Conference

Invited Speakers

Pietro ALTIMARI
Sapienza University of Rome, ITALY
Pietro Altimari is tenure-track Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry of Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, since July 2021. He obtained the laurea and the PhD both in Chemical Engineering from the University ''Federico II'' of Naples, Italy, in 2003 and 2006, respectively. After holding post-doctoral positions at the Delft University of Technology (TU-Delft), The Netherlands, and at the University of Salerno, Italy, he joined in 2011 the Department of Chemistry of Sapienza.

Pietro Altimari research focuses on the development of chemical processes integrated with the valorization of secondary resources (wastes and end-of-life products). In this area, the main research topics addressed are currently the recycling and synthesis of electrode materials for energy storage devices, the development of bio-adsorbents for the removal of pollutants, and the development of microalgae biomass production processes. Pietro Altimari has carried out research activities on these topics as a member and/or coordinator of a research unit in several national and European projects.

He is co-author of more than 90 articles published in scientific journals, conference proceedings and book chapters (Scopus h-index 20; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6638-1091) and is co-inventor of 1 EU patent.

Joana AMARAL
Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, PORTUGAL
Prof. Joana Amaral has a degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences obtained from the Pharmacy Faculty of the University of Porto in 2000 and a PhD degree in Food Chemistry and Nutrition from the same faculty in 2006. Since 2009 she is a Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança. From 2006 to 2018 was a researcher of the associated laboratory REQUIMTE and since 2018 she is a researcher at the Mountain Research Centre CIMO-IPB.

From 2009-2012 she was the president of the Food Chemistry Division of the Portuguese Chemical Society and currently she is the president of the Food Chemistry Division of the European Chemical Society.

Prof. Joana Amaral has over 100 publications, including 80 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 1 book edition, 13 book chapters, and 12 proceedings. She participated in over 25 national and international projects and is currently the principal researcher of the project POIROT - Novel methods and approaches for detecting the illegal addition of Pharmaceutical drugs and bOtanIcal adulteRatiOn in planT food supplements, funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology.

Her research interests are mainly related to food authenticity. Moreover, she is also working with natural products including food by-products encompassing phytochemical compounds evaluation and bioactive properties.

Marie-Noëlle Collomb
University Grenoble Alpes, FRANCE
Marie-Noëlle Collomb is Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Grenoble (France) and leader of the team “Electrochimie Moléculaire et Photochimie Redox (EMPRe)” of the Département de Chimie Moléculaire at the University Grenoble Alpes (UGA). She obtained her Master degree in electrochemistry in 1990 from Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble and her PhD in chemistry in 1993 from the UGA working on the electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction with molecular complexes. After a year postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Marc Fontecave at UGA, she joined the CNRS in 1994 as research scientist and was promoted Director of Research in 2007. In 1998-1999, she was CNRS research associate in the groups of Professors Robert H. Crabtree and Gary W. Brudvig at Yale University (New Haven, USA) (NATO fellowship), working on manganese chemistry.

Her research interests include molecular and hybrid systems for photocatalytic hydrogen production, nanostructured hydrid (photo)electrode materials for (photo)electrocatalytic water oxidation and reduction, as well as the design of new molecular water reduction catalysts and photosensitizers.

She has published over 120 papers in peer-reviewed journal, patents and book chapters: (Scopus Author ID: 7004135795, h-index 41; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6641-771X).

Călin DELEANU
''Costin D. Nenitescu'' Institute of Organic and Supramolecular Chemistry of the Romanian Academy, ROMANIA
Calin Deleanu is Senior Researcher in the “Costin D. Nenitescu” Institute of Organic and Supramolecular Chemistry, Bucharest, and head of the Group of Biospectroscopy jointly founded by the “Petru Poni” Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Iasi and “Costin D. Nenitescu” Institute of Organic and Supramolecular Chemistry, Bucharest, both institutes belonging to the Romanian Academy.

He graduated from the University Politehnica of Bucharest and he got a PhD in chemistry from the same university. After graduation he was briefly acting as chemical engineer in the “Borzesti” Petrochemical Plant after which he was continuously involved in research and teaching activities in the “Costin D. Nenitescu” Centre of Organic Chemistry, Bucharest (currently Institute of Organic and Supramolecular Chemistry), “Petru Poni” Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Iasi, University Politehnica of Bucharest, and “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest. In 2004 and 2005 he was visiting researcher (Chargé de Recherche, Post Rouge CNRS) in the Institut Europeen des Membranes, Montpellier, France.

His research interests include NMR techniques for structure elucidation of organic, organometallic and macromolecular compounds, organic synthesis, and NMR metabolomics applied to medicine and food sciences. He is author of over 150 published papers, 1 book and 7 book chapters.

He is founding Member of the Romanian Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (for which he also served as Vice-President and as Board Member), founding member of the Romanian Chapter of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, founding member of the Romanian Chapter of the American Chemical Society (for which he also served as vice-chairman). He was awarded the “Costin D. Nenitescu” Medal (2009) and “Petru Poni” Medal (2019) by the Romanian Chemical Society “for his contribution to advancement of chemistry in Romania” and the “Costin D. Nenitescu” Prize of the Romanian Academy (2018) for a series of papers on multicomponent synthesis and structure elucidation of pyrroloquinoxalines and pyrrolobenzimidazoles.

Bertrand DONNIO
Institut de Physique et Chimie des Matériaux de Strasbourg (IPCMS), FRANCE
Bertrand DONNIO is the research director CNRS of the Institut de Physique et Chimie des Matériaux de Strasbourg - University of Strasbourg, since October 2010, with a 2 years break from 2013 to 2015, when he occupied the position of Research Director CNRS, UMI 3254 COMPASS-SOLVAY-UPENN (University of Pennsylvania) in Philadelphia, United States of America. Bertrand DONNIO has graduated the courses of University of Rennes, France and achieved his PHD in Chemistry in 1996, at the University of Sheffield, England.

Bertrand DONNIO`s research is focused on supramolecular chemistry (liquid crystal, self-assembly), organic synthesis (oligomeric molecules, dendrons and dendrimers, coordination metal complexes), self-assembly of nanoparticles and characterization of ordered supramolecular arrangements by SAXS and SANS.

Bertrand DONNIO is co-author of 11 book chapters and more than 283 articles published in scientific journals and conference proceedings, (Scopus h-index: 55, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5907-7705, Web of Science: 9862 citations (8674); h = 53; <32.98>). His activity was focused not only on scientific publication, but also on mentoring PhD students, by this time having supervised 15 PhD theses, since his habilitation in 2009.

Horia IOVU
University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, ROMANIA
HORIA IOVU is professor of polymer science and technology, chemist engineer, specialization in Composite Materials (Manchester Metropolitan University, U.K., 1994-1995), PhD in Chemistry and Technology of Polymers (1995); full professor since 1999 (University Politehnica of Bucharest – Department of Bioresurces and Polymer Science); Member of the National Council for Research in Higher Education (CNCSIS) (2005-2011); President of the National Council for awarding the universitary titles in Romania, the field of Chemical Engineering (since 2006); Vice-Rector / Director of Council for Doctoral Studies (since 2012); Full member of the Romanian Academy of Scientists; Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), Fellow of the Romanian Chemical Society. Professional experience: elastomers synthesis by polymerization of dienes with lanthanide-based catalysts, composite materials-synthesis and design, nanocomposite materials based on polymer matrices reinforced with silicates, nanocomposite materials based on polymer matrices reinforced with carbon nanotubes / graphene, carbon nanotubes – modification and compatibilization, biomaterials for scaffolds, collagen-HAP-synthetic polymers composites, polymer-based drug delivery systems. Scientific activity: Group leader for the research group The Advanced Polymer Materials Group (since 2005) devoted to synthesis and characterization of new nanocomposites based on various polymers and reinforcing agents (www.apmg.pub.ro) for various applications including bioengineering, author / coauthor of more than 205 papers published in WoS – rated journals, 6 books published at national level and 5 book chapters at international level, Editor-in-chief “Materiale Plastice” journal.

Yoshiko OKADA-SHUDO
University of Electro-Communications, JAPAN
Yoshiko Okada-Shudo received her M.E. degree in 1984 from Yokohama National University. From 1984-1987 she was a research associate at Japan Women’s University. In 1987 she reentered the Graduate School of YNU, followed by a PhD in 1990 for applied mathematics research on solitons in nonlinear lattices under the supervision of Prof. Morikazu Toda. From 1990-1991, she was a Basic Science Special Research Program Scientist at RIKEN, then moved to the University of Electro-Communications as an assistant professor and is currently a professor.

In 1996 she was a visiting researcher and worked at CEA Saclay with Prof. Fran¸cois Kajzar, IOTA with Prof. G´erald Roosen, and LMU M¨unchen with Prof. Christoph Br¨auchle. From 2000 she worked at RIKEN with Prof. Satoshi Kawata.

She was the first in Japan to succeed in polarization recording on a photosynthetic protein resembling visual pigments, bacteriorhodopsin, at RIKEN in 1991. UEC includes developing bio-devices applying the bacteriorhodopsin, a photodetector with a visual function, a position-sensitive detector, and image filters. Using an inkjet printer, she also applies the bacteriorhodopsin and conductive polymers to photovoltaic elements. In 2018, she detected visual illusions by only hardware for the first time using bacteriorhodopsin-based image filters that mimic retinal ganglion cell and V1 field simple cell receptive fields. She received Optical Paper Award for Excellent Papers from The Japan Society of Applied Physics (1989) and the Konica Imaging Science Award (1998).

Mihaela STEFAN
The University of Texas at Dallas, U.S.A.
Mihaela C. Stefan received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Politehnica University Bucharest, Romania. She worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Matyjaszewski’s group at Carnegie Mellon University from 2002 to 2003. She also worked as a Research Scientist in Richard D. McCullough's group at Carnegie Mellon University on the synthesis of block copolymers containing semiconducting polythiophenes.

She joined the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Texas at Dallas in 2007, and she is currently a Eugene McDermott Professor and Department Head. She received the NSF Career Award in 2010, the NS&M Outstanding Teacher Award in 2009 and 2017, the Inclusive Teaching Diversity Award in 2012, the President’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2014, Provost’s Award for Faculty Excellence in Undergraduate Research Mentoring in 2015, and Provost’s Award for Faculty Excellence in Graduate Research Mentoring in 2021. She also received the Wilfred T. Doherty Award from the Dallas Forth Worth Local Section of the American Chemical Society in 2021. Her research group is developing novel organic semiconductors for organic electronics, biodegradable and biocompatible polymers for drug delivery applications, and rare novel catalysts for polymerization of dienes and cyclic esters. At the University of Texas at Dallas, she supervised 36 graduate students and 24 Ph.D. students graduated with a Ph.D. in Chemistry under her supervision. She also mentored ~130 undergraduate students who worked on her research lab on various projects.