Sharon Ashbrook is a Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of St Andrews. Her research concerns the application of NMR spectroscopy and first-principles calculations to investigate structure, disorder and dynamics in inorganic solids, and she has published over 175 papers in this area. She is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE), and holds a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award. She has an interest in outreach (and is Chair of the Tayside RSC Local section) and in the promotion of women in STEM, co-authoring booklets entitled Academic Women Now (2016) and Academic Women Here (2018). She was awarded a Suffrage Science Award in 2017.

Karena Chapman is Joseph Lauher and Frank W. Fowler Endowed Chair in Materials Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at Stony Brook University. Before moving the Stony Brook University, she was a chemist at Argonne National Laboratory, building the dedicated Pair Distribution Function instrument at the Advanced Photon Source. She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Sydney, Australia.

Her research focuses on understanding the coupling of structure and reactivity in energy-relevant materials using advanced synchrotron-based characterization tools. She is currently engaged in projects on battery electrodes and electrolytes,  nanoporous framework materials for catalysis and new materials synthesis.  Her work has been recognized as one of American Chemical Society's Talented 12 in 2016 and was awarded the 2015 MRS Outstanding Young Investigator Award. She is a main editor of the Journal of Applied Crystallography and Deputy Director of GENESIS A Next Generation Synthesis Center funded by the US Department of Energy.

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Neil Champness is the Professor of Chemical Nanoscience at the University of Nottingham, UK. His research focusses on molecular design and synthetic methods, employing self-assembly to create framework materials in the solid-state and on surfaces and for the creation of interlocked structures in solution. His research achievements have been recognised by the award of a number of Royal Society of Chemistry prizes and he is a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, the European Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2011 he was identified as one of the top 100 most cited chemists of the previous decade worldwide.

Céline Chizallet obtained a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry (Paris VI University) in 2006 and an Habilitation (ENS-Lyon) in 2017. She currently holds a Project leader position in the Catalysis, Biocatalysis and Separation Division of IFP Energies nouvelles in Solaize, France. Her research interest deals with computational heterogeneous catalysis, in particular reactions catalyzed by aluminosilicates (amorphous silica-alumina, zeolites) and supported metals. She is the co-author of more than 75 research articles and 2 patents. She was awarded the Edith Flanigen Award (2015), the young scientist awards of the Physical Chemistry (2016) and Catalysis (2018) divisions of the French Chemical Society.

Principal Research Scientist at Johnson Matthey Technology Centre, Billingham, United Kingdom

Alessandro Turrina received his B.S. and M.S degrees in Photochemistry and Molecular Materials at University of Bologna in 2011. The same year he started a Johnson Matthey CASE PhD at St Andrews University under the supervision of Professor Paul Wright on synthesis and characterisation of zeolites. He received his PhD in July 2015. Afterward, Alessandro joined Johnson Matthey as research scientist. His areas of expertise spreads from synthesis, optimisation and scale-up of zeolites primarily for emission control applications, to advanced characterisation and molecular modelling. He is co-author of 20 research articles and co-inventor of 15 patent applications.

Prof. Yi Li is a full professor in the College of Chemistry and the deputy director of International Center of Future Science at Jilin University. His research focuses on computational chemistry and materials genomics of nanoporous functional materials. He has coauthored over 100 peer-reviewed papers in high-profile journals, and developed several computer programs and databases for zeolite structures.

He received the National Natural Science Award (Second Prize; the 4th awardee) in 2012 and the Excellent Young Scientists Fund (NSFC) in 2016. Currently, he is a member of the Structure Commission of International Zeolite Association, and an Advisory Board member of Chemical Science (RSC)

Unni Olsbye is Professor and leader of the Catalysis Section at the Chemistry Department of the University of Oslo (UiO).

She is author of 180 scientific papers (H-index 50) and holds several patents.

Olsbye graduated as a Chemical Engineer at NTNU in 1987, and proceeded to work with Elf Aquitaine (1988-90) on a project leading to a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry at UiO in 1991. During 1991-2000, she was a scientist, then senior scientist and group leader in the Department of Hydrocarbon Process Chemistry at SINTEF, and in 2000-2001 an R&D manager at NORDOX, before joining UiO in 2001. Olsbye is full Professor in Chemistry at UiO since 2002. During 2007-2015, she was Managing Director of inGAP (Innovative Natural Gas Processes and Products) – a Norwegian Centre of Excellence for Research-Based Innovation. She is founding advisor of ProfMOF A/S.

Olsbye is an elected member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and of the Norwegian Academy of Technical Sciences. She received the University of Oslo Innovation Award in 2017, and the Award of Excellence in Natural Gas Conversion in 2019.

Personal homepage: http://www.mn.uio.no/kjemi/english/people/aca/unniol/index.html

Chemical Reaction Engineering (CRT), Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering (CBI)

Wilhelm Schwieger studied Chemistry in Halle/Saale at the Martin-Luther-University from 1970 to 1974. In 1974 he joined the group of Prof. F. Wolf at the Institute of Technical Chemistry at the same University. After his PhD he joined the inorganic research division at the “Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld” where he became the head of the ‘Molecular-Sieve-Group’, a joined research activity between the industry and the university. After about ten years in the industrial research, he overtook an assistant professorship at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg in 1989.

After two research internships in the year from 1992 to 1994, at the institute for Chemical Engineering at the University Karlsruhe in the group of Prof. Riekert and at the University of British Columbia, Canada, Group of Prof. Dr. C. A. Fyfe, he returned to Halle and finished his habilitation in 1994. In 1998, he was appointed in Erlangen where he overtook the professorship for ‘Technical Chemistry’ at the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering (CBI) at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU).

The research interests are widespread in the field of heterogenous catalysis and porous materials focusing at the structure formation and the application of porous systems. In particular: (i) synthesis and characterization of porous solids, (ii) surface chemistry on and in crystalline porous materials; (iii) structure-working relationships of porous materials in respect to their different applications; (iv) development of materials with hierarchical pore structures for the development of new catalysts and the design new reactor concepts.

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Veronique Van Speybroeck is full professor at the Ghent University within the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture and head of the Center for Molecular modeling (http://molmod.ugent.be), a multidisciplinary research center composed of about 40 researchers. She obtained her PhD in 2001 from the Ghent University. She is recipient of two flagship grants from the European Research Council: a Starting and Consolidator grant.

Her expertise lies in first principle kinetics and molecular dynamics simulations of complex chemical transformations in nanoporous materials. She is also an elected member of the Royal (Flemish) Academy for Science and the Arts of Belgium (KVAB, www.kvab.be).

Kim Jelfs is a Senior Lecturer and Royal Society University Research Fellow and specialises in the use of computer simulations to assist in the discovery of supramolecular materials, including porous molecular materials and polymer membranes. After a PhD modelling the crystal growth of zeolites at UCL, she worked as a post-doc across the experimental groups at the University of Liverpool, before beginning her independent research at Imperial College in 2013. She was awarded a Royal Society of Chemistry Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize in 2018. Her group website is jelfs-group.org.

Dr. Abdo is a Senior Research and Development Fellow at Honeywell-UOP based in Des Plaines, Illinois, USA. His career interests have spanned a wide range of fundamental and applied aspects of zeolite science and catalysis. His research has led to the commercialization of many products and technology offerings currently in wide use in the energy, refining and petrochemical industries including hydrotreating, hydrocracking, heavy oil upgrading, aromatics alkylation and hydrogen production for fuel cells. He has been granted well over 75 US and international patents and has authored or co-authored many publications in scientific and technical journals. He has been invited to present in major international conferences on catalysis and zeolite science. Due to his interests in zeolites and catalytic science he continues to be involved in many industry-academia scientific collaboration programs with strategic partners of UOP and with scientific institutes and universities in North America, Europe the Middle East, and Far East. He has also served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the department of Chemical Engineering at King Fahd University in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia and has been a visiting lecturer in the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi among other engagements.

In addition, Dr. Abdo’s current interests include development of new approaches for conversion of bio-renewables to fuels and petrochemicals supporting the UOP-ENI Ecofining process and recycling of plastics by the application thermal and catalytic processes.

Click here to view Suheil Abdo's Abstract.