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. |
Prof Cecile Bessou, CIRAD, France |
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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.
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Prof Mohidus Samad Khan |
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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 Ashish Kulkarni, KEBOTIX, USA |
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Ashish Kulkarni’s whole career has been about driving commercially successful innovation - applying his deep knowledge of chemical engineering and materials science to deliver breakthrough products and platforms into diverse industries and markets. His current interest is focused on combining Artificial Intelligence tools in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering to drive Sustainability and Decarbonization.
Currently, Ashish serves as Chairman & CEO of Kebotix, a company that is focused on using world leading AI/ML platforms to decarbonize materials. He has been on the board of Kebotix since 2019 and committed to adoption of AI/ML tools in the Chemical & Pharmaceutical sectors. Previously, Ashish served in high ranking positions at GAF Materials Corporation, at Avantor Inc., at Celanese, at United Technologies Corporation (Carrier Building Systems & Services division) and at American Standard (Bath & Kitchen Division). Ashish holds Ph.D and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (USA), and a B. Tech., Chemical Engineering from Osmania University (India). |
Dr Ivan Oropeza-Perez, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Mexico |
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“The role of the cities due to sustainability transition: an overview” |
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Ivan Oropeza-Perez is energy engineer from the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana campus Iztapalapa, master in energy engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and doctor in civil engineering from Aalborg University, Denmark. He is currently a visiting professor at the Department of Environment of the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana campus Azcapotzalco. Furthermore, he has been a senior associate professor at the University of the Americas Puebla, and collaborator of the Sustainable Development Plan for Climate Change of the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana. He is a Fellow of the National System of Researchers level 1, a Fellow of the National Solar Energy Association, and a founding member and first president of the Mexican affiliation of the International Building Performance Simulation Association. He is the author of 16 research articles published in international scientific peer-review journals; author of 2 book chapters; and co-author of a book on natural ventilation in Mexico. He has participated as a speaker and/or moderator of technical sessions in 12 national conferences and 14 specialized international conferences. He is an editor of the books on Sustainable Building Materials and Future Housing. |
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 Yassine Zarhloule, Université Mohammed Premier, Morocco |
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Born in 1966, has a Phd degree in hydrogeology and geothermal energy by the National Engineering school (Tunisia 1994), then a Doctorat es Sciences –Geology-thermal water resources in Morocco in 1999, by the University Mohammed I (Oujda Morocco). He is President of the University Mohammed Premier since 2020. He was the Director of the high Institute of Technology From 2014 to 2020. He is full professor at the University of Mohammed I since 2003 where he teaches a range of courses in geology, hydrology, CO2 sequestration, geological energy storage, geological prospection of hydrogen, hydrogeology and geothermal potentialities of Morocco at introductory level up to post-graduate level. He has published more than 40 scientific and technical papers (Water management, Carbone Capture and Storage, Geothermal Energy, climate Change, etc.) and essays and delivered many more communications, seminars and talks and chapters in books. He was co-organizer of international meetings. In 2001 he received the first National prize of Research and Development in Morocco. Since 1995 He was responsible for several research projects (national and international) in CCS, hydrogeology and geothermic, etc. He is also member of several international scientific associations. Also, he has worked as a consultant for the private sector.
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Prof Teng Zhou, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), China |
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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.
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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. |