Professor Husam Alshareef is a leader in materials science, with pioneering expertise in developing nanoscale materials for energy and electronics applications. He joined KAUST in 2009 as a founding member and currently serves as chair of the KAUST Center of Excellence for Renewable Energy and Storage Technologies (CREST) and principal investigator of the Functional Nanomaterials & Devices Laboratory.

Alshareef began his career as a postdoctoral researcher at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, and subsequently held positions at Micron Technology and Texas Instruments, where he developed new materials and processes for integrated circuit fabrication. With more than 620 journal publications and 70,000 citations, he is recognized by the Web of Science and Clarivate Analytics as a highly cited researcher in materials science, placing him in the top 1% of researchers worldwide for research output.

Professor Alshareef is a fellow of multiple prestigious organizations, including the Materials Research Society, American Physical Society, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, U.S. National Academy of Inventors, UK Institute of Physics, Royal Society of Chemistry and Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. He holds 80 issued patents, has received numerous awards, and is frequently invited to speak at conferences worldwide — accomplishments that reflect his extensive contributions to materials science.

Dr. Emad Alhseinat is an Associate Professor in the Chemical Engineering Department at Khalifa University. Since being appointed as Assistant Professor at KU in 2016, he has managed to attract internal and external research grants that total more than AED 6.7 Million as a principal investigator (PI). Dr. Alhseinat has established his lab in novel separation processes for water treatment and desalination at KU. Dr. Alhseinat has filed five patents with KU and published several scientific journal papers in high-impact Journals, i.e., Water Research, Desalination, Chemical Engineering, Separation and Purification Technology, Electrochimica Acta, and Journal of Physical Chemistry C.

Faisal Abdulla AlMarzooqi is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Khalifa University. He received his PhD degree in Interdisciplinary Engineering from the joint program at Masdar Institute and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2015 for his research on the Interplay of Membrane Fabrication and Nanotechnology in Water Desalination. He obtained his Master's degree in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London in 2009 for his research on the use of ionic liquids in the determination of surface energies, which led him to receive the Lonza award in the same year. He is the deputy director of the Center of Membrane and Advanced Water Technology (CMAT) at Khalifa University and an Editorial Board Member in the Desalination journal by Elsevier. Faisal’s research focuses on membranes and devices fabrication for solar water treatment and energy applications including, desalination, wastewater treatment, valuable metals recovery, hydrogen and batteries.

Dr. Babak Anasori received his PhD from Drexel University in 2014 in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the birthplace of MXenes. After completing his PhD, he served as a Postdoctoral Associate from 2014 to 2016, then became a Research Assistant Professor at the A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University. In 2019, he began his independent career as an Assistant Professor at IUPUI. In 2023, he was recruited to Purdue University through Purdue’s Moveable Dream Hires initiative as the Reilly Rising Star Associate Professor with tenure, holding joint appointments in the School of Materials Engineering and the School of Mechanical Engineering.
​Since 2015, Dr. Anasori has co-discovered more than 60 MXene compositions with increasingly complex chemistries, expanding the compositional and structural space of this family of 2D materials. Among these discoveries, he is one of the inventors of the subfamily of ordered double-transition metal MXenes, discovered during his postdoctoral research. This breakthrough was recognized as one of the “Biggest Moments in Chemistry of 2015” by the American Chemical Society. His lab later discovered high-entropy MXenes in 2021, further expanding the tunability and compositional diversity of the MXene family. In 2025, his lab reported ~ 40 novel MXenes containing two to nine transition metals in Science. The work was featured by Nature News with the headline, “Chemists cram record nine metals into trendy 2D material.

Prof Casiraghi holds a Chair in Nanoscience at the Department of Chemistry, University of Manchester (UK). She received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Nuclear Engineering from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cambridge (UK). In 2007, she was awarded with the prestigious Kovalevskaja Award (1.5M Euro). In 2010 she joined the department of chemistry at the University of Manchester. She is recipient of several awards, including the ERC Consolidator (2015), ERC Proof of Concept (2020), ERC Advanced grants (2022), as well as the Leverhulme Award in Engineering (2016, 100K GBP), and the RSC 2020 Gibson-Fawcett Award. Her current research work focuses on the development of biocompatible 2D inks and their use in printed electronics and biomedical applications.

Giulio Cerullo è Professore Ordinario di Fisica della Materia presso il Politecnico di Milano. La sua attività di ricerca si sviluppa secondo due linee complementari: (i) generazione di impulsi di luce ultrabrevi; (ii) studio di processi ultraveloci in molecole e solidi. Nell’ambito dell’ottica ultraveloce, il Prof. Cerullo ha inventato l’amplificatore ottico parametrico non-collineare (NOPA) che consente la generazione di impulsi di luce visibile con durata fino a 5 fs, corrispondenti a pochi cicli di oscillazione del campo elettromagnetico. Il NOPA visibile è uno strumento standard utilizzato in numerosi laboratori di ricerca in tutto il mondo. Successivamente, ha esteso la capacità di generazione di impulsi di durata inferiore a 10 fs all’infrarosso e all’ultravioletto. In parallelo, ha sviluppato un sistema di spettroscopia ottica ultraveloce con una combinazione unica al mondo fra breve durata degli impulsi laser e ampia accordabilità in frequenza. Tale sistema ha consentito lo studio di processi fotoindotti sulla scala temporale inferiore a 100 fs, prima sperimentalmente inaccessibile. I risultati più importanti di questa attività sono: osservazione in tempo reale dell’isomerizzazione del retinale nella rodopsina, evento primario della visione; studio dei meccanismi di fotoprotezione del DNA; studio di processi di rilassamento ultraveloce dei portatori in grafene.

Dr. Sanjiv Dhingra is a Professor and Associate Head Research of the Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, University of Manitoba. He is also the Director of the Canada Italy Tissue Engineering Program at the St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre, Winnipeg, Canada. His research interests are focused on the post- myocardial infarction cardiac regeneration and tissue engineering using stem cells and biomaterials. The current research in Dhingra lab focuses on understanding the host immune response against transplanted stem cells. Another major area of interest in Dhingra lab is to develop MXene based immunomodulatory materials to prevent rejection of transplanted stem cells and solid organs. Dr. Dhingra has published several papers in this area in prominent journals. Dr. Dhingra has been actively involved in promoting the field of cardiac stem cell therapy and tissue engineering. He has organized several national and international conferences and symposia. He was the Chair of International Conferences on Future of Regenerative Medicine, which were held in different parts of Europe, in Tuscania (2017), Ostuni (2018), Rome (2023) and Bratislava (2025). Dr. Dhingra has been recognized nationally and internationally for his accomplishments in research. He received Outstanding Leadership Award in Cardiovascular Research from the Life Science Association of Manitoba. Previously he has been recognized by the American Heart Association (AHA) in 2012 and Canadian Cardiovascular Society in 2017 for his efforts in the field of cardiac regenerative medicine. Recently Dr. Dhingra received Dennis McNmara Oration (2025) and J. Mehta Oration Awards (2024) at the Annual Meeting of the International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences (North and South American Sections), and Dr. Guido Tarone Lecture Award (2023) at the Annual Congress of the Italian Society of Cardiovascular Sciences. Dr. Dhingra’s laboratory is currently funded by multiple agencies including CIHR, NSERC and European Union. He continues to serve as committee member on several granting agency review panels such as CIHR, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, NSERC, NFRF, European Science Foundation, Italian Ministry of Health and Medical Research Council of England.

Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng is the Director at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics and Chair Professor at Technische Universität Dresden. His research focuses on synthetic materials and functional devices, particularly organic two-dimensional crystals, graphene nanostructures, conductive metal–organic frameworks, and on-water surface chemistry. He is internationally recognized for pioneering contributions to bottom-up synthesis of graphene nanoribbons, 2D conjugated polymers, and organic quantum materials. Prof. Feng has published extensively in leading journals and has received numerous international honors, including multiple European Research Council grants.

Teresa Gatti is Full Professor of Chemistry for Applied Technologies at Politecnico di Torino, Italy. She was a previous Group Leader at the Center for Materials Research of the Justus Liebig University Giessen (Germany), where she maintains the permanent role of affiliated researcher. She is recipient of the 2021 European Research Council Starting Grant with a project on Janus 2D materials (JANUS BI) and of a 2025 ERC POC grant on piezoresistive sensors based on 2D materials (HYSENS). With her team, she works on the synthesis and characterization of novel low-dimensional systems for use in energy-related and (opto)electronic applications, with major focus on sustainability. She is associate editor of the Springer Nature journal npj 2D Materials and Applications.

Dr. Yury Gogotsi is Distinguished University Professor and Charles T. and Ruth M. Bach Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University. He also serves as Director of the A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute. He received his MS (1984) and PhD (1986) from Kiev Polytechnic and a DSc degree from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in 1995. His research group works on 2D carbides and nitrides (MXenes), nanostructured carbons, and other nanomaterials for energy, water and biomedical applications. He published more than 800 papers, which have been cited more than 170,000 times. He has been recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher in Chemistry and Materials Science, and a Citations Laureate in Physics by Clarivate Analytics. He has received numerous awards for his research including a Chemistry of Materials Award from ACS, MRS Medal, S. Somiya Award from IUMRS, European Carbon Association Award, Materials Innovation Award from Materials Today, International Nanotechnology Prize (RUSNANOPrize), R&D 100 Awards from R&D Magazine and many other distinctions. He has been elected a Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences, World Academy of Ceramics, AAAS, MRS, ACerS, ECS, RSC and ISE. He holds honorary doctorates from several European universities

Silvia Gross is currently Full Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Padova and has a second affiliation as a DFG Mercator Fellow at the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie within the DFG-funded SFB "Track-Act" project (2021-2028).In 2021 she has been a TUM Visiting Professor at the Technische Universität München. In 2016-2020 she has been a DFG Mercator Fellow at the Justus-Liebig Universität Gießen, where she is regularly visiting professor every year since 2013. She has been Project Technical Advisor (PTA) of the European Cluster on Catalysis for the European Commission (2014-2020) and since 2008 she regularly acts as evaluator or monitor for several research funding schemes of the European Commission, from FP6 to Horizon2020 and Horizon Europe (ERC Consolidator Grant, FET-RIA, FET-OPEN, MSCA IF, NMBP, CSA etc.). Since 2024 she is “socio corrispondente residente” of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. From 2021 to 2024 she has been a member of the Committee "800 Anni" and she currently works as a member of several boards at the University of Padova. She is member of the Scientific Committee of INSTM and member of the Board (Consiglio Direttivo) of the Divisione di Chimica Inorganica as well as of “Commissione Internazionalizzazione” of the Società Chimica Italiana. Since 2021 she coordinates the international Master degree "Sustainable Chemistry and Technologies for Circular Economy", gathering together 12 Departments of the University of Padova.

Dr. Shabir Hassan is the Director of ShabLab and Zebrafish Avatar Lab at Khalifa University (KU). Before joining KU, he was an Early Career Investigator at Harvard Medical School and Associate Bioengineer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, USA. His main focus of research has been devising in vitro platforms of diseases such as cancer and different tissues for drug discovery and drug delivery applications. Additionally, his interest revolves around 3D bioprinting of disease models to study genetic and rare diseases. He has an immense interest in bioimaging platforms such as mini-optical tomographic systems for studying 3D in vitro lab models.

Dr Carlo Saverio Iorio – Is an adjunct professor at the York University in Toronto - Canada and director of the Centre for Research and Engineering in Space Technologies (CREST) of the University of Brussels - Belgium. He has more than 25 years of experience in Space-related science and technology programmes. His interests are mainly in heat and mass transfer phenomena, and material science for biomedical applications. He has coordinated more than 25 European Space Agency-supported experiments in microgravity taking advantage of the available Space platforms including sounding rockets, parabolic flights, satellite capsules and the International Space Station. Recently, he has been appointed as an expert on Space policy at the European Commission General Directorate on Defence, Space, and Industries. He is also a member of the European Space Agency strategic group for the design and implementation of future European Policies in Space. He has been recently appointed as part of the Belgian Delegation for Space at the European Defence Agency. The CREST has been recognized in 2025 as an official Ground-Based Facility of the European Space Agency.

Silvia holds a PhD in Chemistry from The University of Edinburgh (2008) and she holds professional qualifications as a Pharmaceutical Chemist (2007, UK) and a Pharmacist (2006, Italy). She was honorary researcher at University College London (2005–2007), Academy of Finland Fellow at the University of Helsinki (2008– 2010), and CRSS Fellow jointly at Monash University and Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organization (Melbourne, 2010– 2012). In 2013 she returned to the University of Trieste (Italy) where her scientific adventure had started with her M.Sc. degree (honours). There, in 2015 she became Assistant Professor and she established her lab thanks to a starting grant. She was promoted to Associate Professor (2018), and then to Full Professor (2025). Between 2021– 2022 (6 months) she was Visiting Professor at the University of Cambridge (UK).

Silvia enjoys multidisciplinary research enabled by the central role of chemistry. She is active at the interface between supramolecular chemistry and nanotechnology, and between biological chemistry and materials science. Her interests in bio-organic and bio-orthogonal chemistry date back to her doctoral studies, continuing through the years. She has served these communities as a member of the RSC CBBG Interest Group Committee (2022-2025).

Enzo Menna received his Laurea Degree in Chemistry in 1995, cum laude at the University of Padova, where he gained his PhD in 1998 with a project concerning the study on hydrogen bond formation by NMR measurements and quantum chemical calculations.

Arben Merkoçi is an ICREA Research Professor and leader of the Nanobioelectronics and Biosensors Group at ICN2 in Barcelona, Spain. He obtained his PhD from the University of Tirana and carried out postdoctoral and research positions in Hungary, Greece, Italy, Spain, and the USA. His research focuses on integrating biological molecules with micro- and nanostructures to develop innovative biosensors. He is member European Academy of Sciences (EURASC), Institut d’Estudis Catalans (IEC), Academy of Sciences of Albania and director of NANOBALKAN, the regional nanoscience and nanotechnology network.
Prof. Merkoçi is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Biosensors and Bioelectronics and serves on the editorial boards of Electroanalysis, Microchimica Acta, and other journals. He has published over 350 articles (H-index: 97 Google Scholar) and supervised 40 PhD theses. He teaches and coordinates nanotechnology programmes at UAB and collaborates widely through national and international projects. He is also co-founder of the spin-off companies GraphenicaLab and PaperDrop.

Dr. Marko Mihajlovic earned his PhD in Supramolecular Polymer Chemistry from the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), the Netherlands, in 2018, where he worked on micellar supramolecular hydrogels. He continued his postdoctoral training in the field of hydrogels, first at Utrecht University (UU), the Netherlands, where he focused on biomaterials for the treatment of osteoarthritis and cartilage regeneration. He then moved to the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), where he developed novel 3D cellulose-based matrices for ovarian cell culture with the aim of advancing cell-based hormone replacement therapies.
In 2024, he was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Umberto Veronesi Foundation to conduct research on peptide-based drug delivery systems at the University of Trieste (UniTS). He is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellow at UniTS, working on peptide/carbon nanotube nanocomposites for cardiac tissue engineering.
His expertise spans carbon nanomaterials, polymer chemistry, synthetic and biopolymers, and hydrogels for applications in drug delivery, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine.

Prof. Nicolosi received a BSc with honors in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Catania (Italy) in 2001. In 2006 she received a Ph.D. in Physics in 2006 from the University of Dublin, Trinity College, working under the supervision of Prof. W. J. Blau and Prof. J. N. Coleman. During her PhD she worked on the processing and characterisation of MoSI nanowires. After receiving her PhD she worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the group of Prof. J. N. Coleman until December 2007.

Marco Orecchioni, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the Immunology Center of Georgia, Augusta University. His research focuses on immune and inflammatory mechanisms in cardiovascular disease, with expertise in macrophage biology, atherosclerosis, tumor immunity, and olfactory receptor signaling. His scientific background also includes nanomedicine, particularly the application of nanomaterials to study how they modulate the immune responses in disease-relevant settings.
Dr. Orecchioni earned his Ph.D. from the University of Sassari in Italy and completed postdoctoral training at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in San Diego. He has authored and co-authored several peer-reviewed publications including in Science, spanning immunology, inflammation, cardiovascular disease, and nanomedicine, and his work has been presented and recognized at national and international scientific meetings.

Valentina Palmieri received her degree in Medical Biotechnology from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Rome, where she developed a multidisciplinary scientific background. She is currently a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Complex Systems of the National Research Council of Italy (ISC-CNR), conducting interdisciplinary research at the interface of nanotechnology, regenerative medicine, microbiology, and biomedical engineering.
From 2020 to 2023, she served as a Researcher at ISC-CNR and contributed to several national and international research projects, including AIRC and FLAG-ERA JTC initiatives. She has also acted as Principal Investigator in projects funded by PRIN, Fondazione Umberto Veronesi, Ricerca Finalizzata, and the Lazio Region. Her research has primarily focused on graphene-based materials, antimicrobial coatings, tissue engineering, 3D bioprinting, and photothermal biomedical applications.
She has gained extensive international research experience through collaborations with Cardiff University, Scotland’s Rural College, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, and laboratories within the Paris-Saclay network, where she conducted advanced microscopy and scattering studies. These experiences have strengthened her expertise in biomaterials characterization and translational nanomedicine.
She is also co-founder of the ORIS Lab within the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Sciences at Sapienza University of Rome, established together with Prof. Umberto Romeo. The laboratory focuses on the development of graphene-based biomaterials and innovative regenerative strategies for oral and maxillofacial surgery.

Dr. Anna-Maria Pappa is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Khalifa University and a visiting scholar at Cambridge University. She was previously an Independent Oppenheimer research fellow at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at Cambridge University and the Maudslay-Butler Research Fellow in Engineering at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

She has a Diploma in Chemical Engineering and an MSc in Nanotechnology (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece). She completed her PhD studies in 2017 (University of Lyon, France) working on bioelectronic devices for healthcare diagnostics. In 2017 she received the L’Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science award for developing an innovative platform that can be used to test the efficacy of newly synthesized antibiotics and in 2019 she was listed on the Innovators under 35 MIT technology review.

She is currently an associate editor of Scientific Report, Frontiers in Electronics and Applied Physics Letters, AIP. Her current research interests lie in bio-integrated electronics based on conducting polymers and 2D materials.

Prof. Piergiorgio Percipalle is a tenured biology faculty at New York University (NYU), Abu Dhabi campus. He received a degree in Chemistry (Laurea Cum Laude) from the University of Catania and a PhD in Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology from the International Higher School for Advanced Studies, Trieste, Italy. As PhD student he trained at the UNIDO International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), Trieste. For postdoctoral training he worked at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK, and at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, in the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology. As postdoc, he was awarded EMBO, Marie Curie and Blanceflor-Ludovisi long-term postdoctoral fellowships. In 2004, Prof. Percipalle joined the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Karolinska Institute, as Group Leader and, later on, as tenured Associate Professor of Cell Biology with grants from the Swedish Research Council and Swedish Cancer Society. During this period, he was awarded tenure at the Karolinska Institute and the Svedberg Price for Biochemistry by the Swedish Academy of Science. In 2015 he moved to New York University (NYU) Abu Dhabi as Associate Professor of Biology, affiliated with the Department of Biology, NYU, New York. In 2019, he was awarded tenure at NYU. He is currently full professor and standing faculty at NYU Abu Dhabi and Global Network Professor of Biology at NYU. He serves as Chair of the Biology Program and Associate Dean of Science for Research and Graduate Programs at NYU Abu Dhabi. Prof Percipalle’s lab focuses on how cell identity is governed by the spatial and functional organization of the genome within the eukaryotic cell nucleus. The lab investigates how chromatin architecture, epigenetic regulation and nuclear mechanics collectively determine gene expression and cellular function. We are particularly interested in how perturbations of these systems reconfigure transcriptional and metabolic programs, contributing to the onset of cancer, metabolic disease and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Dr. Ahsan received his PhD from Jeonbuk National University in 2008 and completed postdoctoral training at Toyama University. He joined KFUPM as an Assistant Professor in 2010 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016 before joining Khalifa University in 2019.His research focuses on the development and advanced characterization of functional materials for clean energy applications, particularly electrochemical systems. His research focuses on the design of corrosion-resistant electrocatalysts for seawater electrolysis, advancing CO₂ conversion to C₂ products through insights into C–C coupling reaction, developing cost-effective electrocatalysts for nitrogen fixation, and understanding complex chemistries of thermally stable electrolytes for next-generation energy storage systems. He has also supervised and co-supervised numerous graduate students in these important research directions. Dr. Ahsan has authored over 155 peer-reviewed publications, presented more than 100 conference papers, contributed 7 book chapters, and holds 6 U.S. patents. His scholarly impact is reflected by a Scopus H-index of 50 and more than 8,300 citations. He served as the Founding Director of AMCC (2022–2024) and currently serves as Deputy Director of CeCaS and Associate Chair of Postgraduate Studies in Chemistry at Khalifa University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), a member of MBRAS, and Chair of the ACerS UAE Chapter. He has held visiting appointments at EPFL, the University of Tokyo, Nagoya University, Caltech, and SIAT China, and serves on the editorial boards of several leading international journals such as Communications Engineering (Nature) Materials Research Bulletin, Energy Environmental Materials, and Ultrasonics Sonochemistry.

Francesco Ricci is a professor at the Chemistry Department of the University of Rome, Tor Vergata. His research interests lie in the fields of electrochemical sensors, DNA functional nanotechnology, DNA-based sensors, aptamers, conformational switching probes and smart drug-release. After the PhD in Chemistry earned in 2005 at the University of Rome, Tor Vergata, Francesco Ricci spent 2 years as a visiting post-doc researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Francesco Ricci has been awarded an International Marie Curie Outgoing Fellowship (2010), an ERC Starting Grant (2013) and an ERC Consolidator Grant (2019). He is also the recipient of the inaugural 2017 ACS “Advances in Measurement Science Lectureship” Award and the 2017 “Heinrich Emanuel Merck Award on Analytical Science”.

Dr Yarjan Abdul Samad is an Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Khalifa University, UAE and a Senior Research Associate and Senior Teaching Fellow at The University of Cambridge. He has served as the Chief Technology Advisor to a climate change company called Levidian based out of Cambridge, UK, which is transforming waste gas resources to graphene and hydrogen. His research work is on bottom-up and top-down production of graphene & related materials crystals. He is interested in employing these materials for technologies for Space in particular and Aerospace in general. He was among the team of scientists on European Space Agency (ESA)’s Zero Gravity flights who were the first to test Graphene in microgravity. He has also tested graphene-based materials for applications in space using Sounding Rockets. He is a member of the Science Team of Rashid Rover, which is due for launch within 2026, by MBRSC, UAE. He is the recipient of several awards such as Young Leaders Award 2020 by the UK’s Young Professional Society, The Innovator of The Year by the technology development company, Pakistan foreign affairs award for twenty-five under the age of 40 talents of Pakistani origin abroad, Nano Today Best Scientific Presentation, and many other Best Scientific Talks awards at international conferences.

Dr. Faisal Shahzad brings a wealth of industrial and academic experience to his roles. He served as a senior NDT engineer at a Power Generating Station from 2008 to 2013. After completing his PhD at UST-KIST, South Korea, from 2013 to 2017, he began his academic career as an Assistant Professor at PIEAS. He served in the role of Associate Professor at PIEAS University before joining Khalifa University in October 2023 as a Senior Research Scientist.
Dr. Shahzad has received several prestigious awards, including the Tamgha-i-Imtiaz (T.I) from the Government of Pakistan in 2021, the Academic Excellence Award, and the International R&D Academy Award of Excellence from UST, South Korea. He was also honored with the Best Young Researcher Award from the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan in 2022. With over 70 research papers, 6 book chapters, and an international patent, his work has garnered over 8500 citations and a h-index of 30.

Dr. Lourdes F. Vega is Full Professor of Chemical Engineering, Senior Director of the Energy Institute at Khalifa University (UAE), and founder and former director of the Research and Innovation Center on CO₂ and Hydrogen (RICH). She has developed an international career spanning academia and industry in the United States, Spain, and the UAE.
An expert in nanotechnology, clean energy, and sustainable technologies, she is recognized for translating fundamental science into industrial solutions. Her work focuses on CO₂ capture and utilization, hydrogen and derivatives, sustainable fuels, and advanced cooling systems, integrating multiscale modeling, experiments, and AI-driven materials discovery to accelerate industrial deployment. Her contributions have received international recognition, including Global 50 Women in Hydrogen (2025), V60: 60 Impactful Women Driving Sustainability in the Middle East (2024), and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Medal of Scientific Distinction (2020). She is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, a member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences and serves on multiple academic and industrial boards.