Confirmed Keynote Speakers

Shigehisa Akine received his B.S. in 1995 and obtained a PhD in 2000 at the University of Tokyo, where he studied the synthesis of organic macrocyclic molecules. In 2000, he became a faculty member at University of Tsukuba, where he started his academic career in the field of host-guest chemistry based on metal complexes. He was promoted to an Assistant Professor in 2004 and to an Associate Professor in 2008 there. In 2013, he moved to Kanazawa University as a Full Professor and he was also appointed as a Principal Investigator from 2017 at Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI) there. In 2019, he received JSCC Award for Creative Work from the Japan Society of Coordination Chemistry. His research interest focuses on development of novel discrete metal complexes for dynamic and switching behavior based on finely-designed organic ligands. These include host–guest and supramolecular systems based on multi-metallic structures that enable chirality inversion of helical structures, open/close conversion of cages and macrocycles, etc.

Degree in Chemistry cum laude (1990), Master in Glass Engineering (1991), PhD in Chemical Sciences (1994) from the University of Padova. Post-doc fellow in Paris (UPMC, 1995), and visiting scientist in Canada (University of Western Ontario, 2005 – 2008, 2011). Researcher and Research Director at the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) from 1996 to 2015, she is currently full Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Padova. Director of the CNR Institute of Condensed Matter Chemistry and Energy Technologies (2014 – 2020), President of the Padova CNR Research Area (2015 – 2017), Director of the CNR Department of Chemical Sciences and Technologies of Materials (since 10/2020). Member of the Scientific Commission of the Italian Chemical Society (SCI). President of the Inorganic Chemistry Division of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). Governmental expert in the CapTech Materials & Structures at the European Defence Agency (EDA). The scientific activity concerns the area of chemistry and materials, with focus on the self-assembly of innovative metallo-supramolecular systems based on lanthanide ions, the study of host-guest chemical interactions, the design and soft chemical synthesis of functional nanostructures, the fabrication of smart luminescent surfaces. Applicative fields include sustainable energy technologies and environmental remediation processes. She was awarded the EniChem Thesis Prize (1990) and the Ugo Croatto Prize (1993). Publications include over 220 papers on international peer-reviewed scientific journals (H = 38 ISI WoS) and over 40 invited lectures at national and international conferences.

Lucia Banci is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Florence.  She has an extensive expertise and has provided original contributions and breakthroughs in Structural Biology and in biological NMR. She has addressed and unraveled many aspects of the biology of metal ions in biological systems.

The innovative in cell NMR approach developed by Lucia Banci and her group allows for the detection of human individual proteins in living human cells with atomic level resolution. She also exploited the extensive knowledge of structural biology approaches through NMR expertise to develop an absolutely innovative approach to vaccine design, based on the knowledge of the structure of the pathogen antigens and of the interaction pattern with antibodies, to design structure-based vaccines.

Lucia Banci is one of the founders and present Director of the Center of Magnetic Resonance (CERM) of the University of Florence. She is the Head of the Italian Core Center of the ESFRI Research Infrastructure Instruct-ERIC, and a member of the Instruct-ERIC Executive Committee and of the Council.

Prof. Holger Braunschweig is Chair and Head of Inorganic Chemistry at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, where is also member of the Senate and Founding Director of the Institute for Sustainable Chemistry & Catalysis with Boron (ICB). Braunschweig’s research in the field of boron and main group chemistry has been published in over 650 publications. In 2009 Braunschweig was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz award of the DFG – the highest German-based research prize. More recently, he has received the Main Group Chemistry Award (2014) and the inaugural Mond-Nyholm Award (2021) from the Royal Society of Chemistry, as well as the Alfred Stock Memorial Award of the German Chemical Society (2016). He is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Foreign Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy.

Fabrizio Cavani received his Ph.D. in Industrial Chemistry in 1987. He was then hired by EniChem Sintesi, and in this period he carried out research activities aimed at developing new catalysts for alkylation of aromatics and for
oxychlorination of ethylene. In 1990, he started his activity as Researcher at the Faculty of Industrial Chemistry of Bologna University. Later on, he was appointed Associate Professor in Industrial Chemistry at Bologna University in
2000, and Full Professor in 2014. He has authored more than 300 scientific publications in the field of industrial catalysis and he has made over 30 patents, 6 of which have reached the industrial application phase. He is author of some books in the field of oxidation catalysis and sustainable industrial chemistry.

His scientific works have received over 16,000 citations. He was president of the Interdivisional Group of Catalysis of the Italian Chemical Society.

Angela Casini is Chair of Medicinal and Bioinorganic Chemistry at the Technical University of Munich (Germany). She completed her PhD in Chemistry at the University of Florence (Italy) in 2004, and, afterwards, moved to EPFL (Switzerland) funded by the SNSF. Between 2011-2015 she was assistant professor at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands), holding a Rosalind Franklin Fellowship. Between 2015-2019, she was also Chair and Director of Postgraduate Taught Masters at Cardiff University (UK), before taking up her current position at TUM in 2019. At TUM, Angela is also Liesel Beckmann Distinguished Professor and Core member of the Munich Institute of Data Science (MDSI). She was awarded the 2012 European Medal for Biological Inorganic Chemistry. In 2014, she has been listed by Thomson Reuters as one of the “World’s most influential scientific minds” in the field of Pharmacology, and in 2019 she received the prestigious ACS Inorganic Lectureship award. Her research concerns the application of metal-based compounds and supramolecular coordination complexes in medicine, chemical biology and drug delivery. In these fields, she is author of ca. 250 publications.

Prof. Christophe Copéret (CCH) was trained in chemistry and chemical engineering in CPE Lyon (France) and then undertook a PhD in chemistry with Prof. E.i. Negishi (Purdue University, USA – 1991-1996), where he studied the synthesis of complex molecules via Pd-catalyzed carbonylation reactions (Prof. E.i. Negishi – 1991-1996). After a postdoctoral stay with Prof. K.B. Sharpless (Scripps – 1996-1997), where he worked on oxidation, CCH was offered a research position at CNRS in 1998 and was promoted CNRS Research Director in 2008. Since 2010, CCH is Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich. His scientific interest lies at the frontiers of molecular, material and surface chemistry as well as NMR spectroscopy with the aims to design functional materials with applications in catalysis (sustainable chemistry and energy), molecular recognition, imaging and microelectronics.

Debbie C. Crans is a Professor of Inorganic, Organic and Biological Chemistry and of the Cell and Molecular Biology Program at Colorado State University. She did undergraduate studies in Biochemistry at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, her Ph.D. in Chemistry at Harvard University and postdoctoral studies at the Molecular Biology Institute at University of California, Los Angeles. She founded the International Vanadium Symposium and Vanadium Society, has organized the Metals in Medicine Gordon Conference and other symposia at ACS meetings and elsewhere. In 2022 she will chair the International Coordination Chemistry Conference (ICCC-45) in Colorado. She is on the executive board of the Inorganic Division of the American Chemical Society. She is associate editor of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s New Journal of Chemistry and of Elsevier’s Coordination Chemistry Reviews. She has been honored with the ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry in 2019, the Cope Scholar Award in 2015, the Vanadis Award in 2004, an Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Award and a Japan Society of Promotion of Science Fellowship in 2001.  The Colorado Section of ACS and Colorado State University has recognized her research, teaching, mentoring and service. Her research interests are in the areas of coordination chemistry, inorganic and organic drugs and their targets, metals in medicine, lipoquinones and menaquinones, conformational analysis, electron transfer processes at membranes, model membrane systems, micelles and reverse micelles, and spectroscopy.

Jean-Luc Dubois is Scientific Director at Arkema. He is in charge of Corporate R&D linked with Catalysis, Processes, Renewables and Recycling. He supervises the long-term projects in this area and builds the relationships with academic partners and companies for collaborative research. He got a Research Scientist position at the R&D Centre of the refining company elf-antar-france (now TOTAL) and stayed 2 years in the laboratories of Japan Energy in a collaborative research project on Hydrodesulphurization catalysts. Since 1997, he was working as Research Scientists at the chemical division of TOTAL, elf-atochem (now in-part Arkema) and successively he stayed in the R&D Centres in Saint-Avold and Pierre-Bénite (France), working on oxidation catalysts and biomass conversion. He is the author of more than 100 publications and 150 patent applications.

Roland A. Fischer holds the Chair of Inorganic and Metal-Organic Chemistry at the Technical University Munich (TUM) and is Director of the TUM Catalysis Research Centre. Previously he was Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at Ruhr-University Bochum (1997-2015) and Heidelberg University (1996-1997). He was Vice President of the German Research Foundation (2016 – 2021). He is a member of the Award Selection Committee of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the German Chemical Industry Fund and an elected member of the European Academy of Sciences. His research interest focuses on functional molecular materials for advanced applications in energy conversion, catalysis, gas storage and separation, chemical sensing, photonics and microelectronics. To illustrate this: metal-rich complexes, atomic precise clusters, nanoparticles and nanocomposites can substitute rare noble metals for important catalytic transformation of small molecules such as light hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide, water. In addition, the combinatorial building-block principle of coordination network compounds such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) yields ample opportunities for the manipulation and design of the chemistry of coordination space in pores and channels accessible to guest molecules. The overarching goal is to integrate chemical and physical multifunctionality in photo- and electroactive, catalytic and stimuli-responsive MOFs and MOF derived hybrid materials. Currently, he is steering the DFG Priority Program 1928 “Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems”. He published about 600 peer-articles and was awarded Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (cross-field) in 2018 and 2020.

Professor Makoto Fujita, University of Tokyo and Institute for Molecular Science    Makoto Fujita is University Distinguished Professor at The University of Tokyo (Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Engineering), Japan.  He received his Ph. D. degree from Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1987.  After working in Chiba University and Institute for Molecular Science (IMS) at Okazaki, in 1999, he was appointed as a full professor of Nagoya University.  In 2002, he moved to the University of Tokyo as a full professor.  In 2018, he was also adjunctively appointed as Distinguished Professor at Institute for Molecular Science. In 2019, he was appointed to the current position in Tokyo.  His research interests include: (1) Coordination Self-Assembly: Construction of nano-scale discrete frameworks, including MnL2n Archimedian/non-Archimedian solids, by transition-metal ions induced elf-assembly.  (2) Molecular Confinement Effects: Developing/creating new properties and new reactions in the confined cavities of self-assembled coordination cages. (3) Crystalline Sponge Method: Single-crystal-to-single-crystal guest exchange in the pores of self-assembled coordination networks is applied to a new X-ray technique that does not require crystallization of target compounds. He has received relatively many awards including Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 2018.

Edith (Phoebe) Glazer is the John C. Hubbard Professor of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky (USA). Following a formative education at Williams College, she received her PhD in Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego with Yitzhak Tor, and then performed an NIH postdoctoral fellowship between the Scripps Research Institute, in the laboratory of David Goodin, and Caltech, with Harry Gray. Her doctoral and postdoctoral contributions included new syn- thetic approaches to extended aromatic ligands and multimetallic arrays, compounds that exhibited so-called “dual emission”, and probes for electron and energy transfer in proteins. She began her independent career at the University of Kentucky in 2009, where her research has focused on using light to control biological processes through the creation of reactive metal complexes. While Phoebe has always appreciated the ability of a well-designed ligand to perturb the behavior of a metal, she is now deeply immersed in targeting medically important heme proteins, which present a veritable forest of organic matter to control the reactivity of a single metal center.

Stephen Goldup studied at the University of Oxford (MChem, Prof. Sir Jack Baldwin) and Imperial College (PhD, Prof. Tony Barrett) where he focused on natural product synthesis, before moving to Edinburgh (PDRA, Prof. David Leigh) to apply his synthetic skills to interlocked molecules and molecular machines. In 2008 Steve took up his first independent research position at Queen Mary, University of London, first as a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow and then as a Royal Society Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer. In 2014 he moved to the University of Southampton where he is now Professor of Chemistry. Steve works with an outstanding group of young scientists demonstrating new applications of interlocked molecules in a range of areas including catalysis, materials, sensing and chemical biology. The Goldup Group are particularly interested in the applications of new forms of stereochemistry associated with the mechanical bond.

Christian Hartinger studied chemistry at the University of Vienna and received his PhD there in 2001 under B. K. Keppler. He was an Erwin Schrödinger Fellow with P. J. Dyson at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) from 2006 to 2008, did his habilitation at the University of Vienna in 2009 and accepted an Associate Professorship at the University of Auckland in 2011 where he was promoted Professor in 2016. His research focuses on the development of metal-based anticancer agents and of analytical methods to characterize their behavior in presence of biomolecules. He has published more than 220 original papers and reviews (h-index 67, > 14,500 citations). His work earned him several awards including the 2011 Carl Duisberg Memorial Prize, the 2016 Society of Biological Inorganic Chemistry Early Career Award, the 2016 New Zealand Institute of Chemistry Chemical Science Prize, the 2017 Hill Tinsley Medal by the New Zealand Association of Scientists and the 2019 Morrison Medal of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Mass Spectrometry.

A. Stephen K. Hashmi received his diploma degree (1989) and PhD (1991) from LMU Munich under the supervision of Günter Szeimies. He obtained a DFG Postdoctoral Fellowship for 18 months at Stanford University with Barry M. Trost (1991-1993), subsequent career stations were FU Berlin, Goethe University Frankfurt, University of Vienna, University of Tasmania, Marburg University and Stuttgart University. Since 2007 he is full professor at Heidelberg University, Germany – which includes a strong involvement in industry-on-campus project CaRLa Heidelberg. He is member of the Hector Fellow Academy and of the Academia Europaea. His research covers homogeneous catalysis based on late transition metal complexes and organometallics. A special focus is catalysis by gold. Catalyst development, methodology development, mechanistic investigation and application in synthesis.

Fahmi Himo did his undergraduate studies in physics at Stockholm University (1992-1995), where he also received his Ph.D. degree in 2000 (with Leif Eriksson and Per Siegbahn). He then received a special postdoctoral grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundations, whereby he spent two years at the Scripps Research Institute (with Louis Noodleman) and three years back in Sweden at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). 2005-2009 he was assistant professor at KTH before he moved to his current position as professor in quantum chemistry at Stockholm University. His work is concerned with quantum chemical modeling of both homogeneous and enzymatic catalysis.

Stefan Kaskel studied chemistry at Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen (Germany), and received his Ph.D. degree in 1997 from the same University. He was a group leader at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim a.d. Ruhr (2000-2004) in the group of F. Schüth. In 2004 he became full professor for Inorganic Chemistry at Technical University Dresden and 2008 also technology field manager Chemical Surface Technology at Fraunhofer IWS, Dresden. His research interests are focused on porous and nanostructured materials (high surface area MOFs and carbons) for applications in energy storage, catalysis, batteries and separation technologies. Stefan Kaskel has authored more than 500 publications with > 40000 citations (google scholar h-index 108) and has contributed as inventor to more than 50 patent applications.

Kimoon Kim studied chemistry at Seoul National University (BS, 1976), KAIST (MS, 1978), and Stanford University (PhD, 1986). After two year postdoctoral work at Northwestern University he started his own academic career at Department of Chemistry, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) in 1988 where he is now Distinguished University Professor. Since 2012, he has also been director of the Center for Self-assembly and Complexity (CSC), Institute for Basic Science (IBS). His current research focuses on developing novel functional materials and devices based on supramolecular chemistry. His work has been recognized by a number of awards including Izatt-Christensen Award (2012).

Professor Steve Liddle is Head of Inorganic Chemistry and Co-Director of the Centre for Radiochemistry Research at The University of Manchester. His principal research interests are focussed on f-element chemistry, involving exploratory synthetic chemistry coupled to detailed electronic structure and reactivity studies to elucidate structure-bonding-property relationships. For his work he is the recipient of a variety of prizes, including the IChemE Petronas Team Award for Excellence in Education and Training, RSC Sir Edward Frankland Fellowship, RSC Radiochemistry Group Bill Newton Award, 41st ICCC Rising Star Award, RSC Corday-Morgan Prize, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award, RSC Tilden Prize, and a RSC Dalton Division Horizon Team Prize.

He is an elected Fellow of The Royal Society of Edinburgh and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and he is Vice President to the Executive Committee of the European Rare Earth and Actinide Society. He has published over 220 research articles, reviews, and book chapters to date.

Luísa Margarida Martins is an Associate Professor with Habilitation (Chemical Engineering Department) at Instituto Superior Técnico of the Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal.  She is an Integrated Member of Centro de Química Estrutural of IST where she is the coordinator of the thematic line SYNCat – Synthesis, Catalysis and Reactivity – and member of the Coordination Commission of this Centre. She is also member of the Research Core Team and of the Executive Committee of the CATSUS – Catalysis and Sustainability  PhD program.
Luísa’s research focuses on the application of green chemistry principles in the innovative design and synthesis of (homogeneous and heterogenized) catalysts towards the development of efficient catalytic processes of industrial significance such as the sustainable synthesis of large-scale commodities (e.g., acetic and adipic acids) or the production of fuels from captured carbon dioxide. Her preferred catalysts are C-scorpionate metal complexes. She also very keen of molecular electrochemistry. Luísa co-authored over 200 papers (h 41), 13 PT and WO patents, 11 book chapters and over 380 conference communications.

In 2020 Luísa was awarded a Honorary Distinction for the Areas of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering at the 2019 edition of the Scientific Prize University of Lisbon / CGD Bank. Also in 2020,  Luísa was included in the list of highly cited researchers worldwide – impact throughout 2019, according to Stanford University.

Karsten Meyer is Chair of the Institute of Inorganic & General Chemistry at Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, where his research focuses on the synthesis of transition- and actinide-metal complexes for small molecule activation and transformation chemistry. Karsten studied Chemistry at the Ruhr-University Bochum and the Max-Planck-Institute in Mülheim/Ruhr, and received his PhD in 1998. He then conducted postdoctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining the faculty of the University of California, San Diego, in 2001. In 2006, he accepted an offer as Professor at FAU. Among his awards and honors, he was elected a lifetime honorary member of the Israel Chemical Society in 2009 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) in 2011. In 2017, Karsten received the Elhuyar-Goldschmidt Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry of Spain, the Ludwig-Mond Award from the RSC (UK), and the Chugaev Commemorative Medal from the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Yoshiaki Nakao was educated in chemistry at Kyoto University (PhD with Profs. Tamejiro Hiyama and Eiji Shirakawa in 2005), Yale University (with Prof. John F. Hartwig), and Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung (with Prof. Manfred T. Reetz). He has been a faculty at Kyoto University since 2002. His research interests include the development of new synthetic reactions for selective synthesis by metal catalysis.

Ronny Neumann received his Ph.D. in Catalysis and Organic Chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1986. After post-doctoral research with John Groves at Princeton University, he returned to the Hebrew University in 1988 where he started his independent career mostly dealing with homogeneous catalytic oxidation reactions with emphasis on sustainable transformations and mechanistic studies using polyoxometalates as catalysts. In 1999 he moved to the Weizmann Institute of Science and continued research in similar areas. His present research interests have evolved to include research related to sustainable energy resources using photochemical and electrochemical reactions. A list of present activities are: Catalytic Oxidation with Emphasis on Aerobic Hydrocarbon Oxidation. Activation of Molecular Oxygen and use of Water as an Oxygen Donor. Photo- and Electrocatalytic Reduction of Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen. Polyoxometalates.

Tatjana N. Parac-Vogt is a Full Professor of Chemistry and the Head of the Laboratory of Bioinorganic Chemistry at KU Leuven, Belgium.  She has been at KU Leuven since 2000,  where she has been pursuing  research  on the development of  polyoxometalates and other metal-oxo based materials as catalysts for biologically relevant reactions,  as well as in contrast agent development for medical imaging. The author of  more than 200 publications,  she  has received several awards for her research.  She is a Member of AcademiaNet, a global portal of outstanding female scientists, and is the Vice-President of the European Rare Earth and Actinide Society. Tatjana serves on the Editorial Board of Chemical Society Reviews, and is likewise an Editorial Board member of Inorganics and Chimie Nouvelle journals. She is also a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Inorganic Chemistry.

Marc Robert was educated at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Cachan, France) and gained his Ph.D. in 1995 from Paris Diderot University under the guidance of Claude Andrieux and Jean-Michel Savéant. After one year as a postdoctoral fellow at Ohio State University (USA), working alongside Matt Platz, he joined the faculty at Paris Diderot University as Associate Professor. He was promoted to full Professor in 2004, and distinguished Professor in 2019 at Université de Paris. He became a junior Fellow of the University Institute of France (IUF) in 2007 and a senior Fellow in 2017. He was a JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) research Fellow (2015). Among various distinctions, Marc Robert received the first International Prize Essential Molecules Challenge from Air Liquide (2016) and the Chemistry and Energy Research Prize from the French Chemical Society (2019). His interests include electrochemical, photochemical, and theoretical approaches of electron transfer reactions and reactivity in chemistry, as well as catalytic activation of small molecules, mainly CO2 and N2.

Manfred Scheer holds one of the chairs of Inorganic Chemistry at Regensburg University (Germany). Since 2010, he has been serving as Associate Editor of the RSC journal “Chemical Communications”. In 2013, he received the Wilhelm-Klemm-Award of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) as one of two major Inorganic Awards of the GDCh and was presented with the 2017 International Arbuzov Prize in the Field of Organophosphorus Chemistry and, in 2021, with the Alexander Todd-Hans Krebs Lectureship in Chemical Sciences (joint Award by the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK, and GDCh, Germany). In 2015, he was elected ordinary member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and, in 2016, of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Germany); in the same year, he was also appointed Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), and, finally, in 2018, became an ordinary member of the German National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina. In 2012, he received an Honorary Doctorate of the Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk (Russian Federation) and, in 2019, an Honorary Doctorate of the St. Petersburg State University (Russian Federation). His research interests include the synthesis and reactivity of unsubstituted main group element ligands with the focus on the heavier group 15 elements and their use in supramolecular chemistry to construct nano-sized spherical aggregates and clusters. Moreover, the stabilization and reactivity of main group compounds consisting of combinations of different elements with the target of generating inorganic oligomers and polymers are also in the focus of his research. Finally, the chemistry of highly reactive molecules such as P4, As4 also is of interest to him.

Kevin Sivula obtained a PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of California (Berkeley) in the research group of Prof. Jean Fréchet. During his thesis research he worked to developed strategies to control the morphology of conjugated polymer-based photovoltaic devices. Sivula then joined the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces (LPI, led by Professor Michael Grätzel) at the EPFL in Switzerland. There he developed nanostructured films with iron oxide for hydrogen production using solar energy. He was promoted to research group leader in LPI in 2008 and in 2011 he accepted an appointment as tenure-track assistant professor at EPFL in the Institute of Chemical Science and Engineering. Currently he is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and he leads the LIMNO lab, which focuses on developing solution processable semiconductor devices, while also teaching courses on Transport Phenomena, Chemical Engineering Practicals, Product design, and Solar Energy Conversion systems.

He graduated from Kyoto University, where he received Ph.D in 1993 (Professor Yoshihiko Ito).  He has been Professor at Department of Synthetic Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University since 2004.  Meanwhile, he spent one year at MIT as a visiting researcher (1998-1999, Professor Gregory C. Fu).  His research interest focuses on the new molecular functions and transformations on the basis of new molecular/reaction design.  New catalytic borylation/silylation reactions along with new iterative/stereospecific cross-coupling systems have been established through exploration of new organoboron reagents such as silylborane- and B(dan)-based reagents.  His recent research interest also covers the utilization of chirality-switchable helical macromolecules for applications as chiral catalysts and chiroptical materials, in which the chirality of the reaction products and handedness of the circularly polarized light are reversibly switchable.

Claudia Turro received her B.S. with Honors (1987) and PhD (1992) from Michigan State University under the supervision of Daniel G. Nocera and George E. Leroi. She was a Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University with Nicholas J. Turro (1992-1995), and has been a faculty member at The Ohio State University since 1996. She received the NSF Early CAREER Award (1998), the Beckman Young Investigator Award (1999), is an ACS Fellow (2010), and a AAAS Fellow (2012). She was President of the Inter-American Photochemical Society (2012-14) and Chair of the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry (2016). She received the 2014 Susan M. Hartmann Mentoring and Leadership Award, the 2014 Inter-American Society Award in Photochemistry, the 2016 Edward W. Morley Medal, and the 2016 ACS Columbus Section Award. She has served as Associate Editor for the Journal of the American Chemical Society since 2016.

Herre van der Zant finished his PhD in 1991 at the Delft University of Technology on measurements of classical and quantum phase transitions in Josephson junction arrays. After his PhD, he went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to work on the applications of superconducting electronics. Three years later, Herre van der Zant returned to Delft and received a five year fellowship from the Dutch Royal Academy for Sciences to research mesoscopic charge density waves. In 2005, he cofounded a new research group in the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience at the Delft University of Technology centered around two research lines: molecular electronics and nano-electro-mechanical systems. In the years thereafter, the group advanced to the forefront of these research areas worldwide. He was head of the Quantum Nanoscience department at Delft and leader of the sensor work package within the graphene flagship. The present vanderZant laboratory has a research focus on bottom-up nanoelectronics (single molecules, nanoparticles and nanowires) and the nanomechanics of atomically thin membranes.

Prof. Clara Viñas graduated in Chemistry at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 1975 and in Pharmacy at the Universitat de Barcelona in 1980. She worked as a pre-doctoral student at the Prof. Rudolph’s laboratory at The University of Michigan for a year. Back to Barcelona, she worked for industry and later moved to Laboratori Municipal de Sabadell where she became the director to work on food and environmental control. She got her PhD in Pharmacy under the supervision of Prof. F. Teixidor at the Universitat de Barcelona in 1990. She joined the staff of the C.S.I.C. as tenured scientist in 1991. She promoted to research scientist in 2002 and to research professor in 2006. Her research interests are in the synthesis of novel boron compounds, carboranes and metallacarboranes, to be used for future medicinal applications. Furthermore, Prof. Clara Viñas research field is in the application of Boron clusters in Energy, capacitors, sensors and biosensors, among others.

Professor Yamashita holds the position of full professor at Tohoku University since 2004. His research target deals with the development of a “Next Generation of Multifunctional Nano-Sciences on Advanced Metal Complexes”. His work encompasses four important key areas: (1) inorganic-organic hybrid electronic states, (2) nano-size and space, (3) bottom-up and self-assembly, and (4) nonlinearity and quantum effects. He is working on nonlinearity and quantum effects for more than 40 years and he is author of more than 460 original papers, 91 review articles, and 19 books so far. His research activity received many awards such as Award of Inoue Scientific Foundation (2002), Award for Chemical Society of Japan for Creativity (2005), Award for Japan Society of Coordination Chemistry (2014), and Mukai Award (2019).

Hong-Cai “Joe” Zhou obtained his B. S. from Beijing Normal University and his Ph.D. under the tutelage of F. A. Cotton from Texas A&M University in 2000. After a postdoctoral stint at Harvard University supervised by R. H. Holm, in 2002 he joined the faculty of Miami University, Oxford where he was awarded tenure in 2007. He was hired by Texas A&M University in 2008. In 2012, he organized the first thematic issue focusing on metal-organic frameworks as a Guest Editor for Chemical Reviews. Since 2013, he has served as an associate editor for Inorganic Chemistry (ACS) and been recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate since 2014. He has been promoted to a Robert A. Welch Chair in Chemistry in 2015, and elected a fellow of AAAS, ACS, and RSC, respectively in 2016. His research focuses on the discovery of synthetic methods to obtain robust framework materials with desirable properties for potential applications in gas storage/separation, carbon capture/conversion, and catalysis.