Guosheng Shao, Zhengzhou University, China 

Guosheng Shao is the Director of the State Centre for International Cooperation on Designer Low-carbon and Environmental Materials (CDLCEM), and the UK-China Centre for Multifunctional Nanomaterials, at the Zhengzhou University, China. He is also the Founding Director of the Zhengzhou Materials Genome Institute （ZMGI, 2016）. He earned his PhD in materials science at the University of Surrey in 1995 and thereupon worked as a research fellow and senior research fellow, until transferring to the Brunel University as Reader in Materials in 2005. He joined the University of Bolton as Professor of Materials Modelling and Simulation in 2007, and then established the Institute for Renewable Energy and Environmental Technologies (IREET) as its founding Director, together with the responsibility as Head of Engineering. He was then appointed to be the Head for Engineering, Sports and Sciences. His academic interest is “designer” materials and application devices, with current focus on sustainable (renewable) energy systems and environmental technologies.

S. Ravi P. Silva, University of Surrey, UK 

S. Ravi P. Silva is the Director of the Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) at the University of Surrey and heads the Nano-Electronics Centre. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK and the National Academy of Sciences in Sri Lanka. He conducted his UG and PhD studies at Cambridge University, after which he joined Surrey. His research has resulted in 550 presentations at international conferences, and over 500 archival journal papers. He has published in some of the most prestigious multidisciplinary journals and is the inventor of 30 patents and two start-up companies. He was instrumental in setting up the ATI at Surrey and the Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology (SLINTEC). He has held visiting posts in China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Brazil. He has won the Einstein Silver Medal from UNESCO, the Royal Society Clifford Patterson Medal, IOP Vernon Charles Boys Medal, the 2014 J J Thomson Medal from the IET, 2015 winner of the Platinum Medal from the IOM3 and numerous other awards for research. His passion is on renewable energy materials and designer hybrid systems.