The University of Queensland (UQ)

Professor Debra Bernhardt is internationally recognised for her contributions to the development of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics and thermodynamics including far-from-equilibrium fluids and confined fluids. She is a Fellow of Australian Academy of Science and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and an ARC Australian Laureate Fellow. Professor Bernhardt’s 30 years of research experience includes appointments at the University of Basel, Switzerland; the Australian National University; and Griffith University, where she was founding director of the Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre. Professor Bernhardt's research interests focus on the use of a range of theoretical and computational approaches to develop a fundamental understanding of the behaviour of matter, and application of these approaches to a wide range of problems including transport in nanopores, fluctuation phenomena, design of materials, gas separation, energy storage and conversion.

University of Science and Technology of China (USTC)

Professor Qunfeng Cheng is a professor in the School of Nano Science and Technology of Suzhou Institute for Advanced Research, USTC in China. Dr. Cheng's research has discovered and experimentally confirmed for the first time the void defects in the two-dimensional nanocomposites induced by capillary contraction. Dr. Cheng has developed a new strategy of sequential bridging and nanoconfinement assembly to cure the void defects. Dr. Cheng has achieved dense and high alignment of two-dimensional nanosheets assembly, created two-dimensional nanocomposites with excellent mechanical and electrical properties, which surpass carbon fiber composites. Dr. Cheng also explored their applications in aerospace, flexible electronic devices, biomedical engineering, and other fields. Dr. Cheng has published more than 100 papers including 3 papers in Science, 1 paper in Nature, 1 paper in Nat. Mater., 4 papers in Nat. Commun., 2 papers Sci. Adv., 5 papers in PNAS with over 12,000 citations, and a Google Scholar h-index of 63. He has authorized 40 Chinese patents and has authored the book “Bioinspired Layered Two-dimensional Nanocomposites

National University of Singapore (NUS)

 The Lin Research Group in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the National University of Singapore. Their research focuses on Nanostructured Materials for Energy (NanoME). Major research thrusts in this area include functional materials for energy conversion and storage (e.g., solar cells, photocatalysis, electrocatalysis, batteries, etc.); meniscus-assisted solution printing; precision synthesis of topologically complex polymers and multifunctional nanocrystals; polymer recycling and upcycling; self-assembly; and interfacial engineering of nanomaterials.

An extensive list of materials under investigation includes block copolymers; nonlinear polymers (e.g., star-like, bottlebrush-like, Janus, etc.); conjugated polymers; polymer-based nanocomposites; an array of nanocrystals with precisely controlled dimensions, compositions, architectures, and surface chemistry.

University of New South Wales (UNSW)

Martina Stenzel is an expert in the design of polymer nanoparticles and their interaction with the biological system. Martina Stenzel studied chemistry at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, before completing her PhD in 1999 at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. She is now a Scientia Professor in the School of Chemistry, as well as an ARC Laureate Fellow. She has more than 400 publications on the design of functional polymer nanoparticles for drug delivery applications. Her main interest is the question of how the properties of nanoparticles influence the interaction with the biological environment. She is the editor-in-chief of Materials Horizons and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. Martina is also UNSW Science Deputy-Dean for External Engagement with a focus on industry.