusan National University, Korea. She earned her BSc and MSc degrees from Ajou University in 2009 and 2011, respectively, and her PhD in Materials Science from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, under the mentorship of Professor Michael Grätzel. Her doctoral research focused on advancing dye-sensitized solar cells, contributing to innovations in renewable energy technologies. Following her academic training, Dr. Seo gained valuable industry experience at Hyundai Motor Company (HMC) in Korea, where she worked on bio-plastics and fuel cell technologies, and at H.GLASS in Switzerland, where she contributed to the development of organic photovoltaics (OPV) and dye-sensitized solar cells. Currently, Dr. Seo’s research centers on high-efficiency and stable perovskite solar cells, with a particular focus on large-area module fabrication. She is also actively involved in education, serving as the Associate director of Korea’s innovative open shared university and early-employment contract graduate school programs in the field of energy and semiconductor industries, fostering international collaboration and mentoring the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Senol Öz obtained his diploma in chemistry in 2013 at the University of Cologne
(Germany). Completing his PhD under supervision of Prof. Sanjay Mathur in 2018 at
University of Cologne (Merck KGaA PhD scholarship). In 2019 he joined Prof.
Tsutomu Miyasaka`s group as a post-doctoral fellow at Toin University of Yokohama
under a JSPS scholarship. His research interests include the synthesis, chemical
engineering, and solution processing of inorganic-organic hybrid metal halide
perovskite materials for photovoltaic application. He is currently a senior R&D project
leader at Saule Technologies and managing director of Solaveni GmbH.

Jacky Even was born in Rennes, France, in 1964. He received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Paris VI, Paris, France, in 1992. He was a Research and Teaching Assistant with the University of Rennes I, Rennes, from 1992 to 1999. He has been a Full Professor of optoelectronics with the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées, Rennes,since 1999. He was the head of the Materials and Nanotechnology from 2006 to 2009, and Director of Education of Insa Rennes from 2010 to 2012. He created the FOTON Laboratory Simulation Group in 1999. His main field of activity is the theoretical study of the electronic, optical, and nonlinear properties of semiconductor QW and QD structures, hybrid perovskite materials, and the simulation of optoelectronic and photovoltaic devices. He is a senior member of Institut Universitaire de France (IUF).

He studied electrical engineering in Stuttgart and started working on Si solar cells in 2004 under the guidance of Uwe Rau at the Institute for Physical Electronics (ipe) in Stuttgart. After finishing his undergraduate studies in 2006, he continued working with Uwe Rau first in Stuttgart and later in Juelich on simulations and electroluminescence spectroscopy of solar cells. After finishing his PhD in 2009 and 1.5 years of postdoc work in Juelich, Thomas Kirchartz started a three year fellowship at Imperial College London working on recombination mechanisms in organic solar cells with Jenny Nelson. In 2013, he returned to Germany and accepted a position as head of a new activity on hybrid and organic solar cells in Juelich and simultaneously as Professor for Photovoltaics with Nanostructured Materials in the department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the University Duisburg-Essen. Kirchartz has published >100 isi-listed papers, has co-edited one book on characterization of thin-film solar cells whose second edition was published in 2016 and currently has an h-index of 38.

Hernán Míguez (born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1971) is Research Professor of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) in the Institute of Materials Science of Seville. He studied Physics in the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and did his PhD in the Institute of Materials Science of Madrid. After a postdoctoral stay at the University of Toronto in the group of Prof. Ozin, he returned to Spain and joined the CSIC in 2004. He leads the group of Multifunctional Optical Materials, whose activities are devoted to the development, characterization and modeling of new photonic architectures for applications in different fields, among them solar energy conversion and light emission. He has received an ERC starting grant (2012, Consolidator Modality) and the “Real Sociedad Española de Física-Fundación BBVA 2017” Prize in the modality of “Physics, Innovation and Technology”.

Hendrik (Henk) Bolink obtained his PhD in Materials Science at the University of Groningen in 1997 under the supervision of Prof. Hadziioannou. After that he worked at DSM as a materials scientist and project manager in the central research and new business development department, respectively. In 2001 he joined Philips, to lead the materials development activity of Philips´s PolyLED project.

Since 2003 he is at the Instituto de Ciencia Molecular (ICMol )of the University of Valencia where he initiated a research line on molecular opto-eletronic devices. His current research interests encompass: inorganic/organic hybrid materials such as transition metal complexes and perovskites and their integration in LEDs and solar cells.

Dr Juliane Borchert is the head of the junior research group “Optoelectronic Thin Film Materials” at the University of Freiburg as well as the head of  the research group “Perovskite Materials and Interfaces” at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems. She studied physics in Berlin, Groningen, and Halle (Saale). Her PhD research was conducted at the University of Oxford where she focused on co-evaporated perovskites for solar cells. She continued this research as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge and AMOLF research institute in Amsterdam. Now she leads a team of researchers and technicians who are on a mission to develop the next generation of solar cells combining novel metal-halide perovskite semiconductors and established silicon technology into highly efficient tandem solar cells.

Dr Juliane Borchert is the head of the junior research group “Optoelectronic Thin Film Materials” at the University of Freiburg as well as the head of  the research group “Perovskite Materials and Interfaces” at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems. She studied physics in Berlin, Groningen, and Halle (Saale). Her PhD research was conducted at the University of Oxford where she focused on co-evaporated perovskites for solar cells. She continued this research as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge and AMOLF research institute in Amsterdam. Now she leads a team of researchers and technicians who are on a mission to develop the next generation of solar cells combining novel metal-halide perovskite semiconductors and established silicon technology into highly efficient tandem solar cells.

Annamaria Petrozza received her PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge (UK) in 2008 with a thesis on the study of optoelectronic processes at organic and hybrid semiconductors interfaces under the supervision of Dr. J.S. Kim and Prof Sir R.H. Friend. From July 2008 to December 2009 she worked as research scientist at the Sharp Laboratories of Europe, Ltd on the development of new market competitive solar cell technologies (Dye Sensitized Solar cells/Colloidal Quantum Dots Sensitized Solar cells). Since January 2010 she has a Team Leader position at the Center for Nano Science and Technology -IIT@POLIMI. She is in charge of the development of photovoltaic devices and their characterization by time-resolved and cw Photoinduced Absorption Spectroscopy, Time-resolved Photoluminescence and electrical measurements. Her research work mainly aims to shed light on interfacial optoelectronic mechanisms, which are fundamental for the optimization of operational processes, with the goal of improving device efficiency and stability.

Since 2019, Yana Vaynzof holds the Chair for Emerging Electronic Technologies at the Technical University of Dresden. Prior to that (2014-2019), she was a juniorprofessor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Heidelberg University (Germany). She received a B.Sc degree (summa cum laude) in electrical engineering from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology (Israel) in 2006, and a M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University, (USA) in 2008. She pursued a Ph.D. degree in physics under the supervision of Prof. Sir. Richard Friend at the Optoelectronics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge (UK), and investigated the development of hybrid polymer solar cells and the improvement of their efficiency and stability. Upon completing her PhD in 2011, she joined the Microelectronics group at the University of Cambridge as a Postdoctoral Research Associate focusing on the research of surfaces and interfaces in organic and hybrid optoelectronics. Yana Vaynzof was the recipient of a number of fellowships and awards, including the ERC Starting Grant, Gordon Y. Wu Fellowship, Henry Kressel Fellowship, Fulbright-Cottrell Award and the Walter Kalkhof-Rose Memorial Prize.

Dr. Sascha Sadewasser is the Principal Investigator of the Laboratory for Nanostructured Solar Cells at INL – International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory. The group of Sascha works on the development of advanced solar cell materials and devices implementing nano- and microstructures. Additionally, scanning probe microscopy methods, especially Kelvin probe force microscopy, are developed and applied for the characterization of the optoelectronic nanostructure of solar cell materials. Finally, the group also works on 2D chalcogenide materials.

Sascha Sadewasser holds a Diploma (1995) in Physics from the RWTH Aachen, Germany and a PhD (1999) from the Washington University St. Louis, MO, USA. After 2 post-docs in Berlin (Hahn-Institute) and Barcelona (Centro Nacional de Microelectrónica), he became group leader and later deputy department head at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Germany. After his Habilitation in Experimental Physics from the Free University of Berlin, Germany (2011) he joined INL in 2011. Sascha has published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers, with 2000 citations (h-index 25). He has published 5 book chapters and 1 book and has been granted 3 patents. He is also a member of several scientific committees and evaluation boards.

Juan Bisquert (pHD Universitat de València, 1991) is a Professor of applied physics at Universitat Jaume I de Castelló, Spain. He is the director of the Institute of Advanced Materials at UJI. He authored 360 peer reviewed papers, and a series of books including . Physics of Solar Cells: Perovskites, Organics, and Photovoltaics Fundamentals (CRC Press).  His h-index 95, and is currently a Senior Editor of the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. He conducts experimental and theoretical research on materials and devices for production and storage of clean energies. His main topics of interest are materials and processes in perovskite solar cells and solar fuel production. He has developed the application of measurement techniques and physical modeling of nanostructured energy devices, that relate the device operation with the elementary steps that take place at the nanoscale dimension: charge transfer, carrier transport, chemical reaction, etc., especially in the field of impedance spectroscopy, as well as general device models. He has been distinguished in the 2014-2019 list of ISI Highly Cited Researchers.

 

He studied electrical engineering in Stuttgart and started working on Si solar cells in 2004 under the guidance of Uwe Rau at the Institute for Physical Electronics (ipe) in Stuttgart. After finishing his undergraduate studies in 2006, he continued working with Uwe Rau first in Stuttgart and later in Juelich on simulations and electroluminescence spectroscopy of solar cells. After finishing his PhD in 2009 and 1.5 years of postdoc work in Juelich, Thomas Kirchartz started a three year fellowship at Imperial College London working on recombination mechanisms in organic solar cells with Jenny Nelson. In 2013, he returned to Germany and accepted a position as head of a new activity on hybrid and organic solar cells in Juelich and simultaneously as Professor for Photovoltaics with Nanostructured Materials in the department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the University Duisburg-Essen. Kirchartz has published >100 isi-listed papers, has co-edited one book on characterization of thin-film solar cells whose second edition was published in 2016 and currently has an h-index of 38.

He has more than 15 years research experience in the academic sector working on nanoelectronics, spintronics and optoelectronics. He possesses extensive hands-on experience on emerging low-dimensionality electronic systems including nanowire transistors, GaAs single spin quantum-bits, as well emerging phenomena in functional oxide and superconductive/ferromagnetic interfaces towards beyond CMOS technologies. He has served at various academic research positions in high reputation European institutions including the Foundation of Research and Technology in Greece, the Institut Néel CNRS in France and the London centre for Nanotechnology – University College of London in United Kingdom.  He obtained his PhD in Nanoelectronics from Grenoble Institute of Technology in France, in 2009. He is currently Researcher (Grade C) in the i-EMERGE Research Institute of the Hellenic Mediterranean University (HMU) and the Team Leader of Innovative Printed Electronics at the Nanomaterials for Emerging Devices research group. His current research interests include 2D materials engineering in various printed device concepts suc as high performing solar cells, functional sensors as well as neuromorhic computation architectures towards energy efficient, smart Internet of Intelligent Things and wearable systems.

Dr. Carlos L. Bassani studies the multiscale interactions of systems containing crystals, from molecular ordering to the emergence of mesostructures and their interactions with the environment. Of special interest are plasmonic nanocrystals and clathrate hydrates. Carlos holds a dual doctorate in Chemical Engineering from Mines Saint-Etienne, France, and Mechanical and Materials Engineering from the Federal University of Technology—Paraná, Brazil. He is a postdoctoral fellow at the Self-Organization Group of the Institute for Multiscale Simulation at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany.

Maria Ibáñez was born in La Sénia (Spain). She graduated in physics at the University of Barcelona, where she also obtained her PhD in 2013, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Cabot and Prof. Dr. Morante. Her PhD thesis was qualified Excellent Cum Laude and awarded with the Honors Doctorate by the University of Barcelona. Her PhD research was funded by a Spanish competitive grant (FPU) which supported her to conduct short-term research stays in cutting-edge laboratories. In particular she worked at CEA Grenoble (2009), the University of Chicago (2010), the California Institute of Technology (2011), the Cornell University (2012) and the Northwestern University (2013). In 2014, she joined the group of Prof. Dr. Kovalenko at ETH Zürich and EMPA as a research fellow where in 2017 she received the Ružička Prize. In September 2018 she became an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) at IST Austria and started the Functional Nanomaterials group.

Cherie R. Kagan is the Stephen J. Angello Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. Kagan graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991 with a BSE in Materials Science and Engineering and a BA Mathematics. She earned her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996 working with Moungi G. Bawendi. In 1996, she went to Bell Labs as a postdoctoral fellow and in 1998, she joined IBM’s T. J. Watson Research Center, where she most recently managed the “Molecular Assemblies and Devices Group.” In 2007, she joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. Kagan is an Associate Editor of ACS Nano and serves on the editorial boards of Nano Letters and NanoToday. The Kagan group’s research interests are in the chemical and physical properties of nanostructured and organic materials and in integrating these materials in electronic, optoelectronic, optical, thermoelectric and bioelectronic devices. The group combines the flexibility of chemistry and bottom-up assembly with top-down fabrication techniques to design novel materials and devices. The group explores the structure and function of these materials and devices using spatially- and temporally-resolved optical spectroscopies, AC and DC electrical techniques, electrochemistry, scanning probe and electron microscopies and analytical measurements. Kagan is co-director of The Penn Center for Energy Innovation and serves on the World Economic Forum, Global Agenda Council on Nanotechnology; on the Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences Materials Council; and on the advisory board of the US Summer Schools in Condensed Matter and Materials Physics. She served on the Materials Research Society’s Board of Directors from 2007-2009 and the editorial board of the ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces from 2008-2011

Prof. R. Robinson received his PhD in Applied Physics from Columbia University. After his PhD, Prof. Robinson was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at University of California, Berkeley/LBNL in the research group of Paul Alivisatos.  There, he worked on nanoparticle synthesis, chemical transformations of nanoparticles, and advanced property characterizations of nanoparticles.  In 2008 Richard began a faculty position at Cornell University in the Materials Science Department, and is currently an associate professor. His primary research interests are: (I) Synthesis and chemical transformations in nanocrystals, (II) Nanocrystals in energy applications, and (III) Synchrotron x-ray characterization of nanomaterials.

therobinsongroup.org/

Vanessa Wood is a professor in the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at ETH Zurich, where she heads the Laboratory for Nanoelectronics. Before joining ETH in 2011, she was a postdoctoral associate in the laboratory of Professor Yet-Ming Chiang and Professor Craig Carter in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, performing research on novel lithium-ion battery systems. She received her MSc and PhD from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. Her graduate work was done in the group of Professor Vladimir Bulović and focused on the development of optoelectronic devices containing colloidally synthesized quantum dots.

Ariel L. Furst is the Cook Career Development Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. Her lab combines biological, chemical, and materials engineering to solve challenges in human health and environmental sustainability. They develop technologies for implementation in low-resource settings to ensure equitable access to technology. She completed her Ph.D. in the lab of Prof. Jacqueline K. Barton at the California Institute of Technology developing new cancer diagnostic strategies based on DNA charge transport. She was an A. O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Prof. Matthew Francis at UC, Berkeley developing sensors to monitor environmental pollutants. She is the recipient of the NIH New Innovator Award, the NSF CAREER Award, the Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, and the Sloan Fellowship. She is the cofounder of three startups: Seia Bio, Helix Carbon, and Ouroloop. She is passionate about STEM outreach and increasing participation of underrepresented groups in engineering.

Serena Cussen (née Corr) is Full Professor of Materials Chemistry at University College Dublin. She obtained her BA and PhD degrees in Chemistry from Trinity College Dublin, before going on to carry out postdoctoral research at University of California Santa Barbara with Professor Ram Seshadri.

Serena's research focuses on understanding the synthesis-structure-function interplay in materials for electrochemical energy storage. Her group are particularly interested in determining strategic routes to functional materials which afford control over crystal chemistry, particle size and particle morphology and deepening our understanding of the impact this has over properties. Recipient of the RSC Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship (2017), the ISIS Science Impact Award (2021) and the RSC Interdisciplinary Prize (2023), Serena is deeply committed to career sustainability, early career mentoring, the promotion of women in STEM and public outreach. A former member of the RSC’s Materials Division Council, she has contributed to the RSC’s Equity in Publishing group (contributing to the recent “Is publishing in the chemical sciences gender biased?” report) and was featured in the International Women’s Day report “The Chemical Ladies”.

Since the 1^st of October 2023, Sonia Dsoke holds a Professorship for “Electrochemical Energy Carriers and Storage” at the Department of Sustainable Systems Engineering (INATECH), University of Freiburg, she leads a group “Innovative Battery Materials” at Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) and she is member of the Freiburger material center (FMF).

At the international level, she is the chair of Division 3 (electrochemical energy conversion and storage) of the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE), one of the largest electrochemical communities in the world.

From 2017 until September 2023 Sonia Dsoke was the leader of a multidisciplinary group at the Institute for Applied Materials – Energy Storage Systems (KIT, Germany). In the same period, she was the deputy director of the platform CELEST and a spokesperson for Research Unit A (electrode materials) in the Cluster of Excellence POLiS dealing with “post-lithium” battery research. Previously she led an independent young research group focused on designing novel electrodes for Hydrid Battery-Supercapacitors at ZSW-Ulm (Germany). She also had industrial experience at an Italian battery manufacturing company FAAM (in 2009) and she was a researcher at the University of Camerino (Italy), where she also obtained her PhD in the field of Li-ion batteries.

Sonia Dsoke was honored with the Brigitte-Schlieben-Lange Programm Grant (2017-2019, Ministry of Science and Culture, Baden-Württemberg) and a Young Investigator Group Grant (2012-2016, Federal Ministry of Education and Research) within the framework “Energy Storage Initiative”.

Her actual main research subjects are the development of novel advanced functional materials for supercapacitors, lithium, and post-lithium ion batteries, with a special focus on tackling challenges of novel battery concepts such as Na, K, Mg, Ca, and Al batteries.  

Patrik Johansson is Professor in Chemistry at Uppsala University, Sweden, and holds a Distinguished Professor grant with the topic of “Next Generation Batteries” from the Swedish Research Council (48.5 MSEK – ca. 4.5M€, 10 years). He is the Director of Battery 2030+ as well as co-director of ALISTORE-ERI.
Prof. Johansson received his PhD in Inorganic Chemistry in 1998 from Uppsala University, Sweden and has continuously aimed at combining understanding of new materials at the molecular scale, often via ab initio/DFT computational methods and IR/Raman spectroscopy, with battery concept development and real battery performance – with a special interest in all kinds of electrolytes. He is currently active in several large battery projects both at the national and European level, including educational efforts such as DESTINY. Most notably, his team won the Open Innovation Contest on Energy Storage arranged by BASF in 2015 for his new ideas on Al-battery technology (prize sum 100,000€) and in 2020 he was awarded “l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques, Grade d'Officier” by the French Ministry of Education. He has published ca. 250 papers and started the software company Compular AB together with some former PhD students.

Dr. Marine Reynaud is a Chemical Engineer from Chimie ParisTech (France) and Doctor in Materials Sciences. She completed her PhD in 2013 under the direction of Prof. Tarascon, Dr. Chotard and Dr. Rousse. Then, she joined the group of Dr. Montse Casas-Cabanas at CIC energiGUNE, where she is has recently been appointed Research Team Leader. Her research is focused on the design and development of electrode materials for Li-ion and Na-ion batteries. She is expert in inorganic syntheses and materials characterizations, looking for determining correlation between compositions, (micro)structure and electrochemical properties. For the last few years, she has been developing innovative strategies to accelerate the discovery of new battery materials.

She is author of c.a. 40 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals. She has been PI of several industrial projects and competitive national and European research projects. She has supervised 5 PhD students and currently leads a team of 12 researchers. She has recently received the first BRTA award from the Basque Research and Technology Alliance, recognizing young researchers’ passion, talent and ambition.  

Juan Bisquert (pHD Universitat de València, 1991) is a Professor of applied physics at Universitat Jaume I de Castelló, Spain. He is the director of the Institute of Advanced Materials at UJI. He authored 360 peer reviewed papers, and a series of books including . Physics of Solar Cells: Perovskites, Organics, and Photovoltaics Fundamentals (CRC Press).  His h-index 95, and is currently a Senior Editor of the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. He conducts experimental and theoretical research on materials and devices for production and storage of clean energies. His main topics of interest are materials and processes in perovskite solar cells and solar fuel production. He has developed the application of measurement techniques and physical modeling of nanostructured energy devices, that relate the device operation with the elementary steps that take place at the nanoscale dimension: charge transfer, carrier transport, chemical reaction, etc., especially in the field of impedance spectroscopy, as well as general device models. He has been distinguished in the 2014-2019 list of ISI Highly Cited Researchers.

 

Bruno Ehrler is leading the Hybrid Solar Cells group at AMOLF in Amsterdam since 2014 and is also a honorary professor at the University of Groningen since 2020. His group focuses on perovskite materials science, both on the fundamental level, and for device applications. He is recipient of an ERC Starting Grant and an NWO Vidi grant, advisory board member of the Dutch Chemistry Council, recipient of the WIN Rising Star award, and senior conference editor for nanoGe.

Before moving to Amsterdam, he was a research fellow in the Optoelectronics Group at Cambridge University following post-doctoral work with Professor Sir Richard Friend. During this period, he worked on quantum dots, doped metal oxides and singlet fission photovoltaics. He obtained his PhD from the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Professor Neil Greenham, studying hybrid solar cells from organic semiconductors and inorganic quantum dots. He received his MSci from the University of London (Queen Mary) studying micro-mechanics in the group of Professor David Dunstan.

2022 Science Board member Netherlands Energy Research Alliance (NERA)
2021 Member steering committee National Growth fund application Duurzame MaterialenNL
2021 Member advisory board Dutch Chemistry Council
2020 Honorary professor Universty of Groningen for new hybrid material systems for solar-cell applications
2020 ERC starting Grant for work on aritifical synapses from halide perovskite
2019 Senior conference editor nanoGe
2018 WIN Rising Star award
2017 NWO Vidi Grant for work on metal halide perovskites
since 2014 Group Leader, Hybrid Solar Cell Group, Institute AMOLF, Amsterdam
2013 – 2014 Trevelyan Research Fellow, Selwyn College, University of Cambridge
2012-2013 Postdoctoral Work, University of Cambridge, Professor Sir Richard Friend
2009-2012 PhD in Physics, University of Cambridge, Professor Neil Greenham
2005 – 2009 Study of physics at RWTH Aachen and University of London, Queen Mary College, MSci University of London

He has more than 15 years research experience in the academic sector working on nanoelectronics, spintronics and optoelectronics. He possesses extensive hands-on experience on emerging low-dimensionality electronic systems including nanowire transistors, GaAs single spin quantum-bits, as well emerging phenomena in functional oxide and superconductive/ferromagnetic interfaces towards beyond CMOS technologies. He has served at various academic research positions in high reputation European institutions including the Foundation of Research and Technology in Greece, the Institut Néel CNRS in France and the London centre for Nanotechnology – University College of London in United Kingdom.  He obtained his PhD in Nanoelectronics from Grenoble Institute of Technology in France, in 2009. He is currently Researcher (Grade C) in the i-EMERGE Research Institute of the Hellenic Mediterranean University (HMU) and the Team Leader of Innovative Printed Electronics at the Nanomaterials for Emerging Devices research group. His current research interests include 2D materials engineering in various printed device concepts suc as high performing solar cells, functional sensors as well as neuromorhic computation architectures towards energy efficient, smart Internet of Intelligent Things and wearable systems.

Wolfgang Tress is currently working as a scientist at LPI, EPFL in Switzerland, with general interests in developing and studying novel photovoltaic concepts and technologies. His research focuses on the device physics of perovskite solar cells; most recently, investigating recombination and hysteresis phenomena in this emerging material system. Previously, he was analyzing and modeling performance limiting processes in organic solar cells.

Roy Vellaisamy is a Chair Professor of Intelligent Systems and leader of Molecular Electronics (MOLEC) group at the Hong Kong Metropolitan University (HKMU). Prior to HKMU, he was a Professor of Intelligent Systems at the University of Glasgow (UK) where he is currently a Professor Affiliate. In Hong Kong, he held faculty positions at City University of Hong Kong for 11 years (2008 to 2019; Assistant & Associate Professor) and The University of Hong Kong (2005 to 2008; Research Assistant Professor). He holds adjunct positions at UESTC, Chengdu & SZAR (ShenZhen Academy of Robotics), China.  In 2019, he received gold medals for his “Sensor Platform” at the 47th International Exhibition of Inventions (Geneva); iCAN 2022 (Toronto, Canada); He was also a recipient of TRIL-Research Fellow awarded by The International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP, UNESCO institution), Trieste (Italy), Excellent Product Award (2011, 12, 13 & 18) at China Hi-Tech Fair awarded by the PRC's Ministry of Commerce and secured “1000 talent plan” of Zhejiang province (2017). Together with his graduate students, Roy as a founding member, established 3 spin-off companies in HK and UK for the development of point of care diagnostic tools. Roy works closely with industries in UK and Greater Bay Region for the development of intelligent sensors and quantum technologies. 

Antonio Guerrero is Associate Professor in Applied Physics at the Institute of Advanced Materials (Spain). His background includes synthesis of organic and inorganic materials (PhD in Chemistry). He worked 4 years at Cambridge Dispaly Technology  fabricating materiales for organic light emitting diodes and joined University Jaume I in 2010 to lead the fabrication laboratory of electronic devices. His expertise includes chemical and electrical characterization of several types of electronic devices. In the last years he has focused in solar cells, memristors, electrochemical cells and batteries.

Olivier joined ICPEES as independent young researcher (Chargé de Recherche) in February 2023. His interests are in understanding the chemical and electrochemical doping mechanisms of highly anisotropic and porous organic semiconductors for bioelectronic and thermoelectric applications. A physicist by training, he obtained his MSc in Nanoscience and Engineering Physics at the Grenoble Institute of Technology (Phelma, France) in partnership with Imperial College London (UK). To better understand the molecular design of the materials he was studying, he completed a PhD at Université Grenoble Alpes/CEA Grenoble (France) with Dr. Renaud Demadrille from 2016 to 2019. He focused on the organic synthesis of n-type polymers and their doping for thermoelectric and photovoltaic applications. From 2020 to 2023, he developed his skills in time-resolved spectroscopy and data analysis during a post-doctoral stay in the FemtoMat group of Prof. Natalie Banerji at the University of Bern. Notably, he improved the electronic performance of organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) and identified energetical and morphological factors limiting the (de)doping kinetics of the polymer channel during device operation.

C. Daniel Frisbie is Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science (CEMS) at the University of Minnesota. He was Head of CEMS from 2014-2024. He obtained a PhD in physical chemistry from MIT in 1993 and was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard in 1994. His research focuses on materials and processes for large area printed electronics and photonics. Additional topics include organic semiconductors and devices, electrochemical transistors, molecular electronics, and scanning probe microscopy.

Dr. Esma Ismailova, Associate Professor with an HDR at Mines de Saint-Etienne (EMSE), France. She received her BSc. in Physics and a Master’s degree in Polymer Science at Strasbourg University in France, where she also completed her PhD in Chemistry and Chemical Physics sponsored by STMicroelectronics. She then joined the Laboratory for Organic Electronics at Cornell University, NY, USA as a PostDoc, studying the interface between biology and electronics. In 2010, she joined EMSE to establish a micro-fabrication platform for soft biocompatible neural implants at the Bioelectronics Department. Her current research interests focus on the design and fabrication of novel organic electronic devices for multi-parametric sensing. Dr. Ismailova has initiated national and international collaborations to develop organic wearable devices on textiles for healthcare.

Ji-Seon Kim is Professor of Solid State Physics and Director of the Plastic Electronics Centre for Doctoral Training (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/plastic-electronics/) at Imperial College London. She has previously taken up an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship at the University of Cambridge, obtained a PhD in Physics in 2000. Her research focuses on the basic science and technology of Nanoscale Functional Materials such as organics, organic/ inorganic hybrids, nanomaterials and their related applications, as well as developing novel Nanometrology for these functional materials (http://www.imperial.ac.uk/nanoanalysis-group).

Jenny Nelson is a Professor of Physics at Imperial College London, where she has researched novel varieties of material for use in solar cells since 1989. Her current research is focussed on understanding the properties of molecular semiconductor materials and their application to organic solar cells. This work combines fundamental electrical, spectroscopic and structural studies of molecular electronic materials with numerical modelling and device studies, with the aim of optimising the performance of plastic solar cells. She has published around 200 articles in peer reviewed journals, several book chapters and a book on the physics of solar cells.

Francesco Ciucci works as an Associate Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology where he was supported by a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship and a Bechtel Fellowship. Francesco’s current research centers on solid-state energy technologies, including solid-state batteries, reversible fuel cells, and electrolyzers, with a particular emphasis on the modeling of these systems and the development of new functional materials. Francesco is also interested in the probabilistic analysis of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy through the distribution of relaxation methods. In that context, he developed several pieces of software that can be found at https://github.com/ciuccislab.

 

Graduated in Materials Science at Instituto Sabato, UNSAM, Argentina

PhD Technical University Berlin, Germany

Since 2018, staff researcher at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) in the Interface Design Department of the Energy Materials In-situ Laboratory (EMIL), currently coordinating HZB’s characterization strategies in the Care-O-Sene and Green-QUEST projects. and the the HZB Photon school held yearly at BESSY II, offering lectures and practical trainings at several beamlines.

Research focus on in-situ and operando investigations of energy materials and devices, such as catalysts and solid oxide cells. Complementary synchrotron-based spectroscopies, scattering and imaging methods are combined to investigate energy conversion processes.     

Hermenegildo García Gómez is a full Professor of the Instituto de Tecnología Química at the Univeristat Politècnica de Valencia. His group has expertise in CO2 utilization developing catalysts for CO2 conversion to methanol and C2+ products. He has published over 800 papers, has received more than 75.000 citations, has an H index of 133 and his name is included continuously since 2015 in the annual list of the most cited Scientists published by the Shanghai-Tomson Reuters. He is the recipient of the Janssen-Cilag award of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (2011) and the Rey D. Jaime I award in New technologies (2016). He is doctor honoris causa by the University of Bucharest and Honorary Professor at the King Abdulaziz University since 2015. He was awarded by the Lee Hsun lecturership of the Chinese Academy of Science at Shenyang. He has participated in over 20 EU funded projects and is member of the panel of ERC Consolidator Grant as well as other Comissions and panels. He is President of the international advisory editorial board of ChemCatChem. Several of his publications have constituted research fronts in Chemistry (as defined by Essential Science Indicators) Database, such as Photocatalytic CO2 reduction by non TiO2 photocatalysis, catalysis by MOFs, etc.

Guillermo Díaz-Sainz received his Degree in Chemical Engineering (2015) from the University of Cantabria and his MSc. in Chemical Engineering (2017) delivered from the University of Cantabria (UC) and the University of the Basque Country. In 2021, he completed his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, Energy and Processes focused on the development of processes for CO2 electrocatalytic reduction to formate. He is currently integrated into the Research Group DePRO (Development of Chemical Processes and Pollution Control), and at present, he is Assistant Professor in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department. Currently, the research activity and mid/long term interests of Dr. Diaz-Sainz are mainly focused on the development of an innovative process for the CO2 capture and photo/electrochemical conversion in products of interest, and at the same time, the production of green hydrogen by electrolyzers.

Matthew T. Mayer is presently leader of a Helmholtz Young Investigator Group at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, studying electrochemical and photoelectrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide. He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Boston College, and performed postdoctoral studies at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces.

Jan Rossmeisl is Professor of theoretical chemistry at Department of Chemistry and the Nano-Science center at Copenhagen University. Before joining University of Copenhagen in April 2015, Jan was an Associate Professor and group leader for the theoretical catalysis group at Department of Physics at the Technical University of Denmark Jan holds master’s (2000) and Ph.D (2004) degrees in physics from the Technical University of Denmark. Since 2007 supervisor of more than 20 Ph.D and Post docs. Coauthor of more than 110 publications in peer reviewed journals, co-inventor of 4 patents and co-founder of two startup Companies. Research interests includes: electrocatalysis, energy conversion, atomic scale simulations, rational interface design for catalysis.

Doing my BSc/MSc in Physics and PhD in an interdisciplinary program crossing the disciplines like Chemical Engineering, Nanotechnology, and Electrochemistry made me who I am today – a scientist who enjoys the challenge of multifaceted research.

I enjoy doing basic research in order to solve applied tasks. This explains my research interest in fundamental physical chemistry, e.g. oxidation and dissolution of metals and semiconductors, electrocatalysis, and electrochemistry at modified interfaces but also electrochemical engineering, e.g. development and optimization of catalyst layers in fuel cells and water electrolyzes.

Progress in basic research is often a direct outcome of previous achievements in experimental instrumentation. Hence, a significant part of my interest is in the development of new tools, e.g. electrochemical on-line mass spectrometry, gas diffusion electrode approaches, and high-throughput screening methods.

Fatwa Abdi is an Associate Professor at the School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong. Until July 2023, he was a group leader and the deputy head of the Institute for Solar Fuels, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB). He obtained his PhD (cum laude) in Chemical Engineering from TU Delft, the Netherlands, in 2013. He was the recipient of the Martinus van Marum prize from the Royal Dutch Society of Sciences and Humanities. His research focusses on the development of novel (photo)electrode materials as well as engineering and scale-up of devices for solar fuels and chemicals conversion.

Virgil Andrei obtained his Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in chemistry from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where he studied thermoelectric polymer pastes and films in the group of Prof. Klaus Rademann (2014-2016). He then pursued a PhD in chemistry at the University of Cambridge (2016-2020), where he developed perovskite-based artificial leaves in the group of Prof. Erwin Reisner, working closely with the Optoelectronics group of Prof. Richard Friend at the Cavendish Laboratory. He was a visiting Winton fellow in the group of Prof. Peidong Yang at University of California, Berkeley (2022), and is currently a Title A Research Fellow at St John's College, Cambridge. His work places a strong focus on scalability, material design, complementary light harvesting and synthesis of added-value carbon products, introducing modern fabrication techniques towards low-cost, high-throughput solar fuel production.

Marco Favaro is the deputy head of the Institute for Solar Fuels at the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (HZB), Germany. After his PhD at the University of Padua (Italy) and Technical University of Munich (Germany), concluded in 2014, he spent two years as a Post-doctoral fellow at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis in Berkeley, USA, in the group of Dr. Junko Yano. He moved to Germany in 2017 to join the HZB. Here, his research activity focuses on understanding chemical composition/electronic-structural properties/performance interplay in photoelectrocatalysts by coupling operando multimodal spectroelectrochemical investigations with synchrotron-based in situ/operando spectroscopies.

Chiara Maccato obtained her MSc degree in Chemistry with full marks in 1995; PhD in Chemical Sciences in 1999. After a Post-Doc grant, in 2000 she became Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemical Sciences of Padova University, where she is currently Associate Professor of Inorganic Chemistry. Her main scientific interests are focused on inorganic/hybrid nanoarchitectures for sustainable energy production, environmental remediation, and gas sensing. and accordingly, she has been responsible of several research projects/industrial contracts. Since 2005 she is the coordinator of a morphological characterization laboratory and responsible of a research group on multi-functional inorganic and hybrid nanomaterials. She is referee for many international journals/projects and has authored more than 240 papers on international journals.

Professor Andries Meijerink (50) received his degree in Chemistry (Cum Laude) in 1986 at the Utrecht University in The Netherlands. He continued with his PhD research at the same university where he worked in the group of Prof. George Blasse on the luminescence of new x-ray storage phosphors. After receiving his PhD degree (Cum Laude) in 1990 he joined the group of Prof. John Wright at University of Wisconsin in Madison as a post-doctoral fellow. Back in The Netherlands he worked in the field of luminescence spectroscopy as an associate professor. At the age of 32 he was appointed at the chair of Solid State Chemistry in the Debye Institute of the Utrecht University. From 2004 to 2007 he served as Dean of Chemistry. In addition to fulfilling this administrative responsibility he leads an active research group that focuses on the optical spectroscopy of lanthanide ions in solids and of nanocrystalline semiconductor quantum dots. In the field of lanthanide ions his recent work involves fundamental research on finding new concepts also related to applications in solar cells, LEDs and scintillators. The research on nanocrystalline quantum dots is aimed at unraveling the influence of quantum confinement and surface effects on the electronic structure of quantum dots through optical spectroscopy and using the quantum dots as labels in bio-imaging. The research has resulted in over 280 publications and 10 patents. The work is highly cited (H-index 58) and is presented at many international conferences in invited and key-note lectures. For his research Andries Meijerink has received national and international recognition, including prestigious awards like the DSM Award for Chemistry and Technology (1989), the Shell Incentive Award (1995), the Gold Medal of the Royal Dutch Chemical Society (1999) and the Centennial Award for Luminescence and Display Materials from the Electrochemical Society (2002). In 2009 he was elected into the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW).

James Utterback’s research focuses on ultrafast optical spectroscopy and microscopy of energy relaxation and transport in materials for optoelectronic applications.

CNRS Researcher | Researcher; Institute of Nanosciences of Paris; Sorbonne University | 2023 – present
Postdoctoral Fellow | Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow; University of California, Berkeley | 2019 – 2022
PhD in Chemistry | NSF Graduate Research Fellow; University of Colorado, Boulder | 2013 – 2018
B.S. in Physics | Goldwater Scholar & Undergraduate Research Fellow; University of Oregon | 2007 – 2011

James Durrant is Professor of Photochemistry in the Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London and Ser Cymru Solar Professor, University of Swansea. His research addresses the photochemistry of new materials for solar energy conversion targeting both solar cells (photovoltaics) and solar to fuel (i.e.: artificial photosynthesis. It is based around employing transient optical and optoelectronic techniques to address materials function, and thereby elucidate design principles which enable technological development. His group is currently addressing the development and functional characterisation of organic and perovskite solar cells and photoelectrodes for solar fuel generation. More widely, he leads Imperial's Centre for Processable Electronics, founded the UK�s Solar Fuels Network and led the Welsh government funded S�r Cymru Solar initiative. He has published over 500 research papers and 5 patents, and was recently elected a Fellow of the Royal Society

Antoni Llobet was born in Sabadell (Barcelona) in 1960.

He obtained his PhD at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) with Prof. Francesc Teixidor in July 1985, and then moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for a postdoctoral stay with Prof. Thomas J. Meyer, until the end of 1987.

After a short period again at UAB and at University of Sussex-Dow Corning (UK) he then become a Scientific Officer for the Commission of the European Communities, based in Brussels, Belgium (1990-1991).

Then he was appointed Senior Research Associate at Texas A&M University in College Station (USA) from 1992 till 1993, working with the groups of Prof. Arthur E. Martell and Donald T. Sawyer. From 1993 till 2004 he joined the faculty of the Universitat de Girona where he was promoted to Full Professor in 2000. At the end of 2004 he joined the faculty of UAB also as Full Professor.

In September 2006, he was appointed as Group Leader at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) in Tarragona.

His research interests include the development of tailored transition metal complexes as catalysts for selective organic and inorganic transformations including the oxidation of water to molecular dioxygen, supramolecular catalysis, the activation of C-H and C-F bonds, and the preparation low molecular weight complexes as structural and/or functional models of the active sites of oxidative metalloproteins.

In 2000 he received the Distinction Award from Generalitat de Catalunya for Young Scientists. In 2011 he was awarded the Bruker Prize in Inorganic Chemistry from the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (RSEQ) and in 2012 he has been awarded with the “Hermanos Elhuyar-Hans Goldschmidt” lecture jointly by RSEQ and the German Chemical Society (GDCh).

At present he is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of “Catalysis Science and Technology” from the Royal Society of Chemistry, “Inorganic Chemistry” from the American Chemical Society and “European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry” from Wiley-VCH.

Iain McCulloch holds positions as Professor of Chemical Science within the Division of Physical Sciences and Engineering of KAUST, and a Chair in Polymer Materials within the Chemistry Department at Imperial College. He is also a co-founder and director of Flexink Limited. He is co-inventor on over 60 patents and co-author on over 300 papers with a current h-index of 68. His papers have been cited over 19000 times, including two papers with over 1000 citations. He was cited in Thompson Reuters “Global Top 100 Materials Scientists, 2000-10, Ranked by Citation Impact” at number 35 globally and number 2 in the UK, and was listed on ISI Highly Cited Researchers List 2014, based on ESI Highly Cited Papers 2002-2012. He was awarded the 2009 Royal Society of Chemistry, Creativity in Industry Prize, the 2014 Royal Society of Chemistry Tilden Prize for Advances in Chemistry and a 2014 Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award.

Jenny Nelson is a Professor of Physics at Imperial College London, where she has researched novel varieties of material for use in solar cells since 1989. Her current research is focussed on understanding the properties of molecular semiconductor materials and their application to organic solar cells. This work combines fundamental electrical, spectroscopic and structural studies of molecular electronic materials with numerical modelling and device studies, with the aim of optimising the performance of plastic solar cells. She has published around 200 articles in peer reviewed journals, several book chapters and a book on the physics of solar cells.

Dr. Julia Pérez-Prieto is the leader of the Photochemical Reactivity Group at the Institute of Molecular Science of the University of Valencia (http://jperezprieto-prg.com/julia_perez-prieto/). She has been a full Professor at the University of Valencia since 2007. Prof Pérez-Prieto’s research interests are currently focused on the design and synthesis of new photoactive nanomaterials, such as lead halide perovskites, gold nanoparticles and gold nanoclusters, upconversion nanoparticles and hybrid nanomaterials, as well as lanthanide complexes, to address major challenges in sensing, imaging, therapy, and sustainability. Dr. Julia Pérez-Prieto has made a number of significant contributions to the area of synthesis, catalysis, photochemistry and photoactive nanomaterials and she has published over 180 articles in peer-reviewed journals and (co)authored 10 book chapters. She is co-editor of the book “Photoactive Inorganic Nanoparticles: Surface Composition and Nanosystem Functionality”, ISBN: 9780128145319), Elsevier, 2019.

She has been the Principal Researcher in a considerable number of “I+D+I state programme” projects and has also been awarded a PROMETEO grant (PROMETEO/2019/080) by The Generalitat Valenciana for research groups of excellence and has also been granted with funding for acquiring state-of-the-art equipment for the photophysical characterization in the UV-NIR II wavelength range of the materials prepared in her group.

She was one of the PIs in the CMST COST Action CM1403 and member of its Steering Committee as well as the organizer of the 2nd Conference and Spring School on Properties, Design and Applications of Upconverting Nanomaterials, in Valencia, 2018.
Prof Pérez-Prieto was a collaborator of the Spanish Research Agency in the Area of Chemistry June 2015-June 2020 and a member of several international committees.

Kevin Sivula obtained a PhD in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley in 2007. In 2011, after leading a research group in the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces at EPFL, he was appointed tenure track assistant professor. He now heads the Laboratory for Molecular Engineering of Optoelectronic Nanomaterials (http://limno.epfl.ch) at EPFL.

Dr. Carla Casadevall obtained her PhD degree in chemistry in 2019 at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) under the guidance of Prof. Julio Lloret-Fillol. Her PhD sought a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms involved in artificial photosynthesis, as well as the development of new sustainable methodologies to produce solar fuels and fine chemicals. Then, she joined the group of Erwin Reisner as a BBSRC postdoctoral researcher and later as a Marie Curie Individual Fellow, working on the development of hybrid-materials for the production of solar fuels and chemicals. In October 2022 she will start her independent career as Junior Group Leader at ICIQ and the University Rovira i Virgili thanks to a La Caixa Junior Fellowship. She will work on the development of microphotoreactors for the production of fuels and chemicals.

Hermenegildo García Gómez is a full Professor of the Instituto de Tecnología Química at the Univeristat Politècnica de Valencia. His group has expertise in CO2 utilization developing catalysts for CO2 conversion to methanol and C2+ products. He has published over 800 papers, has received more than 75.000 citations, has an H index of 133 and his name is included continuously since 2015 in the annual list of the most cited Scientists published by the Shanghai-Tomson Reuters. He is the recipient of the Janssen-Cilag award of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (2011) and the Rey D. Jaime I award in New technologies (2016). He is doctor honoris causa by the University of Bucharest and Honorary Professor at the King Abdulaziz University since 2015. He was awarded by the Lee Hsun lecturership of the Chinese Academy of Science at Shenyang. He has participated in over 20 EU funded projects and is member of the panel of ERC Consolidator Grant as well as other Comissions and panels. He is President of the international advisory editorial board of ChemCatChem. Several of his publications have constituted research fronts in Chemistry (as defined by Essential Science Indicators) Database, such as Photocatalytic CO2 reduction by non TiO2 photocatalysis, catalysis by MOFs, etc.

Sixto Giménez (M. Sc. Physics 1996, Ph. D. Physics 2002) is Associate Professor at Universitat Jaume I de Castelló (Spain). His professional career has been focused on the study of micro and nanostructured materials for different applications spanning from structural components to optoelectronic devices. During his PhD thesis at the University of Navarra, he studied the relationship between processing of metallic and ceramic powders, their sintering behavior and mechanical properties. He took a Post-Doc position at the Katholiek Universiteit Leuven where he focused on the development of non-destructive and in-situ characterization techniques of the sintering behavior of metallic porous materials.  In January 2008, he joined the Group of Photovoltaic and Optoelectronic Devices of University Jaume I where he is involved in the development of new concepts for photovoltaic and photoelectrochemical devices based on nanoscaled materials, particularly studying the optoelectronic and electrochemical responses of the devices by electrical impedance spectroscopy. He has co-authored more than 80 scientific papers in international journals and has received more than 5000 citations. His current h-index is 31. 

Oleksandr Savateev was born and raised in Kyiv, Ukraine. He received his BSc and MSc degrees in chemistry from the National Technical University of Ukraine “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute” and the PhD degree in organic chemistry from the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine. In 2015, he joined the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany, where he worked as a postdoctoral researcher. In 2017, at the same institute, he started his group “Innovative Heterogeneous Photocatalysis”. During this period of his carrier, he received several national German and European grants. In 2023, he took the position of the Vice-Chancellor Associate Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is a member of consortia of researchers that work on solving applied and fundamental problems by means of solar light and photocatalysis. His current research interests include organic synthesis mediated by heterogeneous photocatalysts, application of photocharged semiconductors in organic synthesis and data-driven research. He is an editor and author of several books, including “Carbon nitrides. Structure, properties and applications in science and technology”, and author of more than 100 research articles. In 2024, he completed his Habilitation in Organic Chemistry at the University of Potsdam, Germany. As an educator, he is interested in gamification of teaching and studying. He is a creator of ChemChallenge – the first video game for teaching and studying physical chemistry.

Ferry Prins is a tenure-Track Group leader at the Condesed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC) of the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. Ferry obtained an MSc in Chemistry from Leiden University (2007) and a PhD in Physics from the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at Delft University of Technology (2011). After completion of his PhD, he joined the the group of Prof. Will Tisdale at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There, he started exploring the optical properties of nanomaterial assemblies with an emphasis on excitonic energy-transfer interactions. In 2014 he moved to ETH Zurich for a postdoc with Prof. David Norris at the Optical Materials Engineering Laboratory. With support from the Swiss National Science Foundation, he started an independent group at ETH in 2015. In Spring 2017 he joined he Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC) at the Autonoma University of Madrid where he directs the Photonic Nanomaterials and Devices Lab. His group specializes in the development of light-management strategies for semiconductor nanomaterials. 

Professor Laurence Hardwick is the Director of the Stephenson Institute of Renewable Energy within the Department of Chemistry at the University of Liverpool, UK. Since 2011 he has led a group of 12-15 researchers that have focused on understanding real-time interface processes in batteries electrochemical capacitors and electrolysers, a crucial step in improving energy materials to meet net-zero targets. His work has focused on developing cutting-edge technologies such advanced operando Raman and infrared spectroscopic techniques that can probe the functionality of electrode interfaces at the nanoscale. He presently targets integration of automation into electrochemical methods for accelerating interface design and characterisation.