Invited speakers
Prof Adisa Azapagic, University of Manchester, United Kingdom(Inaugural Plenary Speaker) |
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Adisa Azapagic is Professor of Sustainable Chemical Engineering at the University of Manchester, where she leads Sustainable Industrial Systems, a multidisciplinary research group working with industry, policy makers and other stakeholders on identifying sustainable solutions to current sustainability challenges. Her research interests include sustainable production and consumption, life cycle sustainability assessment and corporate sustainability. She is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Sustainable Production and Consumption and has published over 200 journal papers and three books. Adisa has been awarded two honorary doctorates, an MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) and the George E. Davis Medal for her exceptional contribution to engineering and sustainability. |
Dr Hassan Baaqeel, King Fahd of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia |
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"Saudi Arabia's Water Energy Nexus: A Roadmap for Sustainability" |
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Dr. Baaqeel is the Dean of the College of Chemicals and Materials at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), a leading engineering institution in the MENA region. He is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering. His research focuses on the application of Process Systems Engineering to develop novel, sustainable, and economically competitive designs for new technologies in the water-energy nexus of Saudi Arabia. Given the challenges and opportunities of the Kingdom, his research primarily focuses on water desalination, hydrogen production optimization, hydrogen network optimization, and hybrid separation systems in the oil and gas sector. His recent work examines the design and sustainability of novel desalination technologies, such as hydrate-based desalination and membrane distillation (MD) desalination. |
Prof Cecile Bessou, CIRAD, France |
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"A SWOT Analysis of Life Cycle Assessment's Role in Advancing a Sustainable Agrifood Sector" |
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Cécile Chéron-Bessou has a background in agricultural sciences and completed her PhD on crop modelling and impact assessment of biofuels based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) at AgroParisTech in 2009. Since 2010, she has been working as a researcher at Cirad (French agricultural research and cooperation organisation) based in Montpellier, France. Her research topic focuses on the environmental impact modelling for perennial cropping systems. She had gained experience on various systems such as oil palm, coffee or coconut, in various countries across all continents. She has worked on improving life cycle inventories by connecting LCA with both mechanistic and empirical models and by developing a framework to better account for perennial crop cycles. She is currently working on soil health modelling in LCA within the frame of an EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie individual fellowship. Besides her research activities, Cécile is involved in many associations and peer-review activities. Among others, she contributed to the GLAM 2 (global guidelines on LCA methodologies by UNEP Life Cycle Initiative), she is a member of the SETAC Europe LCA steering committee, the LCAfood conferences scientific committee, and the editorial board of the Sustainable Production and Consumption journal. Cécile has conducted various peer-review expertises and provided training on environmental impact assessments and LCA. Last but not least, she is an active member of the Women and Sciences association. |
Prof Mohidus Samad Khan, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Bangladesh |
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"Circularity and Sustainability in Apparel Sector: Constraints and Opportunities" |
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Dr. Mohidus Samad Khan is a sustainability expert, researcher and academician working as a Professor of Chemical Engineering Department at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) (www.buet.ac.bd). He served as the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) (2021-2023) of Bangladesh Export Import Company (Beximco) Limited (www.beximco.com), a multi-billion-dollar business conglomerate in Bangladesh. At present he holds the position of Honorary Director of Beximco Sustainability and Beximco Health Divisions. Till date, Dr. Khan has authored and co-authored over 100 technical articles, which include peer-reviewed journal and conference articles, international patents, industrial reports, books and book chapters. He also serves as a reviewer of several reputed international journals.
Dr. Khan worked as a Research Engineer (2004-2006) in an international research project on Cleaner Production options and managing industrial pollution of Textile Sector, led by DFID, USAid, and the Government of Bangladesh (GoB). Dr. Khan completed his PhD on Bio-surface and Biotechnology (2006-2010) from Monash University, Australia. His PhD research work won several major awards including the Mollie Holman Doctoral Medal as Vice-Chancellor's commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence and the Kenneth Hunt Medal for the Best Engineering PhD Thesis. Dr. Khan worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at McGill University, Canada to continue his research work (2010-13) on Bio-surface Engineering and Biomolecular Simulation. Since 2013, Dr. Khan is working as a fulltime faculty in the Department of Chemical Engineering, BUET. He served as a Visiting Professor (2015) at McGill University, Canada, and as a Visiting Research Scholar (2016-17) at Texas A&M University, USA. Dr. Khan also served as a Member of the Technical Advisory Group (2020-2021), Access to Medicines and Health Products Division, WHO Geneva (HQ). Dr. Khan is working with local industries and international associations on the sustainability and cleaner production issues, and actively pursuing reduction of environmental impacts and carbon footprint of industries through improved efficiency and by reducing energy and water consumption in the processes. |
Dr Christopher Savoie, SQALE, Copenhagen, Denmark |
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“The Intersection of AI and Industry -- learnings from 3 decades of entrepreneurial, social impact, and sustainability experiences with AI and Machine Learning” |
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Dr. Christopher Savoie is a published scholar in medicine, biology, and computer science, and his research and business interests over the years have focused on the intersection of AI/machine learning and applied use cases in various fields including medicine, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, automotive and chemicals. He is inventor on international patents spanning AI/machine learning, bioinformatics, and quantum computing. Savoie is the co-inventor of AAOSA, the A.I.-based natural language interface technology used to develop Apple’s Siri. He has led big data analytics efforts at Nissan/Renault and has founded and served as the founder and CEO of several technology and biotechnology companies, two of which achieved an IPO. Savoie a founding steering committee member of the US Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C). Dr. Savoie is also a licensed attorney, is current Chair of the QED-C Quantum Law technical advisory committee and has previously served as the Vice-Chairman of the Big Data Committee of the American Bar Association. He is a published legal scholar on liability and other legal issues surrounding Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Information Security and Data Privacy and has lectured and taught continuing legal education courses on these subjects. |
Prof Seungjae Lee, University of Seoul, South Korea |
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“Sustainable Electrification Pathways on Roads” |
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Dr Seungjae LEE is a Professor of Transportation Planning in University of Seoul. He obtained PhD in Department of Civil Engineering, University College London in 1994, and worked as a Research Fellow in Department of Statistical Science, UCL, and Korea Transport Institute. He is the author of the TOP 1% SCI Journal and Top 100 Journal (based on SJR) such as Nature Scientific Reports, Science Advances and Journal of Cleaner Production. A total of 177 papers have been published, including more than 76 SCI-level papers, 18 publications as Q1 journals. He is the Author of book chapters in Springer, Elsevier, Routeledge, ScienceDirect Procedia, and the ICE. He has found and served International Journal of Transportation as an Editor-in-Chief, (ESCI). He has also served several editorial boards of SCI journals such as Transportmetrica, International Journal of Sustainable Transportation and Proceedings of Municipal Engineering, Institution of Civil Engineering. He is currently working as the Head of the Integrated Cooperation Center of the Big Data and AI Research Institute. He is a recipient of the James Hill Prize for the best paper on Municipal Engineering in the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 2023 and a recipient of the Smeed Prize of the UTSG, 1995. His research directions are to seek and develop scientific approaches in order to make a better society by enhancing smart mobility systems. The papers he has published for his research directions cover a wide range of transport modeling approaches from conventional travel demand analysis to advanced dynamic modeling techniques, which include data modeling, statistical traffic estimation techniques, cell transmission and cellular automata techniques, genetic algorithms, simulated annealing, tabu search techniques, short-term forecasting techniques, neural networks, kalman filtering, time series analysis, fuzzy theory, mixed integer programming, simplicial decomposition algorithms, network design problems, stochastic assignment, discrete choice models, game theory, time window analysis, GIS, car navigation, bus network design, multi-criteria analysis, travel demand estimation using traffic counts, space syntax, traffic flow theory, reliability analysis, chaos theory, Bayesian estimation, pedestrian modeling, signal junction modeling, un-signal junction modeling, multiclass assignment, stability analysis, ITS research, land use and transportation, public transport related modeling techniques and policy related analysis. |
Prof Rahmat Sotudeh-Gharebagh, University of Tehran, Iran |
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“Sustainable Excellence with Process Simulation” |
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Dr. Rahmat Sotudeh-Gharebagh, a professor of chemical engineering and former Dean of Engineering at the University of Tehran (www.linkedin.com/in/sotudeh), is a renowned expert in process modeling, simulation, and plant design. As the Founder and Editor-in- Chief of "Chemical Product and Process Modeling" journal, he fosters the dissemination of cutting-edge advancements in chemical processes and products. He has also pioneered Iran's first interdisciplinary Pharmaceutical Engineering program, demonstrating his commitment to interdisciplinary approaches. Beyond academia, Dr. Sotudeh-Gharebagh serves as a member of the COMSATS Technical Advisory Committee, providing valuable technical advice to institutions in developing countries. With his expertise, he offers consultancy services, acts as an expert witness, and delivers inspirational speeches. Dr. Sotudeh-Gharebagh's remarkable contributions have earned him recognition as an invited member of the Academy of Science and leadership roles in professional associations. His dedication to advancing the field of chemical engineering continues to drive progress and innovation in sustainable development. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Aj1Lok0AAAAJ&hl=en |
Prof Konstantinos P. Tsagarakis, Technical University of Crete, Greece |
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Konstantinos Tsagarakis is a Professor of "Economics of Environmental Science and Technology" in the School of Production Engineering and management at the Technical University of Crete. He holds a degree from the department of Civil Engineering of the Democritus University of Thrace, a BA degree from the Department of Economics of the University of Crete and a Ph.D. Degree in Public Health from the School of Civil Engineering from the University of Leeds, UK. His research interests include: circular economy, technical–economic project evaluation; environmental and energy economics; public health economics; environmental and energy behavior; big data; online behavior; environmental performance of firms; quantitative methods. His research work has been published in more than 110 papers in refereed journals and has been cited in more than 3200 papers by others (according to Scopus database; h-index: 30), more than 6000 in google scholar. He is Specialty Chief Editor in Circular Economy Section Frontiers in Sustainability, Associate Editor in Water Policy and Healthcare Analytics, Subject Editor in Sustainable Consumption and Production and has served as Guest Editor in several other journals. Further information about the publishing and editorial records can be found here: https://www.webofscience.com/wos/author/record/N-1403-2017 https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=d5u6H60AAAAJ&hl=en |
Prof Metin Turkay, Koç University, Turkey |
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“The Role of Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Optimization for Sustainable Ecosystems” |
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Metin Turkay is a Professor and Head of the Department of Industrial Engineering at Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey. He holds a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University (1996) and MS (1991) and BS degrees (1989) from Middle East Technical University. His research focuses on optimizations theory, mixed-integer programming, and development of novel solution algorithms for mixed-integer programming problems and machine learning. He is applying these theoretical developments on energy planning, sustainable energy, sustainable supply chain management and logistics, design of transportation system with special emphasis on sustainable supply chain and logistics and systems biology. Before joining Koc University in 2000 where he set up Systems Lab, he was principal consultant on optimization technologies at Mitsubishi Corporation Mizushima Research Center. His doctoral work and publications on generalized disjunctive programming was recognized with the 1997 Ted Peterson Student Paper Award by Computing and Systems Technology Division of AIChE. He is also the recipient of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) Career Award (2005), the TÜBİTAK Young Researcher Incentive Award (2006), Turkey’s first IBM Shared University Research Award (2007), the IBM Faculty Award (2009) and the Open Collaborative Research Award by IBM Haifa Research (2012). He set up the Koc-IBM Supply Chain Research Center with funds from the IBM Shared University Research Award. In 2006, he was elected as the Chair of the EURO Working Group on Computational Biology, Bioinformatics and Medicine. Metin Türkay published over 150 papers and also is the recipient of 14 international patents. |
Prof Teng Zhou, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), China |
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"AI-driven integrated material and process design for efficient carbon capture" |
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Dr. Teng Zhou is currently an Assistant Professor, Head of the Max Planck Partner Group at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou). He received his doctoral degree with the highest distinction in Process Systems Engineering in 2016 from the Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg, Germany. Dr. Zhou’s research focuses on Sustainable Process Systems Engineering. He is currently interested in computer-aided design of functional materials for energy and environmental applications. He has published more than 60 journal articles, and his work has received more than 2700 citations. Dr. Zhou earned several important honors and awards, including the Stanford Top 2% Most-cited Scientists Worldwide, the CGCA Young Researchers Award, Chemical Engineering Science Outstanding Reviewer, and the AIChE CAST Directors Award. He was the Scientific Committee Member for the 14th International Symposium on Process Systems Engineering and the 31st European Symposium on Computer-Aided Process Engineering. Dr. Zhou is an Editorial Board Member for several international journals, including Scientific Reports and Green Energy & Environment. |
Prof Stratos Pistikopoulos FREng, Energy Institute and Texas A&M University, USA (Closing plenary speaker) |
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"Sustainable Energy Transition & the Role of Circular Economy" |
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Professor Pistikopoulos is the Director of the Texas A&M Energy Institute and holds the Dow Chemical Chair Professorship in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University. He was a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London, UK (1991-2015) and a former Director of its Centre for Process Systems Engineering. He holds a Ph.D. degree from Carnegie Mellon University and he worked with Shell Chemicals in Amsterdam before joining Imperial. He has authored or co-authored over 550 major research publications in the areas of modelling, control and optimization of process, energy and systems engineering applications, 15 books and 3 patents. A co-founder of Process Systems Enterprise (PSE) Ltd (now Siemens PSE), he is a Fellow of AIChE and IChemE and the current Editor-in-Chief of Computers & Chemical Engineering. Prof. Pistikopoulos was a co-recipient of the prestigious Mac Robert Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2007, the recipient of the AIChE/CAST Computing in Chemical Engineering Award in 2013 and Distinguished Service Award in 2023, the IChemE’s Sargent Medal in 2020, and the AIChE’s Sustainable Engineering Forum Award in 2021. He was elected a Member of the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (TAMEST) in 2021. In 2013, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK. In 2022, he received The Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Award for Research, and in 2023, he was named a University Distinguished Professor, at Texas A&M. |