Short Biography: Iulian Antoniac is Full Professor in Materials Engineering and Biomaterials, Habil in Materials Engineering, Member of the Academy of Romanian Scientist, Member of American Romanian Academy of Art and Sciences, Past President of the International Society for Ceramics in Medicine (ISCM) and President of the Romanian Society for Biomaterials. He received his B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D., and Postdoc degrees in Materials Science at University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest.
Professor Iulian Antoniac research interests include biomaterials; bioceramics; coatings; biodegradable metals; biocomposites; metallic materials obtaining, characterization and testing; advanced techniques for surface characterization; microscopy techniques; functional materials; physical and chemical characterization of nano- and micro- particles for biomedical applications; implants for orthopedics and dentistry; advanced materials for smart industrial applications.
He has directed 12 PhD defended theses; member of the international commission for PhD thesis evaluation or promotion commission in different countries (Romania, Italy, Latvia, Turkiye, Russia); invited professor for teaching in other foreign universities from Israel, China, Portugal, Italy, Turkiye.
He is author of over 270 publications, with more than 3900 citations and Hirsh Index 37 according to Scopus database. He is Editor in Chief for the journal Materials Science Forum, editorial board member for other journals and reviewer for more than 50 journals.
Professor Iulian Antoniac have achieved in 2023 and 2024 the feat of ranking in the top 2% of the world's most cited scientists according to the latest ELSEVIER report, using the SCOPUS database and h-index, hm-index, adjusted for the number of co-authors, citations in different author positions and a composite index c-score.
The latest achievement of the Professor Iulian Antoniac was his election as Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering (FBSE), in 2023, which was made by the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering (IUSBSE). (http://iusbse.org/aboutus/). Fellows are recognized for a status of excellent professional standing and high achievements in the field of Biomaterials Science and Engineering. This is the highest honor the global biomaterials community can bestow on outstanding scientists. Iulian Antoniac, at the age of 51, is one of the youngest researchers in the field to be distinguished and is now joining as first Romanian member of this group of less than 500 of the most respected biomaterials scientists worldwide.

Lecture: Tomorrow's Healthcare: Current Trends and Directions in Bioengineering and Biomaterials Science

Short Biography: Since the very first contact with scientific research back in 1997 as final year master student in chemistry, Peter Dubruel has a huge passion for research. Both in his master and PhD thesis, he had the pleasure of working on the development of polymers for biomedical applications. Since end 2006, he is sharing his passion for research as Professor with master students, PhD, post-docs, his (inter)national collaborators and also while teaching.
Since end 2006, significant funding has been awarded yearly from IWT, FWO, EU, UGent (BOF, IOF), … to perform cutting edge research within the field of polymers for biomedical applications. This has led to the successful defense of more than 35 PhD theses and several patents. Every year, several master students have been supervised.
On the level of projects, the Polymer Chemistry and Biomaterials Group (PBM) has and is involved in a large number of national and international projects including EU-FP6, EU-FP7, H2020, ESA, IWT (O&O, PhD grants), FWO (post-doctoral and PhD grants), UGent (BOF, GOA and IOF) of which several ones coordinated.
Recognizing and training talent are an integral part of leadership. Since end 2006, 7 people that performed their PhD and/or post-doc within PBM, have been promoted as Professor in universities worldwide.
The PBM group is embedded in the Department of Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry (WE07) and the Centre for Macromolecular Chemistry (CMAC). It consists of a healthy mix of international and national scientists. The group is headed since end 2006 by Prof. Peter Dubruel and since 2018 together with Prof. Sandra Van Vlierberghe. The PBM group at UGent has the development of polymers for biomedical applications as core expertise. Research focusses on the development and characterisation of novel multifunctional polymers from both synthetic and biological origin. Examples include therapeutic polymers, biodegradable polyesters and hydrogel building blocks. Using these polymers, key application fields under study cover nucleic acid (DNA/RNA) delivery, orthopaedic (meniscus), ocular (macular degeneration), cardiovascular (stents and bypasses) and wound dressings (burns, ulcers).
Since 2021, Peter Dubruel is head of the Department of Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry within the Faculty of Sciences at UGent.

Lecture: The Do's and Don'ts of 3D Printed AUP Meniscal Substitutes

Short Biography: Rafael Luque (PhD in 2005 from Universidad de Cordoba, Spain) has significant experience in biomass and waste valorization practices to materials, fuels and chemicals including nanoscale chemistry, green chemistry and catalysis as well as environmental remediation with a particular interest on plastic waste (900+ publications, h-index 115, >55,000 citations, 7 patents, 10 edited books). He was named 2018-2022 Highly Cited Researcher (Clarivate Analytics) and received Honorary Professor titles (Doctor Honoris Causa) at Universitá degli studi Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria and RUDN University.
Prof. Luque is currently Head of B4 group (Bioresources, Biopolymers, Biotechnology and Biorefineries) and Project Director at National University of Science and Technology Polytehnica Bucharest (Romania), holding various positions as DFSP Chair Professor at King Saud University (Saudi Arabia), Distinguished Visiting Professor at University of Lahore (Pakistan) and International Distinguished Scientist and Rectoral Advisor at Universidad ECOTEC (Ecuador).

Lecture: Shaping the Future of Global Leaders: Insights and Directions in Bioengineering and Polymer Science

Short Biography: After graduating in chemical engineering from the University of Marseille, he completed a doctorate at the University of Besançon in France working on the electropolymerization of phenol derivatives and heterocyclic compounds. In 1998, he joined the MAPIEM Laboratory in the university of Toulon. Full professor since 2011, he is currently head of the chemistry department at the University of Toulon and head of the anticorrosion team in Mapiem laboratory. He has directed 18 theses and is the author of over 80 publications with 22 Hirsh Index according to Web of Science Citation Metrics. He contributed to fundamental and applied research with the development of new hybrid and nanocomposite materials by either bottom-up or top-down approaches. His research activity covers heterogeneous organic matrix systems, with a particular focus on the implementation of functional 1D or 2D nanofillers, notably those based on conductive polymers, nanocarbons and clays.

Lecture: Functionalized clay-based hydrogel composites for agricultural applications

Short Biography: Dr. Nele Pien is a postdoctoral researcher at the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and Ghent University, specializing in biofabrication, scaffold-based tissue engineering, biomaterials, and stem cells. With a joint-PhD in Materials and Metallurgical Engineering (ULaval, Canada) and Science: Chemistry (UGent, Belgium), her research focuses on extrusion- and light-based 3D printing for regenerative medicine applications. She has extensive expertise in cell-lab techniques, biomaterial development and characterization, and advanced analytical tools.
Beyond her research, Dr. Pien is actively involved in academic mentorship, conference organization, and science communication. She serves as the Communication Manager for Ghent Advanced Therapies and Tissue Engineering (GATE), overseeing communication strategies, website management, and event organization. Additionally, she is a Board Member of the Belgian Society for Tissue Engineering (BSTE), contributing to the advancement of the field.

Lecture: From Material Design to Biofabrication: Advancing Light-Based 3D Printing for Tissue engineering

Short Biography: Dario Puppi received from the University of Pisa, Italy, an MSc in Chemical Engineering (2005) and a PhD in Biomaterials (2009). He carried out research stays at various foreign universities, including Tampere University of Technology (Finland), University of Sheffield (UK) and University of Minho (Portugal). He then worked as a post-doc on various research projects at the University of Pisa (Italy) and the National Research Council, CNR (Italy). In September 2019 he was appointed as a Junior Researcher and in January 2022 as a Senior Researcher at the Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry at the University of Pisa (Italy). From January 2025 he has been employed as an Associate Professor of Industrial Chemistry in the same department.
His research interests mainly concern the investigation of synthetic and natural polymers to develop polymeric materials for biomedical, pharmaceutical, and other industrial applications. He is the co-author of more than seventy-five scientific articles in peer-reviewed international journals, nine book chapters, four patents, and various invited oral presentations at international conferences (citations > 3600, h-index: 32, based on Scopus database). He was included on the Stanford/Elsevier list, which highlights the top 2% of scientists cited globally in 2022 and 2023.

Lecture: Additive Manufacturing of Biodegradable Polymers for Tissue Engineering and In Vitro Cancer Modelling

Short Biography:Prof. Stephan Roche is ICREA Research Professor since 2009, head of “Theoretical & computational Nanoscience Group” at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Barcelona (Spain), www.icn2.cat. He is a theoretical physicist, expert in two-dimensional materials physics, topological matter and disordered materials, as well as expert of charge (quantum) transport in condensed matter, spin physics, large-scale quantum simulations and device modelling. He pioneered and is leading the development of linear scaling transport approaches, enabling unrivalled simulations of large-scale (disordered) models (www.lsquant.org), which are now efficiently connected with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools providing unprecedented ab-initio accuracy of properties simulation in trillion atoms scale models. S. Roche is a Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel awardee (Alexander Von-Humboldt Foundation, Germany) and has worked as PhD, postdoc, assistant professor, research staff and visiting researchers at many institutions such as at French CNRS and CEA, University of Valladolid (Spain), Donostia International Physics Center (San Sebastian, Spain), University of TU-Dresden (Germany), National University of Singapore, University of Tokyo and Tohoku University (Japan). He has collaborated and be funded by large companies such as NEC (Japan) and Samsung (South Korea).
S. Roche has co-authored more than 300 journal papers (WoS), including Rev. Mod. Physics, as well as more than 40 publications in Physical Review Letters & Nano Letters, and 15 papers and reviews in Nature series (Nature, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Physics, Nature Materials and Nature Communications). A full list of publications is available at Google Scholar Profile
He has served for ten years as Spintronic workpackage leader in the Graphene Flagship (GF) and as DIVISION leader on “Enabling Science and Materials”, and as such he was member of the management panel of the GF. He is currently involved in the IAM4EU initiative (www.iam-i.eu) and has been appointed to coordinate efforts for promoting the deployment of AI in the innovation processes of advanced materials.
He is Editor in Chief of J. Phys. Materials from IoP and one of the main organisers of key international conference series GRAPHENE 20XX https://www.grapheneconf.com and since QUANTUM MATTER 20XX https://www.quantumconf.eu and AI4AM https://ai4am.net/.

Lecture: Graphene-based materialsfor (bio)applications: the need & emerging role of Artificial Intelligence

Short Biography: Hari Srikanth is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of South Florida (USF), where he has been a faculty member since 2000. He leads the Functional Materials Laboratory and serves as the Director of the Florida Institute of Emergent Low-Dimensional Quantum Materials (FIELD-QM). Hari earned his Ph.D. in experimental condensed matter physics from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. His research spans a broad range of topics, including quantum materials, magnetism, and nanoscience. Over his career, he has graduated 24 Ph.D. students and mentored more than 15 postdoctoral scholars. He has authored over 320 journal publications, accumulating 12,500+ citations with an h-index of 65, and has delivered more than 225 invited talks worldwide. In recognition of his contributions, Hari was named an IEEE Magnetics Society Distinguished Lecturer in 2019. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (IOP), and a Senior Member of IEEE. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for Physical Review B, the world’s largest journal in condensed matter physics. Hari has been actively involved with the MMM and INTERMAG conferences for over 20 years, serving in various roles, including Publication Editor, Publication Chair, and Program Committee Member. He is the Special Events Chair for MMM 2025 and serves on the IEEE Magnetics Society Administrative Committee (AdCom). His achievements have been recognized with prestigious honors, including the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award and the Fulbright Scholar Award.

Lecture: Functional magnetic nanoparticles for biomedical applications

Short Biography: 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 44 graduate students, and 28 Ph.D. students graduated with a Ph.D. in Chemistry under her supervision. She also mentored ~150 undergraduate students who worked on her research lab on various projects.
Google Scholar Profile
UTDallas Profile
Stefan Group UTDallas

Lecture: Catalytic Activity and Magnetic Properties of Lanthanide Phosphates