Prof. Jürgen Karl holds a degree in chemical engineering from Technical University of Munich. In 2007 he bacem Full Professor at the Institute for Thermal Engineering, Graz University of Technology. Since 2011 Prof. Karl heads the Chair of Energy Process Engineering at the Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, which is part of the newly founded Energy Campus of Nuremberg (EnCN). As coordinator of several European R&D projects and founder of the start-up company agnion Inc. he was mainly responsible for the development of the Heatpipe Reformer, an innovative indirectly heated steam gasification technology for the synthesis of Second Generation Fuels.

Energetic use of biomass, Combustion and gasification in fluidized beds,Methanation and SOFC fuel cells, Carbon capture and sequestration

Dr. Gokare Aswathanarayana Ravishankar Fellow, Elected 2003 Born in Bangalore, India on 12 February 1954. Educated at Vijaya High School, Bangalore, 1964-68; Vijaya College, Bangalore, 1968-72; Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, 1973-80; B.Sc. 1972; M.Sc. 1975; Ph.D. 1981. Vice-President, R&D (Life Sciences), Dayananda Sagar Institutions, Dr. C.D. Sagar Centre for Life Sciences, Bangalore, 2012 to date. Teaching Assistant, Department of Botany, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Baroda, 1979-80; Crop Plant Physiologist & Head, Agricultural Research Division, M/s Alembic Chemical Company, Baroda, 1980-81; INSA Research Associate, Regional Research Laboratory, Jammu - Tawi, 1981-84; Scientist & Head, Plant Cell Biotechnology Department, CFTRI, Mysore, 1984-2012; Visiting Scientist to Korea Ginseng and Tobacco Research Institute, South Korea, 1984; Visiting Scientist, University of Alabama, Tuskegee, USA, 2000; Visiting Professor: Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Ishikawa, 2004; Kaosiung Medical University, Taiwan, 2012; Ural Federal University, Russia, 2013..

Plant biotechnology, algal biotechnology, food biotechnology, plant tissue and cell culture, secondary metabolites, metabolic engineering, biodiversity utilization, biofuels

Dr. Jianbing Li is a professor in the environmental engineering program at the University of Northern British Columbia in Canada. He obtained his PhD degree from the University of Regina in 2003. He has research interests in environmental remediation, energy recovery from waste materials, environmental modeling and risk assessment, and environmental systems analysis. He has published more than 180 journal and conference papers. He served as a guest editor for three international journals, and acted as a committee member for many international conferences. He also serves as a reviewer for many international journals and a variety of national and international research funding organizations.

He has research interests in environmental remediation, energy recovery from waste materials, environmental modeling and risk assessment, and environmental systems analysis

Evgeny Katz received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Frumkin Institute of Electrochemistry (Moscow), Russian Academy of Sciences, in 1983. He was a senior researcher in the Institute of Photosynthesis (Pushchino), Russian Academy of Sciences, in 1983-1991. In 1992-1993 he performed research at München Technische Universität (Germany) as a Humboldt fellow. Later, in 1993-2006, Dr. Katz was a Research Associate Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 2006 he is Milton Kerker Chaired Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Science, Clarkson University, NY (USA). He has (co)authored over 440 papers in peer-reviewed journals/books with the total citation more than 30,000 (Hirsch-index 84).

His scientific interests are in the broad areas of bioelectronics, biosensors, biofuel cells and biomolecular information processing.

Dr. Jaya Shankar Tumuluru works as a senior research scientist in the Biofuels Department at the Idaho National Laboratory. He is the principle investigator for the Biomass Size Reduction, Drying and Densification project supported by the Bioenergy Technologies Office at the Department of Energy. His research is focused on biomass pre-treatments and densification technologies. Before he came to INL, Dr. Tumuluru worked as a postdoctoral researcher at University College Cork, Ireland; postdoctoral researcher, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; and research associate, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada. His major research areas include biomass densification using pellet mill and briquette press, biomass storage (off-gas measurements and modeling the emission rates), food processing using extrusion technologies, and food storage modeling. Dr. Tumuluru has also worked on experimental data analysis using statistical methods, evolutionary and back propagation algorithms. He received his Ph.D. from the Agricultural and Food Engineering Department at the Indian Institute Technology, Kharagpur, India. He has received numerous honors, including outstanding reviewer for Institute of Chemical Engineers, American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, and INL’s Exceptional Contributions Program Award for Outstanding Achievement in Scientific and Technical Publication.

Feedstock particle mechanics, biomass thermal pretreatments, biomass densification, and bioenergy technologies

Professor Ruan is the Director of Center for Biorefining and Professor of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering Department at University of Minnesota, and Fellow of ASABE. He has published over 400 papers in refereed journals, books, and book chapters, and over 300 meeting papers and other reports, and holds many patents. He is also a top cited author in area of agricultural and biological sciences. He has served as guest editor and/or editorial board member of Bioresource Technology, etc. and an Editor-in-Chief and chairman of the board for International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering.

Agricultural and biological sciences

Teresita Marzialetti completed her PhD in Chemistry from Universidad de Concepción, Chile, and postdoctoral studies at School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. She is an assistant profesor and the director of Catalysis and Biomass Laboratory at School of Engineering at Universidad de Concepción. She has published more than 30 journal and conference papers and has been serving as peer reviewer of many international journal of repute, and holds two patents. Her research interest is biomass conversion and valorization using thermochemical and biochemical pretreatment and processes involving heterogeneous catalysis. She is been also working on simulation and exergoenergetic analysis of biomass conversion processes.

Her research interest is biomass conversion and valorization using thermochemical and biochemical pretreatment and processes involving heterogeneous catalysis

Dr. Abdeen Mustafa Omer (BSc, MSc, PhD) is an Associate Researcher at Energy Research Institute (ERI). He obtained both his PhD degree in the Built Environment and Master of Philosophy degree in Renewable Energy Technologies from the University of Nottingham. He is qualified Mechanical Engineer with a proven track record within the water industry and renewable energy technologies. He has been graduated from University of El Menoufia, Egypt, BSc in Mechanical Engineering. His previous experience involved being a member of the research team at the National Council for Research/Energy Research Institute in Sudan and working director of research and development for National Water Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Sudan. He has been listed in the book WHO’S WHO in the World 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2010. He has published over 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 200 review articles, 7 books and 150 chapters in books.

Renewable energy technologies, energy efficient systems, environment and sustainable development

Dr. Muhammad Farooq is a Researcher at Heriot-Watt University UK in Renewable Energy Engineering with a specific focus on the adsorption and regeneration for Carbon Capture and low-cost Bio-methane production from biogas. He is author of more than 25 Peer Reviewed Research Publications. From 2014-17, he presented research work at various International Conferences. In September 2017, he visited University of Cambridge, UK to attend an International conference funded by UK IBCarb. In April 2017, he was invited as Chair of technical session ''New trends in Biogas Production'' at 3rd International Conference on Biogas Microbiology, held from May 1-3, 2017 in Wageningen, Netherlands. He served as Technical Committee Member of International Conference on Renewable Energy and Conservation (ICREC-2017) held during June 12-14 June, 2017 in Perth, Australia. He is recipient of Travel Grant from UK ADNET to present his research work at International Conference Progress in Biogas held in Stuttgart, Germany from 8-11th March 2017. In October 2016, He was awarded with a Travel Grant by the International scientific committee of ICEEES to present his research results at International Conference on Energy for Environment and Economic Sustainability at Lahore Pakistan. He is recipient of travel grant from UK BBSRC for the oral presentation of his research findings at Biogas Science Conference in Szeged, Hungary held from 21-24th August 2016. In July, he presented his research at AD Network ECR Conference at University of Birmingham, UK supported by BBSRC UK. In June-2016, he attended 4th International Sulics Summer School on CCS Technologies-2016at Sotacarbo Research Center, Carbonia, Italy. In April-2016, he received Neilson Travel Award to attend the International Biomass Conference & Expo (IBCE) as Invited Speaker at Charlotte NC, United States. In Sept- Oct 2015, he visited Zhejiang University Hangzhou, China as Research Exchange Scholar under EU-CO2-TRIP Project funded by Marie Curie Actions IRSES for Clean Coal Energy Generation. In Aug-2015, he presented research findings at International Bio-energy Conference in Valencia Spain. In June-2015, he presented his work at ADBA-2015 held in NEC Birmingham, UK. During 2014, he attended & presented at various conferences in UK including Super-gen Bio-Energy Hub Annual Conference-2014 at Aston Conference Birmingham UK, Energy academy Conference Edinburgh UK and IMPEE Conference Heriot-Watt University, UK. He received UK ESRN Travel award to attend UK Energy Storage Confernce-2014 at University of Warwick UK. He also worked as Volunteer Organizer for Scottish Carbon, Capture and Storage Conference-2014 at Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh, UK.

Renewable Energy Engineering with a specific focus on the adsorption and regeneration for Carbon Capture and low-cost Bio-methane production from biogas

Prof. Octavio Armas graduated as a mechanical engineer at the University of Railway Transport in Moscow, Russia in 1983. From 1985 to 1995 he worked as assistant professor at the Polytechnic University of Havana, Cuba. In 1998 he finished his doctoral thesis at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain) under the supervision of Prof. Francisco Payri at the CMT Motores Térmicos Institute. Currently Prof. Armas works as full professor in thermal machines at the University of Castilla La Mancha (UCLM) at Toledo city (Spain). Likewise, Prof. Armas is the director of both the Research Group in Energy and Environmental processes (GPEM, www.grupogpem.com) and the Institute in research applied to the Aeronautical Industry. Also, he is the coordinator of the Doctoral Program of Sciences and Technologies applied to Industrial Engineering at the UCLM. Prof. Armas, with h index 22, has written more than 75 journal publications registered in Scopus, related to diesel engine operation and efficiency, biofuels, combustion process, pollutant emissions, etc.

Prof. Armas, with index 22, has written more than 75 journal publications registered in Scopus, related to diesel engine operation and efficiency, biofuels, combustion process, pollutant emissions, etc.

Prof. Eduardo Jacob-Lopes is currently associate professor at the Department of Food Technology and Science, Federal University of Santa Maria, Brazil. He graduated with a Masters in Food Engineering in Federal University of Rio Grande, doctorate in Chemical Engineering from State University of Campinas and post-doctoral at State University of Campinas. He has more than 15 years of teaching and research experience. He is a technical and scientific consultant of several companies, agencies and scientific journals. He has 400 publications/communications which include 5 books, 20 book chapters, 75 original research papers, 290 research communications in international and national conferences and has registered 11 patents. His research interest includes environmental biotechnology with emphasis on microalgal biotechnology

His research interest includes environmental biotechnology with emphasis on microalgal biotechnology

Andréia Anschau received her PhD degree in Chemical Engineering in 2014 at State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil. She became professor at Bioprocess Engineering and Biotechnology Department at Federal University of Technology (UTFPR) in 2015. Since 2017 she cordinates the Master Program in Biotechnology at UTFPR. Professor Anschau is currently leading a multidisciplinary team of scientists, working in a broad spectrum of interests, focusing on yeast and microalgae fermentation, bioenergy, biomass and bioprocessing. She is working on the utilization of different waste materials as alternative, cheap and renewable substrates for the production of value added products such as biofuels

She is working on the utilization of different waste materials as alternative, cheap and renewable substrates for the production of value added products such as biofuels.

Dr. Mirosław Kwiatkowski in 2004 obtained Ph.D. degree at the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow, currently he is working as an assistant professor. His published work includes more than 45 papers in reputable international journals and 75 conference proceedings. He is the editor-in-chief International Journal of System Modeling and Simulation (UAE), a member of the twelve editorial board of internationals journals and a regular reviewer in a reputable scientific journals as well as a member of the organizing committees international conferences in Europe, Asia, Australia and United States of America.

Qiang Wang, professor of the Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Professor Wang, Qiang obtained his PhD in the Institute of Botany, CAS in June 2002, and was honored at the same time the "Lady Davis Trust Fellowship" of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel), and worked later in the United States as Post-Doc and Research Associate in the University of Tennessee, the University Of Arkansas at Little Rock and Michigan State University. His lab at IHB-CAS (from 2010) currently focusing on photosynthesis with the model system of Synechocystis PCC6803, algal biofuel and its application in environmental issues.

photosynthesis with the model system of Synechocystis PCC6803, algal biofuel and its application in environmental issues.

Dr Weilan Shao has completed her PhD degree in 1993 from the University of Georgia, USA; she has worked as a distinguished professor of a few universities in China. Her research mission is to develop feasible and economicly effective approaches for renewing bioenergy. Shao’s group have discovered the repressor/operator system coupling glycolysis and fermentation pathways, and the regulation mechanism of thermophilic ethanol fermentation. Dr Shao also invents new techniques for lignocellulase production and modification, including pHsh gene expression system (US patent), in situ gene random mutagenesis (US patent), and gfa selection marker for the bio-safety of gene modification.

Her current research is mainly focused on the metabolic engineering of extreme thermophiles for cellulosic ethanol fermentation, the development of novel gene expression and evolution techniques for an efficient industrial enzyme production, and the exploration and construction of highly active and thermostable enzymes for the biodegradation of lignocelluloses.

G.Q. Chen is a professor of energy and environmental resources at Peking University, China and a Distinguished Adjunct Professor at King Abudulaziz University, Saudi Arabia. With distinguished contributions as marked by around 300 publications in prestigious journals, Prof. Chen has won a series of awards and honors, including Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers Award, Thomson Reuters China Citation Laureate. He served as editor, associate editor or advisory member for 50 international journals.

He served as editor, associate editor or advisory member for 50 international journals.

Dr. Takeshi Sako is professor emeritus at Shizuoka University in Japan. He received his PhD from Tokyo Metropolitan University. He worked on chemical engineering at National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology for 22 years. He became professor at Department of Materials Science and Technology at Shizuoka University in 2000. He was deans of Faculty of Engineering and Graduate School of Integrated Science and Technology from 2013 to 2017. He has worked on the supercritical/subcritical fluid technology for more than 30 years. In particular, he is interested in the application of this technology to the field of energy and earth environment. He has studied the production of many kinds of bio-fuels from waste/unused materials, the recycling of waste plastics and the decomposition of toxic substances using supercritical /subcritical water, supercritical methanol and supercritical carbon dioxide. He received the Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology on “Study of earth environmental protection technology using supercritical/subcritical fluids” in 2011.

He is working on the production of high–quality bio-fuels from refractory organic waste mixtures such as municipal waste and industrial waste using hydrothermal treatment.

Andrea Monti PhD, Full professor in Agronomy and Crop Science. Research field: industrial non-food crops, mainly bioenergy & biorefinery. Head of the Research Group on Industrial Crops (university of Bologna). Presently, he is the general coordinator of the EU-H2020 project: Brazil – Europe Coollaboration on Advanced Lignocellulosic Biofuels (BECOOL, 2017-2021), and local project leader of 4 EU Projects (H2020). Gues editor of 3 special issues in reputed ISI journals. Editor of 4 international books on bioenergy & biorefinery crops. H-index=25.

bioenergy & biorefinery crops

Dr. Hajime Hirao received his BEng and MEng degrees from Kyoto University and his PhD from The University of Tokyo. He underwent his postdoc training at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Emory University, and Kyoto University. Prior to that, he worked for three years on computer-assisted drug design at the Novartis institute in Japan. Before joining City University of Hong Kong, he worked as faculty at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Over the years, he has been interested in computational and theoretical aspects of chemistry, especially chemical reactions. One of the major goals of his research is to figure out how difficult chemical transformations can be achieved using simple catalytic platforms built from earth-abundant elements.

One of the major goals of his research is to figure out how difficult chemical transformations can be achieved using simple catalytic platforms built from earth-abundant elements

Dr. Kaveh Ostad-Ali-Askari is a Ph.D. of Civil Engineering, Postdoctoral Student of Civil Engineering, Department of Water Resources Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran. He collaborates as Editorial Board Membership in more than 45 Journals and as reviewers in more than 30 Journals. Currently, Associate, Editor-in-Chief of of IJREH. He has contributed to more than 195 publications in Journals, Books and Technical Reports. He was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Canadian University Dubai, and American University in Dubai. On the research side, he started a research partnership in 2017 with Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. His interested topics including Groundwater Hydrology, Irrigation and Drainage Engineering, Sustainable Development and Environmental Assessment, Climate and Integrated and Sustainable Water Resource Management, Water System Engineering, Water Resources Planning, Artificial Neural Network and Genetic Algorithm. He has contributed to more than 194 publications in Journals, Books, or as Technical Reports. Currently, he is as Faculty Member of Department of Civil Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Iran.

His interested topics including Groundwater Hydrology, Irrigation and Drainage Engineering, Sustainable Development and Environmental Assessment, Climate and Integrated and Sustainable Water Resource Management, Water System Engineering, Water Resources Planning, Artificial Neural Network and Genetic Algorithm

Dr. Jagriti Narang has completed his PhD at the age of 29 years from MD university, Rohtak, India. and is working as an Assistant professor in Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, India, and has work experience of more than 8 years. She has authored or coauthored 65 research papers in international peer-reviewed journals. She holds seven patents on biosensors and uses of nanotechnology in molecular techniques. She was awarded a silver medal for extraordinary contribution during her PhD. She has also received prestigious award “Shakuntla Amir chand Award “by ICMR. She has also been project investigator and co-project investigator in two projects by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. She has edited one book and 5 chapters in her credits. She is committee member of many international conferences and is member of Material Research Society of India and Society of Biological Chemistry. She is also editor and peer reviewer of many international journals and has presented her papers on several international platforms. Dr. Narang has done extensive work on the fabrication of various biosensors that are used for measuring serum metabolites like triglycerides, cholesterol, glutathione, peroxides, bilirubin, oxalates, lysine, and ascorbic acid. In the area of drug monitoring, she has done extensive work on anti-HIV, anti-epileptic, and anti-diabetic drugs. She has proposed some laboratory models that can be converted into commercial monitoring devices.

Dr. Narang has done extensive work on the fabrication of various biosensors that are used for measuring serum metabolites like triglycerides, cholesterol, glutathione, peroxides, bilirubin, oxalates, lysine, and ascorbic acid. In the area of drug monitoring, she has done extensive work on anti-HIV, anti-epileptic, and anti-diabetic drugs. She has proposed some laboratory models that can be converted into commercial monitoring devices.

Dr. Said Elshahat Abdallah is working as a Professor of Agricultural Process Engineering, Department of Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Egypt. He was born on January 6, 1972. He obtained his Ph. D. degree in Technical Sciences in November 2005 from the Faculty of Design, Don State Technical University, Russia. He prepared many scientific literatures such as Engineering of Food Factories and Dairy Plants, Engineering Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer, introduction to agricultural process engineering, Instrumentation, Properties and Testing of Engineering Materials, Fitting of Curves and Differential Equations and Differentiation & Integration, etc… He published more than thirty research articles in international peerreviewed journals. He supervised, has done and examined about twenty M. Sc. and Ph. D. dissertations. He participated in several either local or international conferences on the topics of Agricultural Process Engineering.He contributed in the attendance of many meetings, workshops and training courses. He was awarded: Food Engineer of the Year Award – 2010; Excellence Award in International Scientific Publication – 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017; Arab Papers Published on Agriculture – 2012; Egypt 25 Foundation Award – 2012; Who's Who in the World – 2013, 2014 and 2015; 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century – 2013; Top 100 Engineers– 2013; International Biographical Center Man of The Year– 2013; Cambridge Certificate for Outstanding Engineering Achievement – 2013 and Cambridge Certificate for Outstanding EducationalAchievement – 2013. He served as: Editor-in-Chief; Associate Editor; Editorial Board Member; Food Expert; Reviewer, etc… in more than five hundred international peer-reviewed journals.

Agricultural Process Engineering; Postharvest Technology; Bioengineering; Food & Dairy Engineering; Agro-Industrial Waste Management; Process and Bioprocess Engineering; Thermal & Non-Thermal Process Engineering; Agricultural Production Engineering; Postharvest operations Engineering; Composting and Vermicomposting Process; Non-Conventional Forages Processing; Farm Wastes Bioconversion; By-Products Recycling Engineering.

Mr. Muhammad Usman, Former Director General of Agricultural Research System, Government of Pakistan who retired from service after a spotless career of about 35 years with senior level experience on research and development of integrated agricultural production particularly biofuels and bioenergy on a sustainable way. Mr. Usman is basically an agricultural scientist with specialization of agricultural, food and biochemistry working on the yield and quality of various products and published several research papers.Mr. Usman is consider as the senior most scientist in the world, always participated in the international conferences as a keynote speech, renowned speaker, organizing committee member as well as moderator of the conferences around the world. Mr. Usman has established “Prominent Agro Based Industries SDN BHD”, “Agro Based Industries and Consultancy SDN BHD” in Malaysia and “Foundation for Rural Development in Pakistan”, with primarily aims to work on integrated agricultural project for Rural Development through improvement in agriculture and consultancy services to the formers at Malaysia.

Mr. Usman is basically an agricultural scientist with specialization of agricultural, food and biochemistry working on the yield and quality of various products and published several research papers.

Prof. Yogesh C. Sharma comleted his Ph.D. (Applied Chemistry) in 1991 from Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India and Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) in 2010. He has published important articles in the area of Biodiesel synthesis and characterization and has seceral highly cited articles to his credit. He has ~ 5000 SCOPUS citations and an h index of 40. He was elected as Fellow, Royal Societyu of Chemistry (FRSC,UK) in 2014 and as Fellow, Biotech. Research Society of India (FBRS). He is editorial board member of several reputed journals and has authored sevaral books.

He has published important articles in the area of Biodiesel synthesis and characterization and has seceral highly cited articles to his credit.

Rajai Atalla, Ph.D., Chemical Engineering and Chemical Physics, University of Delaware. Has 40+ years of experience in research on cellulosics and lignocellulosics. Pioneered application of Raman and Solid State 13C NMR spectroscopy for characterizing molecular organization of celluloses, both in their native states and after modification by traditional industrial processes. His pioneering work led to discovery of the occurrence of native celluloses as composites of the I/alphaand I/beta forms. Served as consultant to many companies in the forest products and cellulosics sectors. Has undertaken research under contract for National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and served as member of working group for US Department of energy. After a period in the private sector, served as Professor of Engineering and Chemical Physics at Institute of Paper Chemistry in Appleton, Wisconsin. In 1989 became Head of Chemistry and Pulping Research at the USDA Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin and Adjunct Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Established Cellulose Sciences International (CSI) in 2007 to undertake research for NREL and develop the CSI process. Well over 200 peer reviewed publications, book chapters and patents. Currently editing proceedings of a symposium on Nano-Cellulosics.

Innovations based on a new process for producing a previously unknown nanoporous form of cellulose; the process is carried out at ambient temperature and pressure. We currently concentrate on two areas. The first is adding value to agricultural residues, making them much more digestible by ruminant animals. The second is enabling enzymatic conversion to monosaccharides for production of biofuels and bio-based chemicals far more rapidly than when the residues are pretreated at elevated temperatures as is common in the majority of current commercial ventures.

Dr. Donald L. Rockwood, President of Florida FGT LLC, has over 30 years of experience on the development and use of Eucalyptus amplifolia, E. grandis, Corymbia torelliana, Populus deltoides, cypress, and slash pine hybrids in Florida and elsewhere. Also Professor Emeritus at the School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, he is actively involved with the genetic improvement of several Short Rotation Woody Crop (SRWC) species, including the commercial release of E. grandis cultivars, and with research on and the development of SRWC systems using these species.

Carlo Perego (Carnate, Milan, Italy, 1954), Director of the Centre for Renewable Energy and Environmental R&D (eni SpA, Istituto Donegani, Novara), has been carrying out research activities in chemical and oil companies for nearly 37 years. Carlo received the laurea in Industrial Chemistry in 1978 from the State University of Milan and a Post-Degree Specialization Certificate in R&D Management at the Bocconi University of Milan. He started working in catalysis during his laurea thesis, with pioneering experiments on the insertion of CO2 in butadiene catalyzed by Pd(0) complexes. Those researches draw the attention of Montedipe SpA , the petrochemical company of Montedison Group, the largest Italian chemical company. So Carlo was hired at the R&D Center of Montedipe in Bollate, when he began his professional career in industrial research and development (1980). During the stay in Montedipe, Carlo contributed to the optimization of several catalytic processes, including the phenol and styrene processes. After a further experience as pilot plant manager in a small chemical company (3V Sigma, 1989), Carlo moved to Eniricerche, the R&D Corporate Company of the Eni Group (1990), as Group Leader for Catalytic Processes and Catalyst Preparation. He was then appointed Manager of the Physical Chemistry Department and in 2005 he became Manager of the R&D Process Technology Department in Eni Refining and Marketing Division. In January 2007 he had the responsibility of setting up and organizing a new R&D group focused on renewable energy and environmental technologies. Since 2008 he is the Director of Eni Renewable Energy and Environmental R&D Center (Novara, Italy). The research studies carried on by Carlo have been the basis for important technologies, which have been industrialized in the petrochemistry and refinery fields. His main technical-scientific discipline is heterogeneous catalysis: in this area, Carlo has led several activities about innovative processes and innovative catalysts, especially for applications like alkylation of aromatic substrates, hydroconversion, valorization of heavy refinery residues, advanced biofuels. These R&D activities in different scientific areas have all the common feature of aiming at technologies, which can be more sustainable in terms of increasing energy efficiency, decreasing the yields of unwanted by-products, ensuring a better use of energy sources. Particularly relevant is the replacement of the old catalysts based on mineral acids with a new generation of zeolite-based catalysts in the processes for the production of important intermediates like cumene and ethyl-benzene. Besides Carlo contributed to the development of the eni/UOP EcofiningTM process for the production of greendiesel from triglycerides. More recently, under the direction of Carlo, the Renewable Energy and Environmental R&D Centre is carring out different reseach programmes devoted to the development of new process and products for the exploitation of solar energy, the transformation of biomass into biofuels, the enviroment protection.

Michael Wild, economist and engineer by education, is active in renewable energies for practically his entire 26 years professional career. He has pioneered Biomass fired district heating systems in Austria and conversion of coal fired systems to biomass in former socialist countries. The first internet based biomass trading platform (ABEX) was started by him in 1999. Until 2010 he led the international biomass trading company EBES creating numerous intercontinental supply chains for many types of biomass from Asia and Northamerica towards Europe and within Asia to Japan. Beside other biomasses he initiated the acceptance of Palm Kernel Shell as energy carrier and implemented the first supply chains from Indonesia to Europe and Japan. From 2007 he took a leading position in torrefaction technology development forming also a consortium with Andritz AG. In 2012 he helped setting up the International Biomass Torrefaction Council IBTC within AEBIOM whose members elected him president. He is actively supporting producers and trading houses developing their trade into Europe acting as their European Sales Manger. Co-founder of Carbon Wealth, a company to “convert atmospheric CO2 into a fuel via Skymining©.

Henrik V. Scheller is a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Adjunct Professor at Department of Plant & Microbial Biology, University of California Berkeley, and Adjunct Professor at Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Copenhagen. He earned his Ph.D. in Plant Biochemistry from The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Copenhagen, Denmark, after completing a degree in biology at University of Copenhagen. Henrik V. Scheller was professor of molecular plant biology at University of Copenhagen until before joining Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to work at the Joint BioEnergy Institute where he is Head of the Feedstocks Division. JBEI is a research center with the task of doing the fundamental research that will enable generation of advanced biofuels from optimized bioenergy plants. Henrik V. Scheller’s research is focused on the biosynthesis and function of plant cell wall polysaccharides. The cell wall has many functions in the growth and development of plants, and in the interactions with the environment, including pathogenic organisms and beneficial microbes such as mycorrhizal fungi and nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Scheller’s research is centered on understanding the biochemistry and regulation of cell wall biosynthesis and on determining the functional role of specific cell wall polymers. He is also engaged in research aimed at engineering plants with improved properties as feedstocks for production of biofuels and bioproducts.

Biosynthesis of the plant cell wall, glycosyltransferases, plant biotechnology.


Dr Malgorzata Slupska has completed PhD at the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics Polish Academy of Sciences at Warsaw, Poland and postdoctoral studies at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and University of California Los Angeles, CA. For over 15 years she worked in the area of biofuels at biotech companies (Diversa and Verenium, San Diego, CA), BP Biofuels (San Diego, CA) and currently she is a Lignocellulosic Research Director at POET (Sioux Falls, SD). Dr. Slupska has published more than 20 scientific papers and coauthored 12 patents and patent applications.

Seema Singh is a distinguished member of the technical staff at the Sandia National Laboratories, CA and director of the biomass pretreatment at the Joint Bioenergy Institute. For the past decade, she has been developing novel pretreatment technologies based on ionic liquids. She has developed ‘hybrid chem-bio’ approaches and ‘syn-bio tools’ for lignin valorization and single cell technologies for in-situ examination of algal oil. She serves as the organizing committee member of the Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals and Asia-Pacific Conference on Ionic Liquid and Green Processes as well as associate editor and editorial board member of Frontiers in Bioenergy and Biofuels, and Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology respectively. She recently edited the book on “Valorization of Lignocellulosic Biomass in a Biorefinery: From Logistics to Environmental and Performance Impact” and contributed book chapters in Ionic Liquids in the Biorefinery Concept: Challenges and Perspectives and Biofuels for Aviation

Bioenergy,Biofuels

Animesh Dutta is an Associate Professor and Director of Bio-renewable Innovation Lab, and Associate Director, Graduate studies with the School of Engineering at the University of Guelph. Dr Dutta is specialized in advanced energy systems and thermo-fluid science with hands-on experience in reactor design and pilot plant operation, design and performance of various tests in laboratory scale and pilot scale units, thermal design and process development. In his career, he has published over 75 peer-reviewed journal papers, 3 book chapters, and has roughly 85 conference publications and reports.

His current research is focussed on thermochemical conversion (gasification, combustion, torrefaction, hydrothermal carbonization and liquefaction) and characterization of agri-residue, biomass, and waste (MSW, Bio-solids) for fuel and energy, and design and optimization of advanced energy systems. He is committed to developing an innovative research program on energy and other value-added products from biomass and waste materials

Dr. Hosseini has earned both his PhD and MS degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Akron, in Ohio, USA. He has also completed an MSE degree in Manufacturing Engineering at UTRGV in Texas, USA, and a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran. Dr. Hosseini has edited book and book chapters, co-invented patents application technologies, and authored multiple peer reviewed research articles. He has served as a key speaker at national and international conferences and meetings and has been actively engaged in technology development. He is a persistent reviewer of leading international journals.

Dr. Hosseini’s research interests include biofuels and bioenergy, bioprocess engineering and development, sustainability, biomanufacturing, bionanotechnology, bio/nanomaterials, smart polymers, and synthesis of nanoparticles for environmental and health applications

Prof. Daniela Thrän studied environmental engineering at the Technical University of Berlin. After completion, she obtained her PhD at the University of Weimar, Germany. Daniela Thrän is an accomplished researcher, having held positions at both the University of Potsdam and Stuttgart. In 2003, she became the Department Head of “Bioenergy Systems” at DBFZ - Deutsches Biomasseforschungszentrum gGmbH (former: IE Leipzig gGmbH). In 2011 she also took the lead of the newly established department „Bioenergy“ at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH (UFZ). Professor Thrän is currently leading a multidisciplinary team of about 50 scientists, working in a broad spectrum of interests, investigating different national and international research projects focusing on areas of; biomass potentials, bioenergy pathways and their assessment, standardisation of solid biofuels material flow management and sustainability assessment. She is the author of more than 100 publications in the bioenergy sector. Since the end of 2011 Daniela Thrän holds the chair „Bioenergy Systems“ at the University of Leipzig. Prof. Thrän is a member of the German Bioeconomy Council of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Energy Council of Saxony (Germany). As well she participates in various working groups, both national, such as the German Institute for Standardization (DIN) and international, such as, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), of the International Energy Agency (IEA Bioenergy Task 40) and European Biofuels Technology Platform (EBTP).

Francisco García-Labiano, Graduate in Chemistry, MsC in Chemical Engineering, completed his Ph.D in 1992 at University of Zaragoza, Spain. He is Scientific Researcher at the Instituto de Carboquímica in Zaragoza, belonging to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). His research has been always close linked to environmental challenges in energy production processes. In fact, he has long experience in the development of clean coal technologies, such as sulfur removal during combustion/gasification processes in fluidized beds. Since 2000 he is involved in the development of the Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) process, one of the most promising technologies within the area of CO2 Capture and Storage (CCS) aiming to reduce global warming. He is author of more than 150 publications in international peer reviewed journals, 3 patents and several book chapters. Special highlight requires the review entitled “Progress in Chemical-Looping Combustion and Reforming technologies” published in 2012. During last years he has been actively engaged in the use of renewable fuels, such as biomass, bioethanol, etc. in Chemical Looping processes (bio-CLC) with the main objective to reach negative CO2 emissions in energy processes. He was recognized as Highly Cited Researcher by Thomson Reuters within engineering area in years 2015 and 2016, which means to be among the top 1% most cited in their specific field over a period of 10 years.

Prof. Sudip Rakshit is a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Bioenergy and Biorefining processes attached to the Biorefining Research Institute and the Department of Chemical Engineering at Lakehead University, Canada. He completed his PhD program from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi India, were a pilot plant for the production of 100 litres of absolute of bioethanol per day was set up in 1987. He subsequently joined the Chemical Engineering faculty of IIT, Madras. In 1995, he joined the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) as a Professor in Food Engineering and Bioprocess Technology. He served at the VP Research for the institute from 2005 to 2012, before moving to Canada. He has supervised more than a 100 graduate students and has more than 120 publications in international peer reviewed journals.

The overall focus of Dr. Rakshit’s present research is in the area of production of value added platform chemicals from lignocellulosic biomass. His research group study the possibility of producing these material from the sugar stream, hemicellulose and cellulose components, obtained by the pretreatment of woody biomass. Studies on the separation and use of high value extractives from the bark is also being assessed. The utilization of the crude glycerol, a byproduct of the biodiesel industry, form the production of bioplastics have yielded some interesting results. The design of such processes which can be integrated into existing plants are assessed for the economics and environmental impacts as they are considered important for economic feasibility.

ELIO SANTACESARIA Achieved Master in Chemistry degree at the University of Pavia, thesis performed under the guidance of the Nobel Prize “Giulio Natta”. Researcher at the Polytechnic of Milan from 1969 until 1986.Full professor of Industrial Chemistry at the University of Naples from 1986 until 2012.He has been the founder of GICI the Italian Group of Colloid and Interphase Science of the Italian Chemical Society and has been the Coordinator of this Group for more than ten years (1985 - 1995). He is a member of the Italian Chemical Society SCI, of the Italian Association of Chemical Engineers (AIDIC), of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and of the International Association of Colloids and Interphase (IACIS) and of IUPAC. He had been organizer of many national and international Congresses, workshops and post-doctoral schools.He has been member of the Scientific Committee of the Industrial Chemistry Division of the Italian Chemical Society for 10 years. He has then been elected President of the Industrial Chemistry Division of the Italian Chemical Society for the period 2004-2006 renowned for the 2007-2009 and member of the Council as Past President in 2010-2012.He has been President of the Council of the Industrial Chemistry Degree Course at the University of Naples from 1994 until 2009. In 2011 he was awarded from Italian Chemical Society with the Gold Medal entitled to the italian chemist “Emanuele Paternò” for the great contribution given to the Industrial Chemistry.In 2016 was awarded the Italian Group of Catalysis of the Italian Chemical Society with the Giacom Fauser plaque and related Conference.He has collaborated with many Italian and foreign chemical industries.He has published more than 250 papers on qualified journals related to subjects of: catalysis, kinetics, mass transfer, reactor design and simulation and separation science. He is coauthor of more than 30 Patents. After the retirement from the University of Naples at the end of 2012 he becomes CEO of the spin-off company Eurochem Engineering srl.

Professor Yulin Deng received his Ph.D. at Manchester University, United Kingdom in 1992. After he worked as a postdoc research fellow at McMaster University in Canada, he was appointed as an assistant professor at Institute of Paper Science and technology (IPST) in 1995, and promoted to associate professor in 1998. He was moved to Georgia institute of Technology in 2003, and promoted as a full professor in 2008. Dr. Deng is a Fellow of the International Academy of Wood Science, and hold a James C. Barber Faculty Fellow position at Georgia Institute of Technology. He received AIChE Chase Award in 2013. He is a member of ACS, AIChE and TAPPI. He is also an associate editor of 3 journals, and serves as the editorial board member for another five journals. He published more than 250 peer reviewed papers covering the areas of biomass, biofuel, fuel cell, nanosceince and nanotechnology, and nanoelectronics.

Nanomaterial synthesis and self‑assembling, Biofuel and biomass materials Sustainable energy: fuel cell and solar cell Polymer Papermaking and paper recycling

Professor Ashwani Kumar MSc (Botany) Gold Medal, Ph.D. (1971) University of Rajasthan. Awarded Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship Germany, Visiting Professorship JSPS Japan, U.K. INSA-DFG Germany. Worked in areas of plant pathology, physiology, renewable sources of energy, biofuel biotechnology, photosynthetic carbon fixation in C3 and C4 plants with support of projects granted by UGC., USDA-ICAR., MNES, CSIR, DST and DBT and FACT. Visited USA, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, UK , Japan, France, Sweden, Spain and Portugal for research. Published around 180 papers in National and International journals. Fellow of various societies FBS, FPSI, FISMPP and FMA. Guided research to 39 students to Ph.D. Consultant of World Bank Project sanctioned to SPRI-HPPI and Biodis Spain. Published 16 books including Plant Tissue Culture A tool in Biotechnology Basics and application and edited book on Fern Biotechnology both by Springer. He also has another 14 books mainly in the field of Biotechnology to his credit. He was awarded V Puri Medal 2008 for Botany and CEE award for excellence in teaching and research 2015.

plant pathology, plant tissue culture and morphogenesis, plant biotechnology, plant physiology, pharmacognostisc and ethnobotany and renewable sources of energy

Prof. (Dr.) Yogender Kumar Yadav received his Ph.D. in Energy Studies from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and at present he is the Director General, Sardar Swaran Singh National Institute of Bio-Energy (an Autonomous Institution of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India), Kapurthala, Punjab (India). Prof. Yadav has been actively engaged in research, teaching, consultancy, administration and management in the field of renewable energy for the last more than two decades.Prof. Yadav had been the Chairman, Energy Forum at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and Associate Editor, Energy for Journal of Agricultural Engineering. Currently he serves on a large number of expert committees and national/international panels dealing with renewable energy. He Chaired the Technical Session of the World Renewable Energy Congress IV at Denver, USA and was the Member of International Steering Committee of World Renewable Energy Forum 2012. Presently, he is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Biofuels and Bioenergy.Prof. Yadav is the recipient of Distinguished Service Award of Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers for ‘Energy in Agriculture’ and has been honoured with the prestigious ‘Excellence Award 2012 for Research and Innovation in recognition of his research in the field of Renewable Energy at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Prof. Yadav has been awarded the World Renewable Energy Network Pioneer Award (WREN Pioneer Award 2014) by the World Renewable Energy Council/ Network for his global contributions in the field of renewable energy and the award was conferred upon him at the World Renewable Energy Congress XIII during August 3-8, 2014 at Kingston University, London, United Kingdom

renewable energy technologies ,Advancements in biofuels and bioenergy research.

Prof. Rajasekhar Balasubramanian has been a faculty member at NUS since 1996. Prior to joining NUS, he worked at the New York State Department of Health and at Brookhaven National Research Laboratory, USA as a scientist. Prof. Bala has broad research experience and interests ranging across: Urban Air Quality, Climate Change Mitigation, Bioenergy, Health Risk Assessment and Urban Sustainable Environment. He has led several multi-national, multi-disciplinary research projects successfully over the years. His research has resulted in more than 200 international journal articles. In recognition of his excellence in research and teaching, Prof. Bala has received a number of research and educator awards.speaker/participant at the Atmospheric Chemistry Colloquium for Emerging Senior Scientists (ACCESS I), MIT, Boston, USA (1991); this selection was made based on the quality and impact of my PhD thesis. Best Paper Award, Tenth Regional IUAPPA Conference, Istanbul, Turkey (1997) Prestigious Publication Award, The Institution of Engineers, Singapore (2001) Best Paper Award, The Health Sciences Authority-National University of Singapore (HSA-NUS) Symposium on Environmental Health (2005) Best Paper Award (Oral Presentation) at the 60th International Scientific Symposium, hosted by the Department of Community, Occupational and Family Medicine (COFM), NUS, 2008. Certificate of Appreciation from the America Chemical Society in recognition of my valuable contributions and dedicated service to the peer review of manuscripts submitted to ACS journals (2012). Certificate of Merit Award, Division of Environmental Chemistry, American Chemical Society (October 2013).

Aerosol Science &Technology,Ambient Air Quality, Atmospheric Kinetics &Photochemistry

Dr. Ajay K. Dalai, P.Eng., FRSC (Canada), FRSC (UK), FEIC, FCIC, FCAE, FAIChE, FIIChE completed his Ph.D in 1990 from University of Saskatchewan, Canada, Chemical Engineering.He has many honours like Fellow, The Chemical Institute of Canada, 2012,Fellow, The American Institute of Chemical Engineers, 2013,Fellow, Royal Society of Canada, 2014,Fellow, The Engineering Institute of Canada, 2011,Petro-Can Young Innovator Award ,1999,apanese Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship, 1999,Kentucky Colonel Award, in recognition of Research Contributions of Gas to Liquid Technologies at the Centre for Applied Energy Research, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA, 2004

The production of fuels and fuel additives from fats and low-grade oils and biomaterials, energy from waste biomass, and liquid fuels from “syngas.”

Dr. S.Gobi Krishnan, aged 40, is an industry expert in Bioenergy and Renewable Energy, particularly in Enhanced Landfill Mining. He has served various regions extensively in bioenergy and renewable energy, particularly Japan, Europe, India and South East Asia. He is experienced in solar PV and all forms of renewable heat generation. He is someone who is able to translate the language of technology spoken by the industry into practical business benefits for all stakeholders in the society. He is currently the Advisory Board Member of the South East Asia Landfill Mining Association, an effort dear to this heart as he seeks to expand the level of awareness in landfill mining and also in doing away with landfills and dump sites in South East Asia. He is the pioneer and industry expert in Enhanced Landfill Mining in South East Asia, and often becomes industry reference in this field. He is also experienced in landfill leachate management, biological waste treatment processes and wastewater residuals treatment

• Plan and coordinate various waste management and recycling projects. • Identify and quantify wastes. • Coordinate the documentation required to label, move, track, and report waste and waste initiatives. • Evaluate waste management options and apply a waste hierarchy model in order to reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, and dispose of waste material. • Conduct research and analytical studies on a variety of waste management programs and issues. • Investigate the life expectancy of consumable products and recommend options for more economical and environmentally friendly materials or processes. • Work with company personnel in developing an appropriate and user-friendly waste management system. • Assist in budget preparation and administration, including determining financial methods, procedures, and costs pertaining to environmental compliance and waste management services. • Provide waste management training to clients and staff.

Dr. Lew Christopher holds a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering and a Ph.D. degree in Biotechnology. He has more than 25 years of industrial and academic experience in the field of industrial biotechnology and bioprocessing of lignocellulosic biomass. He has worked as industrial research scientist and held faculty positions in departments of biotechnology, chemical and biological engineering, and environmental engineering in South Africa and USA. Currently he serves as Director of the Biorefining Research Institute leading an interdisciplinary team of faculty and researchers from several science and engineering departments at Lakehead University in Canada. His research mission is to add value to the global Bioeconomy by applying an integrated biorefinery approach to the development of renewable bioenergy technologies. Dr. Christopher is a member of the editorial board of several international biotechnology journals, advisory boards, and professional societies. He has made over 400 scientific contributions to the field of Biomass Biorefining including 8 patents, 4 books, and over 50 invited lectures delivered in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America.

His research mission is to add value to the global Bioeconomy by applying an integrated biorefinery approach to the development of renewable bioenergy technologies. Dr. Christopher is a member of the editorial board of several international biotechnology journals, advisory boards, and professional societies.

Dr. Weilan Shao holds a Master degree in Plant Disease and a Ph.D. degree in Microbiology. She has participated in the field of the thermophilic degradation and fermentation of lignocellulosic biomass since her PhD study (1990-1993) in the University of Georgia, USA. Dr. Shao has worked as a distinguished professor in Jiangnan University, Nanjing normal University and Jiangsu University in China. Her research mission is to develop feasible and economic effective approaches for renewable bioenergy processing by using molecular biotechnology. Dr. Shao and her group have discovered a series of novel lignocellulases, the key aldehyde dehydrogenase for ethanol formation, the repressor/operator system coupling glycolysis and fermentation pathways, and the regulation mechanism of thermophilic ethanol fermentation. Dr Shao also invents new techniques for industrial enzyme production and modification, which include pHsh gene expression system (US patent), in situ gene random mutagenesis (CN patent; US patent), high production of thermostable laccase (CN patent), soluble expression of aggregation-pron enzymes, and gfa selection marker for the bio-safety of gene transfer in microbes.

Her current research is mainly focused on the metabolic engineering of extreme thermophiles for cellulosic ethanol fermentation, the development of novel gene expression and evolution techniques for an efficient industrial enzyme production, and the exploration and construction of highly active and thermostable enzymes for the biodegradation of lignocelluloses.

Animesh Dutta is an Associate Professor and Director of Bio-renewable Innovation Lab, and Associate Director, Graduate studies with the School of Engineering at the University of Guelph. Previously, he taught at Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand and at Faculty of Agriculture of Dalhousie University, NS. Dr Dutta is specialized in advanced energy systems and thermo-fluid science with hands-on experience in reactor design and pilot plant operation, design and performance of various tests in laboratory scale and pilot scale units, thermal design and process development. Over the last seventeen years, he has been consistently delivering new and innovative ideas in the areas of advanced energy conversion and heat transfer. In his career, he has published over 65 peer-reviewed journal papers, 2 book chapters, and has roughly 85 conference publications and reports. His current research is focussed on thermochemical conversion (gasification, combustion, torrefaction, hydrothermal carbonization and liquefaction) and characterization of agri-residue, biomass, and waste (MSW, Bio-solids) for fuel and energy, and design and optimization of advanced energy systems. He is committed to developing an innovative research program on energy and other value-added products from biomass and waste materials.

His current research is focussed on thermochemical conversion (gasification, combustion, torrefaction, hydrothermal carbonization and liquefaction) and characterization of agri-residue, biomass, and waste (MSW, Bio-solids) for fuel and energy, and design and optimization of advanced energy systems. He is committed to developing an innovative research program on energy and other value-added products from biomass and waste materials.

A senior expert in bioenergy supply chains and in the use of algal and non-food plant systems for the capture of CO2 and production of green chemicals and biofuels. She gained a PhD in plant biochemistry from the University of Durham, then joined Genzyme Biochemicals in protein production before moving into Business Development and Industrial Marketing. She resumed her research career at Imperial College on wood degradation and the biochemistry of polymeric lignin breakdown, then joined the University of Greenwich, where she holds the Chair in Biochemistry in the Faculty of Engineering and Science. She has led international and national research programmes, more recent of which include “The CO2 microalgae biorefinery: D-Factory”, a 10 million Euro FP7-funded project (https://www.d-factoryalgae.eu/)(ongoing); “Macrobiocrude”, (EPSRC-funded) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/projects?ref=EP%2FK014838%2F1(ongoing) ; Non-food bio-oil supply chains (EU-ACP-funded) (http://www.acpnonfood.com/) aimed at capacity building measures in South Africa, Namibia and Ghana to create sustainable, non-food bio-oil supply chains; Ecotec21 (EU-Interreg) http://enterprise.gre.ac.uk/case-studies/glycerol-chp-a-world-first which installed novel, biofuel-fired CHP technology at the University of Greenwich using biooils and glycerol; and Tuning algae for biofuel profitably (NERC, Innovate UK). 90 publications; 2164 citations; h-index 23; i10-index 35.

Current Research Interests: Biorefineries; bioenergy; microalgae and macroalgae; redox enzymes and anti-oxidants

Dr. Richard Sayre (https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardsayre) is currently a Senior Research Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the New Mexico Consortium (NMC). Dr. Sayre’s research interests include; enhancing the efficiency of photosynthesis, algal and plant biotechnology, and nutritional biofortification of crop plants, and molecular control of vector borne diseases. Prior to coming to LANL, Dr. Sayre was a faculty member and later Chairman of the Department of Plant Cellular and Molecular Biology at Ohio State University; served as the first Director of the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St Louis, and became a Senior Research Scientist at LANL/NMC in 2011. Dr. Sayre has directed several large research consortia including: 1) Director of Phase I of the BioCassava Plus Program funded by the Grand Challenges in Global Health Program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 2) Director of the Center for Advanced Biofuel Systems, a Dept. of Energy (DOE) Energy Frontier Research Center focusing on generating advanced biofuels from algae and plants. 3) Scientific Director of the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels, and Bioproducts, the largest DOE-sponsored algal biofuels consortium funded to date; and 4) is currently Director of the US-DOE sponsored PACE (Producing Algae for Energy and Coproducts) targeted algal biomass and bioproducts program.

Plant biotechnology, photosynthesis, plant biochemistry, metabolic engineering, renewable fuels, food security

Prof. Irene M. C. Lo is currently a full professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of Environmental Engineering and Management Program at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). She has been joining HKUST since 1992. Prof. Lo is an elected Academician of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA). She is the first Hong Kong scholar inducted into the EASA. She is an elected Fellow of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (FHKIE), and elected Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (FASCE), She received her Ph.D. degree in Civil (Environmental) Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1992. She is also Adjunct Professor of Tongji University, Tianjin University, Jilin University and Harbin Institute of Technology in China. She had been Visiting Professor of Technical University of Denmark and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Prof. Lo was the recipient of the 2004 ASCE James Croes Medal, the 2007 ASCE Samuel Arnold Greeley Award, the 2008 EWRI Best Practice-Oriented Paper Award, the 2009 ASCE Wesley W Horner Award, and the 2012 ASCE EWRI Best Practice-Oriented Paper Award. Prof. Lo has held 3 Patents, edited 7 technical books, and published over 270 SCI journal articles and conference papers with citation of 5650+ and H-index of 409. Her research areas include magnetic nano-particles and nano-photocatalysts for environmental applications; pollutant migration in soils; food waste and solid waste treatment and management; and remediation technologies for river sediment, contaminated soils and groundwater.

Her research areas include magnetic nano-particles and nano-photocatalysts for environmental applications; pollutant migration in soils; food waste and solid waste treatment and management; and remediation technologies for river sediment, contaminated soils and groundwater.

Prof. Ing. Jana Zabranska, PhD. is a member of the academic staff of the Department of Water Technology and Environmental Engineering in the Faculty of Technology of Environment Protection, University of Chemistry and Technology Prague. She is a supervisor of Master and Doctor Degree students and has lectures on subjects "Anaerobic technology in environmental protection" and "Technology of biogas and biohydrogen production". The main field of the research is anaerobic degradation of organic compounds, activities of anaerobic microbial consortia and technological applications of anaerobic processes in practice. She is engaged in the field of industrial wastewater treatment, anaerobic digestion of different organic substrates, especially focused on anaerobic microorganism's activity, determination of degradability and methane yield from different substrates. She is authored and co-authored 273 scientific papers, 3 technological patents, 6 textbooks and 2 monographs. Prof. Zabranska is a member of IWA (International Water Association), Specialist group of Anaerobic Digestion, Sludge Management, Health Related Water Microbiology, a member of Czech Biogas Association, Czech Water Association, member of the Committee of the Czech Biotechnology Society, editorial board member of Czech journals Energy 21 and Bioprospect.

Currently she is involved in the research of intensification and control of biogas production from agroindustrial materials and biological removal of hydrogensulfide from biogas. The new interest is focused on utilization of stored renewable energy in the form of hydrogen to upgrade biogas to biomethane and biological transformation of carbon dioxide to biomethane.

Dr. Dana Pokorna is Assistant Prof. at the Department of Water Technology and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Technology of Environment Protection, University of Chemistry and Technology Prague. She has lectures on subjects "Biodegradability and Ecotoxicity" and "Technology of biogas and biohydrogen production". Main activities in research area are anaerobic wastewater treatment and sludge stabilization, the anaerobic biodegradability of organic compounds, methods for the determination of anaerobic biomass activity, special analytical methods (gas chromatography and capillary isotachophoresis) for the monitoring of anaerobic metabolism and the anaerobic biodegradability of organic compounds, the removal of hydrogen sulfide from biogas both using sulfur oxidizing bacteria immobilized on biofilter and by autotrophic denitrification combined with the removal of nutrients from wastewater. Currently, she is interested in upgrading biogas to biomethan utilizing stored renewable energy in the form of hydrogen and the biological transformation of CO2 to biomethane. She is the author or co-author of tens of papers and conference presentation on renewable energy and the production and cleaning of biogas. She has participated in solving a number of projects dealing with anaerobic process and biogas production. Dr. Pokorna is the member of International Water Association (IWA) and European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB), the member of Czech Biogas Association and Czech Water Association and the member of the Czech Biotechnology Society Committee.

Main areas of her interest – anaerobic biodegradation of organic substrates, determination of anaerobic biomass activity, analytical determination of byproducts and end products of anaerobic degradation, biogas cleaning (H2S removal), upgrading biogas to biomethan and transformation of CO2 to biomethan.

Inder Singh with a Masters in Organic Chemistry and PhD in combined fields of Organic Chemistry and Pharmacology has been providing custom environment friendly solutions for pharmaceutical industry globally for 35 yrs. and now in the renewable energy sector for 10 yrs. Inder has extensive industry experience in developing new custom molecules, reaction specific catalysts, catalysis, process intensification and in developing continuous processors and downstream product recovery systems. He has successfully developed several manufacturing processes that are used commercially in pharmaceutical industry. He has established, owned and operated SBI Fine Chemicals and SBI BioEnergy for over 18 yrs. in Canada.

Inder has extensive industry experience in developing new custom molecules, reaction specific catalysts, catalysis, process intensification and in developing continuous processors and downstream product recovery systems.

Gordon Huang is currently working as a professor in Environmental systems engineering at University of Regina, Canada. He is also a Canada Research Chair and Fellow at Canadian Academy of Engineering. He is a President of International Society for Environmental Information Sciences, Executive Director of Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability Communities. He completed his Ph.D. at McMaster University, Canada

Waste management, site remediation, and risk assessment, Simulation and optimization of hydrological and environmental systems, Modeling of energy and environmental management systems, Climate modeling, impact assessment, and adaptation planning

Sandra D. Eksioglu is an Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering at Clemson University. Dr. Eksioglu’s research focus has been on the theory and application of operations research tools to problems that arise in the areas of transportation, logistics, and supply chain. She works on developing mathematical models and solution algorithms that help design and manage large scale and complex supply-chains. In particular, she is interested in the application of these tools to the biofuels supply chain. She received the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation in 2011 for her work on biofuels supply chain. She has co-authored over 70 refereed publications. Dr. Eksioglu is an active member of Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), and American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE).

Dr. Eksioglu’s research focus has been on the theory and application of operations research tools to problems that arise in the areas of transportation, logistics, and supply chain. She works on developing mathematical models and solution algorithms that help design and manage large scale and complex supply-chains. In particular, she is interested in the application of these tools to the biofuels supply chain.

Lt Col Monish Ahuja (Retd) is currently the Managing Director of Punjab Renewable Energy Systems Private Limited (PRESPL). He is an alumnus of the prestigious National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla, Pune. He is holding the following degrees in education proficiency: • Post Graduate (M.Tech) in Nuclear Technology from Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in 2006. • Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) in Mechanical Engineering from JNU in 2002, • Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) from JNU in 1994. In a short span with the understanding of the Biomass IPPs and biomass supply chain management, he set up the first of its kind biomass fuel aggregation and supply company Punjab Renewable Energy Systems Private Limited (PRESPL). The company has grown from a start up to INR 18 Crores Turnover Company in 5xYears time and having closed its first round of PE investment from Zurich based Impact PE- responsAbility in 2013. This is a big force multiplier to support biomass IPPs, process industry boilers, cogeneration plants and other industry using biomass as a feedstock.

Lt Col Monish Ahuja (Retd) is known in the Biomass fraternity as a dedicated and knowledgeable leader. He has been advocating the barriers faced by Biomass Project Developers at various seminars and forums and has been instrumental in impressing MNRE (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Sources, India) towards the cause of biomass power plants.

“Morten is Senior Project Manager in Sweco A/S and is managing severals of Sweco’s biogas projects. Morten has more than 20 years years of experience in project management and since 1997 he has managed several large bio-gas projects in both Denmark and abroad. The last 6 years, the emphasis has been on exports, including sales, development, construction and commissioning of the plant in the USA in particular and to some extent Africa. Previously, Morten been stationed in Japan and was responsible for the construction of a biogas plant. Especially the foreign projects have been characterized by high complexity and a large number of stakeholders with consequent heavy demands on coordination and follow-up. As project manager Morten puts great emphasis on good communication and personal presence both internally and in relation to customers and other partners in the project. His work also includes developing advanced separation technologies for separating nutrients from digestate and transforming these into valuable and marketable fertilizers. Morten Jacobsen holds a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Southern Denmark and a degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern Denmark.”

His work also includes developing advanced separation technologies for separating nutrients from digestate and transforming these into valuable and marketable fertilizers.

Dr. Saady received a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering and M.Sc. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Technology (Iraq), and a Ph.D. from the University of Windsor (Canada). He worked as an associate researcher at Dairy and Swine Research and Development Centre, Sherbrooke, Quebec. He received seven prestigious scholarships including three NSERC top scholarships. He published 30+ peer-reviewed articles, two book’s chapters, and served on committees for 6 international conferences in USA, Canada and Europe. He is the Editor-in-Chief for Advances in Recycling & Waste Management Journal published by OMICS International. Dr. Saady is currently a consulting biogas projects development scientist.

Dr. Saady is specialized in developing environmental biotechnologies to bioconvert organic waste biomass into biofuel and bioenergy such as hydrogen, methane, and electricity using wet and dry anaerobic digestion. Microbial fuel cell and bioelectrochemical technology. Lignocellulose hydrolysis. Biodegradation and fate of recalcitrant organic compounds and emerging contaminants. Identification and evaluation of on-farm clean and renewable technologies. Biofiltration of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in livestock industry waste gases. Development of psychrophilic microbial processes.

Jay J. Cheng is a Professor of Bioprocessing and Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University, USA and Adjunct Professor at Peking University-Shenzhen Graduate School, China. He graduated from Jiangxi Institute of Technology (now Nanchang University) in China with BS in Chemical Engineering in 1982, St. Cyril & Methodius University in Macedonia with MS in Biological Engineering in 1987, and University of Cincinnati in USA with PhD in Environmental Engineering in 1996. He was a Fulbright Scholar at University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy, Sofia, Bulgaria in 2005/2006. Dr. Cheng’s research has been focused on wastewater treatment and bioenergy production processes. His research effort has resulted in publications of a book, over 80 articles in refereed scientific journals, and more than 80 papers in national and international technical conferences. Dr. Cheng is among the most cited authors in the areas of Bioenergy and Environmental Engineering. He has been invited to present over 60 key-note speeches and seminars in China, Europe, and North and South Americas.

His research maily focuse in the areas of Bioenergy and Environmental Engineering. His research effort has resulted in publications of a book, over 80 articles in refereed scientific journals, and more than 80 papers in national and international technical conferences

Dr. J.P. Paredes-Sánchez is a lecturer in the Department of Energy at the University of Oviedo, Spain. He received his PhD in Energy Engineering in 2010, at the University of Oviedo (Spain), and has been associated with national and international research projects at the Oviedo Higher Technical School of Mining and Engineering since 2007. He is the author or co-author of tens of papers and conferences on renewable energy and energy efficiency. He has published books about university education and energy sources. He is also involved in European programs for updating renewable energy research and higher education.

Research focus has been on the theory and application in the combination of conventional and non-conventional energy and Modelling of Biomass Energy Systems (BES), with a background in bioenergy research and hybridization techniques using energy sources.

Nedim Saracoglu, Ph.D., is professor, the chair of Forest Management Department at the forestry faculty, vice dean of forestry faculty and the director of Renewable Energy Research Centre of Bartın University, Bartın, Turkey. His current research interests are forest biomass, energy forestry, forest yield. He has published more than 70 papers in reputed journals.

His current research interests are forest biomass, energy forestry, forest yield. He has published more than 70 papers in reputed journals.

Dr. Rintu Banerjee is an professor at Agricultural & Food Engineering Department at Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. Her Research Areas maily focuses on Food Biotechnology, Bioenergy, Enzymology & its Biotechnological applications, Protein Chemistry. She has achieved many Awards & Honours. She has done many International and National publications in the Journals. She has gone through scientific research areas and some scientific projects too.

Her Research Areas maily focuses on Food Biotechnology, Bioenergy, Enzymology & its Biotechnological applications, Protein Chemistry.

Dr. Lew Christopher holds a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering and a Ph.D. degree in Biotechnology. He has more than 25 years of industrial and academic experience in the field of industrial biotechnology and bioprocessing of lignocellulosic biomass. He has worked as industrial research scientist and held faculty positions in departments of biotechnology, chemical and biological engineering, and environmental engineering in South Africa and USA. Currently he serves as Director of the Biorefining Research Institute leading an interdisciplinary team of faculty and researchers from several science and engineering departments at Lakehead University in Canada. His research mission is to add value to the global Bioeconomy by applying an integrated biorefinery approach to the development of renewable energy technologies. Dr. Christopher is a member of the editorial board of several international biotechnology journals, advisory boards, and professional societies. He has made over 400 scientific contributions to the field of Biomass Biorefining including 8 patents, 4 books, and over 50 invited lectures delivered in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America.

Dr. Silvio Silvério da Silva is the Associate Professor and Head at Department of Biotechnology, Engineering School of Lorena, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. He completed his doctorate in Biochemical and Pharmaceutical Technology from the University of São Paulo (USP) and Gesellschaft Fuer Biotechnologishe Forshung (GBF), Germany in 1994. Prof. Silva offers the consulting services to various scientific journals, ad hoc institutions and biotechnological industries. He has published more than 150 papers in peer reviewed international journals and presented more than 455 papers in international conference proceedings. He has also 18 book chapters to his credit. He has edit 3 international books and recorded two patents on technological processes for xylitol production. Prof. Silva has guided, 04 post-doc, 11 doctoral students, 26 masters’ dissertations and 58 scientific initiation students in the area of Applied Microbiology, Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology. He has successfully completed 19 research projects funded by Brazilian Government and private funding agencies, including International Cooperative Projects. He got recognized some important Awards on biotechnology field. His area of research is Micro-biotechnology harnessing since last 25 years specifically on the potential of lignocellulosic feedstock for the production of Xylitol and bioethanol. For the exchange of scientific knowledge on the various aspects of xylitol production, he has visited several international research institutions of several countries.

Prof. Qu graduated from Shandong University in 1974, and got his Ph.D. there in 1986. He became a research assistant in 1981, and became full professor in 1993 in Shandong University. During those years, he had been a visiting scholar in Osaka University, The University of Tokyo, Lund University and Kyoto University. His main research interest is biodegradation and bioconversion of lignocellulosics by microorganisms. With cooperation of his colleagues, more than 300 papers and 10 books were published in his research fields. He was elected as Vice President of Chinese Society for Microbiology in 2006 and Advisory Board Member of Asia Federation of Biotechnology in 2010.

Prof. (Dr.) Yogender Kumar Yadav received his Ph.D. in Energy Studies from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and at present he is the Director General, Sardar Swaran Singh National Institute of Bio-Energy (an Autonomous Institution of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India), Kapurthala, Punjab (India). Prof. Yadav has been actively engaged in research, teaching, consultancy, administration and management in the field of renewable energy for the last more than two decades. He developed and taught renewable energy courses to undergraduate and postgraduate students at CCS Haryana Agricultural University Hisar (India) and established the Department of Energy at Tezpur University, Assam (India) offering postgraduate programme in Renewable Energy. During his career he has made significant contributions to the advancement of renewable energy technologies and has more than 100 research publications in the international/national journals of repute and conferences in addition to writing teaching text on Renewable Energy. Prof. Yadav has been the Project Coordinator of Haryana State for the Government of India sponsored project on Integrated Rural Energy Programme (IREP) for meeting out rural energy needs through optimum mix of conventional and renewable energy sources with special emphasis on biomass and bio-energy. He has completed several research projects including the ICAR All India Coordinated Research Project on Renewable Energy Sources as Principal Investigator. Prof. Yadav had been the Chairman, Energy Forum at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and Associate Editor, Energy for Journal of Agricultural Engineering. Currently he serves on a large number of expert committees and national/international panels dealing with renewable energy. He Chaired the Technical Session of the World Renewable Energy Congress IV at Denver, USA and was the Member of International Steering Committee of World Renewable Energy Forum 2012. Presently, he is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Biofuels and Bioenergy. Prof. Yadav is the recipient of Distinguished Service Award of Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers for ‘Energy in Agriculture’ and has been honoured with the prestigious ‘Excellence Award 2012 for Research and Innovation in recognition of his research in the field of Renewable Energy at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Recently, Prof. Yadav has been awarded the World Renewable Energy Pioneer Award (WREN Pioneer Award 2014) by the World Renewable Energy Council/ Network for his global contributions in the field of renewable energy and the award was conferred upon him at the World Renewable Energy Congress XIII during August 3-8, 2014 at Kingston University, London, United Kingdom.

Prof. Praveen Kumar Ramanujam is currently is working as Head of the Department in Department of Biotechnology, Arunai Engineering College, Tiruvannamalai, Tamilnadu, India. He has published 18 research papers in renowned journals and 1 book. He was the chair for 1st International Conference on Bioenergy, Environment and Sustainable Technologies (BEST2013) and organized various national level symposiums and conferences. He is also the chair for 2nd International Conference on Bioenergy, Environment and Sustainable Technologies (BEST2015) which is going to be held during 28-31 January 2015. He served as International Scientific Advisory Committee member in “The 2012 Asian Biohydrogen and Bioproducts Symposium (ABBS)” conducted by Chongqing University, on November 9-12, 2012 in Chongqing, China. He has visited various countries including USA, Australia, China, Italy & Bangladesh to attend various conferences. He has chaired sessions and delivered invited talks in various International conferences which include “World Renewable Energy Congress – Australia 2013” and “International Conference on Advances in Biotechnology and Bioinformatics organized by Dr. DY Patil University– ICABB2013”. He had done provisional registration for patent for his work on “Production of Paper from Algae”. He is a life member in various professional societies which includes Biotech Research Society of India (BRSI), Indian Institute of Chemical Engineering (IICHE), International Forum on Industrial Bioprocesses (IFIBiop), Biogas Forum of India (BigFin), Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE), Engineers Without Borders, India (EWBIndia).Currently he is serving as Management council member in Biotech Research Society of India

She obtained a Master on Environmental Science in 2005 by the Universidad Jaime I of Castellón. In 2009, she got her PhD with European Mention in Microbiology at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid with a thesis work entitled “Bioethanol production from wheat straw: strategies for process integration”. During her PhD studies she was visiting student at the Technical University of Denmark (Lyngby, Dinamarca) and at Chalmers University of Technology (Gothenburg, Sweden) where she worked with xylose fermenting yeasts optimizing its utilization for bioethanol production as well as improving its tolerance to inhibitors by evolutionary engineering. After her PhD, she worked as a Postdoctoral project assistant for almost two years at CIEMAT in the Biofuels Unit. From March 2011 to February 2013 she worked as Postdoctoral Researcher in the Industrial Biotechnology Group at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden where she evaluated and developed xylose fermenting yeast strains to further improve sugar consumption capacity, robustness and inhibitor tolerance. At Chalmers, she also supervised Master Thesis and gave lectures in PhD courses. She has been working in the bioethanol field since 2005. She has studied different configuration processes, optimized process conditions and done studies on yeast physiology, adaptation and propagation. She has participated in European and National R&D projects and she has presented the obtained results in International and National Conferences in different posters as well as oral presentations. Dr. Tomás-Pejó is co-author of more than 30 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and co-inventor of 2 patents. She is part of the Editorial Advisory Board of the open access journal “Bioethanol” and acts as reviewer of international journals.

Dr. Foster Agblevor is currently the Utah Science Technology and Research (USTAR) endowed Professor of Biological Engineering at Utah State University (USU), Logan UT and Director of USTAR Bioenergy Center, Utah State University. He is also Adjunct Professor of Biological Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA. He received Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry from the University of Toronto. He did postdoctoral work at the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, University of Hawaii, Manoa Campus, Honolulu, HI. Prior to joining USU in 2011, Dr Agblevor was Professor of Biological Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA. He was also a Senior Chemical Engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Co. before joining Virginia Tech. Some of his awards and recognitions include the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Excellence in Basic Research Award, the Virginia Tech College of Engineering Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research. US Department of Energy Special Research Award. His research involves the thermochemical and biochemical conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals. He is currently working on the fractional catalytic pyrolysis of biomass to produce biochar, chemicals, and biogasoline.

Thermochemical and biochemical conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals & fractional catalytic pyrolysis of biomass to produce biochar, chemicals, and biogasoline.

Dr. Saady received a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering and M.Sc. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Technology (Iraq), and a Ph.D. from the University of Windsor (Canada). He worked as an associate researcher at Dairy and Swine Research and Development Centre, Sherbrooke, Quebec. He received seven prestigious scholarships including three NSERC top scholarships. He published 30+ peer-reviewed articles, two book’s chapters, and served on committees for 6 international conferences in USA, Canada and Europe. He is the Editor-in-Chief for Advances in Recycling & Waste Management Journal published by OMICS International. Dr. Saady is currently a consulting biogas projects development scientist.

Dr. Saady is specialized in developing environmental biotechnologies to bioconvert organic waste biomass into biofuel and bioenergy such as hydrogen, methane, and electricity using wet and dry anaerobic digestion. Microbial fuel cell and bioelectrochemical technology. Lignocellulose hydrolysis. Biodegradation and fate of recalcitrant organic compounds and emerging contaminants. Identification and evaluation of on-farm clean and renewable technologies. Biofiltration of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in livestock industry waste gases. Development of psychrophilic microbial processes.

Dr. Simmons joined Sandia National Laboratories (Livermore, CA, www.energy.sandia.gov) in 2001 as a Senior Member of the Technical Staff, serving as a member of the Materials Chemistry Department. He was promoted to Manager of the Energy Systems Department in 2006. The primary focus of the department was the development of novel materials-based solutions to meet the nation’s growing energy demands. In 2007, he was one of the principal co-investigators of the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI, www.jbei.org), a ten year, $259M DOE funded project tasked with the development and realization of next-generation biofuels produced from non-food crops. He is currently serving as the Chief Science and Technology Officer and the Vice-President of the Deconstruction Division at JBEI, where he leads a team of 41 researchers working on advanced methods of liberating fermentable sugars from lignocellulosic biomass. He is also the Senior Manager of the Advanced Biomanufacturing Group at Sandia and serves as the Laboratory Relationship Manager for the Biomass Program. He has over 250 publications, book chapters, and patents. His work has been featured in the New York Times, BBC, the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, Fast Company, and the KQED televised science program Quest.

With a background in biofuel cells, nanophotonic materials, micro- and nanofluidics, desalination, biomineralization and enzyme engineering, Blake Simmons brings a wealth of research experience to the Deconstruction Division. Simmons has been responsible for overseeing the development of more energy-efficient and cost-effective methods to achieve the first step in bioenergy production: deconstructing biomass into fermentable sugars. Deconstruction researchers are developing various strategies for affecting these goals, including identifying microbes that have evolved to naturally break down biomass within a community, which become sources for efficient enzyme cocktails that could be used in the biomanufacturing process. In addition, scientists have developed new techniques, such as a one-pot ionic liquid pretreatment procedure that will reduce waste and cost, and another that does not require the use of expensive enzyme additives for pre-treating biomass and breaking it down into fuel sugars.

Dr. Lew Christopher holds a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering and a Ph.D. degree in Biotechnology. He has more than 25 years of industrial and academic experience in the field of industrial biotechnology and bioprocessing of lignocellulosic biomass. He has worked as industrial research scientist and held faculty positions in departments of biotechnology, chemical and biological engineering, and environmental engineering in South Africa and USA. Currently he serves as Director of the Biorefining Research Institute leading an interdisciplinary team of faculty and researchers from several science and engineering departments at Lakehead University in Canada. His research mission is to add value to the global Bioeconomy by applying an integrated biorefinery approach to the development of renewable bioenergy technologies. Dr. Christopher is a member of the editorial board of several international biotechnology journals, advisory boards, and professional societies. He has made over 400 scientific contributions to the field of Biomass Biorefining including 8 patents, 4 books, and over 50 invited lectures delivered in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America.

His research mission is to add value to the global Bioeconomy by applying an integrated biorefinery approach to the development of renewable bioenergy technologies. Dr. Christopher is a member of the editorial board of several international biotechnology journals, advisory boards, and professional societies.

Dr. Janzhong Sun, is a Director of Biofuels Institute of Jiangsu University, China. He is also an Distinguished Professor, Graduate faculty for Ph.D. students. He has served his role as Vice dean, School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, China. Also an Adjunct professor, Dept. of Biological Systems Engineering, Washington State University, USA. Also Vice president, China Energy Association, P. R. China. Also Standing executive committee, China Energy and Environmental Technology Association.

1. Nature-inspired Technology for Biomass Conversion Interested in biomimetic/nature-inspired technologies from wood-feeding animals (e.g. termites, cow) or other biological conversion systems for efficient biomass conversion towards high value-added biorefinery products; exploring valuable extremophile bacteria and gut symbionts identified from wood-feeding animals for efficient biomass conversion, novel biomass pretreatment technology, and the breakthrough technology in bioreactor designs with biomimetic processing. 2. Grassy Energy Crops and Cultivation Technology Interested in cultivar development (cross breeding/polyploidy breeding) for energy crops, such as Miscanthus, Pennisetum Purpureum and hybrid Pennisetum; Genetic transformation of grassy energy plants with exogenous thermophilic lignocellulosic enzyme genes; Key techniques of high-value added products from agricultural residues; Development of salt-resistant grassy energy crops and their resistance mechanism; Plant endophytes and their industrial applications as microbial fertilizers. 3. Gene Engineering/Enzymatic Engineering Interested in screening novel gene sequences for biomass degradation; Cloning and sequence optimization of thermophilic lignocellulose enzyme genes and their high-efficiency expression; Non-rational design and in situ directed evolution technology and its applications in high-throughput screening of mutant genes; Refining pHsh-heat shock expression system and its application; Developing biological safety high-density fermentation technology for high enzymes production. 4. Environmental Bio-electrochemistry Interested in the mechanism of extracellular electron transfer and its manipulation, microbial fuel cell and its energy harvesting technology from organic pollutants, and biodegradation of emerging new pollutants, bio-sensing environmental monitoring. 5. Bio-based Materials and Fiber Composites Interested in developing advanced functional bio-based materials, including eco-friendly lignocellulose/polymer composites, thermal insulation lignocellulose composite foams, cellulose-based materials for energy storage, anti-bacteria, and adsorption, lignocellulose hydrogels, functional nano-lignocellulose particles, 3D printing materials developed from biomass and other advanced bio-based materials.

Dr. Souza is a Professor at the Institute of Chemistry, University of São Paulo where she leads research on sugarcane genomics, biotechnology and bioinformatics. Dr. Glaucia Souza is the President of FAPESP Bioenergy Program (BIOEN). BIOEN aims at articulating public and private R&D, in academic and industrial laboratories, to advance and apply knowledge in fields related to bioenergy. Research ranges from biomass production and processing to biofuel technologies, biorefineries and sustainability. Dr. Souza led the SCOPE Bioenergy & Sustainability project, a global assessment of current status and latest developments on bioenergy production and use to produce policy recommendations (http://bioenfapesp.org).

Areas of Expertise: Functional Genomics, Sugarcane, Biotechnology

Sandra D. Eksioglu is an Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering at Clemson University. Dr. Eksioglu’s research focus has been on the theory and application of operations research tools to problems that arise in the areas of transportation, logistics, and supply chain. She works on developing mathematical models and solution algorithms that help design and manage large scale and complex supply-chains. In particular, she is interested in the application of these tools to the biofuels supply chain. She received the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation in 2011 for her work on biofuels supply chain. She has co-authored over 70 refereed publications. Dr. Eksioglu is an active member of Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), and American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE).

Dr. Eksioglu’s research focus has been on the theory and application of operations research tools to problems that arise in the areas of transportation, logistics, and supply chain. She works on developing mathematical models and solution algorithms that help design and manage large scale and complex supply-chains. In particular, she is interested in the application of these tools to the biofuels supply chain.

Dr. P Shanmugam is employed as Senior Principal Scientist (Scientist -“F”) in the Environmental Engineering Department of Central Leather Research Institute (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research), Adyar Chennai.20 India, leading a team of Scientists/ Researchers and carrying out research in the field of sequential production of bio-diesel, bioethanol, bio-hydrogen and biomethane from fat and protein rich solid and liquid wastes as a “Biorefinery” through enzymatic transesterification, solventogenesis, hydrogenesis and methanogenesis respectively as an enzymatic biorefinery for CDM, high Carbon offsetting, and for better environmental protection. He has demonstrated many large scale onsite biogas plants producing power and fertilizer from leather, slaughter house, wholesale vegetable market complex waste and municipal organic solid wastes, which can be viewed in his web site www.clri.org/WriteReadData/Biodata/PaShanmugam.htm . Shanmugam did his Ph.D. on Hydrogen and methane generation from the phase separated anaerobic co-digestion of leather fleshing with MSW from Public Health and Environmental Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds, United Kingdom on Commonwealth Fellowship after his M.S.,Degree from Civil / Environmental Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Chennai, India and M.Sc. Degee in Environmental Sciences, (Specialization on Industrial Pollution and control) from Bishop Heber College, Bharathidasan University, Trichirappalli, Tamil Nadu. India. His core Professional responsibilities are to lead the bioenergy research ream and to deliver lectures in Wastewater Engineering and treatment and solid waste management for Leather industries to B.Tech and M. Tech. Environmental Engineering and Leather Technology students for Anna University, Chennai.

Submerged Anaerobic Membrane separation technologies for water and waste water treatment for zero liquid and solid discharge. Bio-refinery producing biodiesel, bio-ethanol, biohydrogen and biomethane from Industrial and municipal organic solid and liquid wastes for Zero liquid Discharge, power generation (Waste into Wealth) and green house gas emission reduction. Design, erection, commission, execution, operation maintenance and troubleshooting assessment of large scale and pilot scale biohydrogen and methane plants (UASB and CSTR reactors. Tracer residence time distribution, rheology and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling detecting short circuiting and active/ dead zone predictions of anaerobic CSTRs Atmospheric air pollution dispersion modeling and photochemical smog formation studies Environmental Impact Assessment, Environmental Management Plan and QMS.

Dr. J.P. Paredes-Sánchez is a lecturer in the Department of Energy at the University of Oviedo, Spain. He received his PhD in Energy Engineering in 2010, at the University of Oviedo (Spain), and has been associated with national and international research projects at the Oviedo Higher Technical School of Mining and Engineering since 2007. He is the author or co-author of tens of papers and conferences on renewable energy and energy efficiency. He has published books about university education and energy sources. He is also involved in European programs for updating renewable energy research and higher education.

Research focus has been on the theory and application in the combination of conventional and non-conventional energy and Modelling of Biomass Energy Systems (BES), with a background in bioenergy research and hybridization techniques using energy sources.

DR.Mukesh Tulsidas Pandya, a Professor In Microbiology(Retired), Department Of Microbiology – Jai Hind College, Mumbai. He did his PhD From Bombay in Microbiology in 1983. He did his M. Sc. By Research From Bombay in Microbiology in 1975.He did his B.Sc. HONS From Bombay in Microbiology & Chemistry in 1972. He has a teaching experience of 37 years. He has published many papers in National and International journal and also conducted many workshops.

• Development of bacterial cultures for treatment of Industrial Wastes containing Hydrocarbons , Phenols , Nitrogenous Compounds , Straight and Branched Chain Amines , Amides Caprolactum , Mineral Oils, Sugars, bulk drugs, Cresols, Paracresidine etc. • Management of Re-circulatory systems and control of Microbial Fouling of Heat Exchangers. • Control of Micro-organisms in Environment in food and pharmaceutical industries. • Inhibition of Nitrification Using Plant Seed Extract to increase the availability of nitrogen in soil after addition of nitrogenous fertiliser. • Studies on Effect of Ammoniacal Nitrogen Containing Effluent on Soil Flora. • Sulphate Reducing Bacteria their cultivation and Control in Oil Drilling Operations and in other Industrial Process. • Studies on Microbial Contamination of Swimming Pool water and Its Control. • Studies on Bacterial Contamination during manufacture of bottled water /mineral Water. • Bioremediation of Natural water bodies like lakes. • Development of Bioremediation products for Solid waste management. • Hospital Acquired Infection in Hospital Environment and it’s control. • Eco-friendly Disinfectant formulations. • Sewage treatment and management. • Anaerobic treatment programmes. • Micro-algae an alternative to coal as Energy source.

Dr. Rintu Banerjee is an professor at Agricultural & Food Engineering Department at Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. Her Research Areas maily focuses on Food Biotechnology, Bioenergy, Enzymology & its Biotechnological applications, Protein Chemistry. She has achieved many Awards & Honours. She has done many International and National publications in the Journals. She has gone through scientific research areas and some scientific projects too.

Her Research Areas maily focuses on Food Biotechnology, Bioenergy, Enzymology & its Biotechnological applications, Protein Chemistry.

Dr. Mohammed Nasim, Outstanding scientist did his Ph.D. from Moscow State University, Moscow in 1991. Presently he is the Director of Defence Institute of Bioenergy Research (DIBER), DRDO, India. He has developed various alternative source of materials like Nanophotovoltaic Materials from group II-VI (CdTe, CdSe) & I-III-VI (CuInGaSe2, CuInGaS2) Semiconductor for Electronic and Solar Cell Applications and LED. He also carried out research work for storage of solar energy using salt hydrates. Under his leadership, a technology model for production of biodiesel from Jatropha plant has been developed. This model involves a comprehensive approach to utilize all waste parts of Jatropha to make technology cost effective. He has over 50 research publications in the Journals of National and International repute, 45 papers presented in the National and International Seminars. 5 Patents and 5 technical reports are also in his credit. Dr. Nasim attended and presented papers in various International Conferences at UK, Brazil, Poland, USSR (Kiev-Ukraine, Riga, Irkutsk) and also visited few countries i.e. Germany, Holland, Belgium, Czechoslovakia and Saudi Arabia.

R&D on bio-energy and biofuel for defence use, Bio resource conservation and crop improvement including biotechnological approach, Performance enhancing Bio-products from Himalayan Flora.

Animesh Dutta is an Associate Professor and Director of Bio-renewable Innovation Lab, and Associate Director, Graduate studies with the School of Engineering at the University of Guelph. Previously, he taught at Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand and at Faculty of Agriculture of Dalhousie University, NS. Dr Dutta is specialized in advanced energy systems and thermo-fluid science with hands-on experience in reactor design and pilot plant operation, design and performance of various tests in laboratory scale and pilot scale units, thermal design and process development. Over the last seventeen years, he has been consistently delivering new and innovative ideas in the areas of advanced energy conversion and heat transfer. In his career, he has published over 65 peer-reviewed journal papers, 2 book chapters, and has roughly 85 conference publications and reports. His current research is focussed on thermochemical conversion (gasification, combustion, torrefaction, hydrothermal carbonization and liquefaction) and characterization of agri-residue, biomass, and waste (MSW, Bio-solids) for fuel and energy, and design and optimization of advanced energy systems. He is committed to developing an innovative research program on energy and other value-added products from biomass and waste materials.

His current research is focussed on thermochemical conversion (gasification, combustion, torrefaction, hydrothermal carbonization and liquefaction) and characterization of agri-residue, biomass, and waste (MSW, Bio-solids) for fuel and energy, and design and optimization of advanced energy systems. He is committed to developing an innovative research program on energy and other value-added products from biomass and waste materials.

Nicola M. Pugno was born in 1972 in Pavia, Italy and is married and has three babies. He holds a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Theoretical Physics, as well as a Ph.D. in Fracture Mechanics and a Ph.D. in Biology. He is a Full Professor of Solid and Structural Mechanics at the University of Trento, Italy and there Founder and Head of the Laboratory of Bio-Inspired and Graphene Nanomechanics (previous Associate Professor, Founder and Head of the Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Nanomechanics “Giuseppe Maria Pugno”, at the Politecnico di Torino, Italy). He is the Scientific Responsible of Graphene Nanocomposites (within the Graphene Flagship) at the Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy and Full Professor of Materials Science at the Queen Mary University of London, London, UK. He has published about 260 International Journal (Int. J.) papers on Solid-, Structural-, Fracture-, Bio- and Nano-Mechanics in leading international journals (including Nature, Nature Materials and Nature Communications) mainly on nanotubes and graphene and bio-inspired nanomaterials (e.g. mimicking limpet teeth for strength, spider silk for toughness, gecko foot for smart adhesion, lotus leaf for self-cleaning, bone for self-healing, etc.). He is a Reviewer for about 100 Int. J. and is in the Editorial Board of about 40 Int. J., including Academic Editor of PlosOne and Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group) as well as Editor-in-Chief of Bio-Inspired Materials and Frontiers in Materials - Mechanics. NMP has received 4 grants from the European Research Council: the 2011 ERC Starting Grant (at the Consolidator level), in 2013 both the two ERC Proof of Concept assigned to Italy and in 2015 a third ERC Proof of Concept.

He is a Full Professor of Solid and Structural Mechanics at the University of Trento, Italy

Dr.Stephan Leisner have been working in the biodiesel industry since 2005. He have been involved in building up the largest biodiesel plant in Austria and I am now working for Bio Oil Group, which is dedicated to producing biodiesel based on 100pc waste feedstocks such as used cooking oil. So far he worked on six production sites with different technologies and a total capacity of 350,000 t/yr . His main expertise and experience lie in using difficult waste feedstocks and producing double counting eligible products for blending companies and mineral oil firms.

His main expertise and experience lie in using difficult waste feedstocks and producing double counting eligible products for blending companies and mineral oil firms.

Dr. Rob Mitchell is a Research Agronomist with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service Grain, Forage and Bioenergy Research Unit in Lincoln, Nebraska. He is the Coordinator of the USDA Central-East Regional Biomass Research Center. Dr. Mitchell is a Fellow in the Crop Science Society of America and a Fellow in the American Society of Agronomy. In 2000, he was named the American Association of State Colleges of Agriculture and Renewable Resources National Outstanding Teacher. He has authored or co-authored more than 200 refereed journal publications, book chapters, proceedings, popular articles, cultivar releases and extension publications, and given more than 120 invited presentations.

All aspects of establishment, management, harvest, storage, and sustainability of perennial grasses for bioenergy and forage production in the Great Plains and Midwest, USA.

Dr. REX B. DEMAFELIS, is a Vice Chancellor for Research and Extension & Professor 10, Chemical Engineering Department, College of Engineering and Agro-industrial Technology, University of the Philippines Los Banos, College, Laguna. He completed his Doctor in Engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan. He did his MSChE in 1990 from University of the Philippines Diliman. He did his BSChE (Cum laude) in 1984 from University of San Agustin, Iloilo City. Awards : 2014 UPLB Outstanding Senior Researcher in Natural Sciences, UPLB,2014 Alumni Achievement Awardee in Science and Technology, University of San Agustin Alumni Association (USAAA), 2013 Outstanding Professional of the Year Award, Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), 2013 Outstanding Chemical Engineer of the Philippines Award, Philippine Institute of Chemical Engineers, 2011 University of the Philippines Alumni Association (UPAA) Outstanding Alumni in Chemical Engineering

Plant, process and equipment design Design of Microbial Film Bioreactor for Industry, Physico-Chemical Methods of Purification and Recycling of Distillery Slops, Design, Fabrication, and Testing of Chemical Process Equipment, Design, Fabrication, and Testing of Countercurrent Mixed Flow Condenser, Feasibility Study for the Establishment of a Commercial Sweet Sorghum Plantation and a Sweet Sorghum Syrup Processing Plant in the Philippines.

Professor Wyman has devoted most of his career to leading advancement of technology for conversion of cellulosic biomass to ethanol and other products. In the fall of 2005, he joined the University of California at Riverside as a Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering and the Ford Motor Company Chair in Environmental Engineering with a research focus on pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, and dehydration of cellulosic biomass to reactive intermediates for biological or catalytic conversion into fuels and chemicals. Before joining UCR, he was the Paul E. and Joan H. Queneau Distinguished Professor in Environmental Engineering Design at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. Dr. Wyman recently founded Vertimass LLC that is devoted to commercialization of novel catalytic technology for simple one-step conversion of ethanol to fungible gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel blend stocks. Dr. Wyman is also cofounder and former Chief Development Officer and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for Mascoma Corporation, a startup focused on advanced technology for biomass conversion to ethanol and other products. Dr. Wyman’s diverse career also includes holding major leadership roles focused mostly on biomass conversion over a 17 year period with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), as well as management positions at Badger Engineers and BC International, a biomass startup. He has contributed over 155 peer-reviewed papers, 25 book chapters, many edited volumes, over 250 presentations many of which were invited, about 25 technical reports, and 21 patents. He edited a recent book on aqueous pretreatment of cellulosic biomass to which he also contributed several chapters as well as a previous cellulosic ethanol book. Other honors received include Fellow in the American Association for Advancement of Science, Tang Lecturer at the University of Massachusetts, and CD Scott Award for the Annual Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals. In addition to his role as a founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Biotechnology for Biofuels, Wyman is on the editorial board of several other technical journals and the board of directors and advisors for several organizations and institutions.

Professor Wyman’s UCR research focuses on conversion of cellulosic biomass to fuels and chemicals to address critical issues in the release of greenhouse gases, sustainable energy production, and strategic and economic vulnerability. In particular, our research targets aqueous phase processing (APP) of abundant, non-food cellulosic biomass (e.g., energy crops such as poplar hardwood and switchgrass and agricultural residues such as corn stover) into commodity products including ethanol for use as a transportation fuel.

DORA FOTI is Associate Professor of Structural Engineering at the Polytechnic of Bari. She has given courses in Structural Engineering, Elements of Earthquake Engineering, Design of Bridges for Civil Engineering, Construction Engineering. She has given lectures and seminars in numerous training courses as well as at universities and research institutes both in Italy and outside Italy. She is the author of over 150 scientific publications in the field of Structural Engineering and Materials, where she developed mainly the issues related to the seismic behavior of structures, dynamic identification of historical masonry buildings and innovative composite materials. She is coordinator of several national and international scientific projects.

developing the themes of passive protection of structures, gruond-structure interaction effects, fiber-reinforced structures, identification of existing structures.

Silvano Vergura received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Politecnico di Bari, Italy, in 1999 and 2003, respectively. From 2004, he is Tenured Assistant Professor in Politecnico di Bari, where he is currently teaching "Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering". His main research interests concern the monitoring of renewable energy sources. He has devoted particular attention to the energy performance analysis of photovoltaic plants, nonlinear systems, and smart cities. He served as a member of the International Program Committee of several international Conferences and Symposia. He served as reviewer of 20+ international journal. He is author or co-author of 70+ printed international publications. He has a patent on the ageing of PV modules and he has designed several softwares. Other information on www.silvanovergura.it

Modeling of Renewable Energy Systems (RES), Analysis of SmartGrids (SG), monitoring of energy performaces of RES, Big data management in RES, Analysis, modelling and simulations of power electronics circuits, Descriptive and inferential statistics of electrical data, Synthesis of electrical circuit.

At present, Dr. David Serrano is the Director of the IMDEA Energy Institute and Full Professor of Chemical Engineering at Rey Juan Carlos University. He is also Head of the Thermochemical Processes Unit at IMDEA Energy. He received his Ph.D. from Complutense University of Madrid (1990) awarded with the Extraordinary Mention. He has been Visiting Associated in the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH, 1991) and in the California University of Santa Barbara (2006). He was appointed as Associate Professor at Complutense University of Madrid (1990-1999), and subsequently at Rey Juan Carlos University. In the latter, he was appointed as Full Professor (2002) and was in charge of different management and academic positions: Coordinator of the Environmental Sciences Area (1999-2001), Vice-rector for Research and Technological Innovation (2001-2002) and Head of the Chemical and Environmental Technology Department (2002-2007). His teaching activity has been focused on subjects related to Chemical Engineering, Environmental Engineering and Energy Engineering in a number of degrees, masters and Ph.D. courses. He has participated in about 50 research projects funded by both public and private institutions, with a significant number of collaborations established with the industrial sector. Currently, he is coordinator of the FP7 EU CASCATBEL project, aimed to the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into advanced biofuels through catalytic routes. He has been author of about 150 publications in scientific journals. Likewise, he has been author of more than 200 communications to congresses and scientific meetings, of 5 patents and of 4 books. He has been supervisor of 19 Ph.D. theses. He has been member of the Executive Board of the ACENET network (ERA-NET for Applied Catalysis Research in Europe) and of the “Círculo de Innovación en Tecnologías Medioambientales y Energía” (CITME). He is member of the Scientific Committee of CIESOL (Almería, Spain) and of the German Biomass Research Centre (Leipzig, Germany), as well as of different scientific associations. He has been member of the scientific committee of several journals and of a number of scientific workshops and congresses. In 2011 he was Chairman of the 6th edition of the International Symposium on Feedstock Recycling of Plastics (ISFR2011, Toledo, Spain).

Development of novel zeolitic and mesostructured materials, synthesis of hierarchical zeolites, catalytic applications of zeolites in petrochemistry, fine chemistry reactions catalysed by ordered mesoporous materials, chemical recycling of plastic wastes, production of biofuels and chemicals from different types of biomass, hydrogen production free of GHG emissions and CO2 valorization.

Professor Xuefeng Lu received his Ph.D. degree at University of New Mexico in 2005 and did his Postdoc research at Stanford University during 2005 to 2008. Dr. Lu currently is the Deputy Director-General of the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) and the Director of Key Laboratory of Biofuels, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Dr. Lu is leading microbial metabolic engineering research of the CAS-QIBEBT and two major research areas of his group are including: (1) Photosynthetic production of biofuels and biochemicals in genetically engineered cyanobacteria; (2) Genetic engineering and omics- study of Aspergillus terreus for itaconic acid production

Photosynthetic production of biofuels and biochemicals in genetically engineered cyanobacteria & Genetic engineering and omics study of Aspergillus terreus for itaconic acid production.

Anthony Bridgwater is Professor of Chemical Engineering at Aston University in Birmingham UK. He has worked at Aston University for most of his professional career and is currently director of the European Bioenergy Research Institute. He has a world-wide research portfolio focussing on fast pyrolysis as a key technology in thermal biomass conversion for power, heat, biofuels and biorefineries. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and a Fellow of the Institute of Energy. He was technical Director of the UK Flagship SUPERGEN Bioenergy programmes for 8½ years until the end of 2011. In addition he has led and coordinated nine major EC research and development projects in bioenergy and has an active current involvement in six further research and development projects. He has attracted funding from national research funding councils in Canada, Holland, Norway and the USA. He has been responsible for raising over £28 million during his research career. He formed and led the IEA Bioenergy Pyrolysis Task – PyNe from 1994 to 2008 with parallel European networks on pyrolysis, gasification and combustion which included the EC sponsored ThermoNet and ThermalNet networks. He was awarded the following: • The European Johannes Linneborn Prize in 2007 for “Outstanding contributions to bioenergy.” • The North American Don Klass Award in September 2009 for “Excellence in Thermochemical Biomass Conversion.” • The Aston University Chancellor’s medal in July 2010 for “outstanding service to the University.” • Green Leader in the West Midlands in 2011 in recognition of individuals who are having a positive environmental impact in helping the West Midlands achieve its vision for a low carbon economy. • UK Environmental Capital Peterborough Clean Energy Award in 2012 to recognise outstanding contributions to the development, implementation and promotion of clean energy technologies.

Thermal conversion of biomass for production of fuels and chemicals , Second generation biofuel technologies.

Dr. Lew Christopher holds a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering and a Ph.D. degree in Biotechnology & Biochemical Engineering. He has more than 20 years of industrial and academic experience in the field of industrial biotechnology and bioprocessing of lignocellulosic biomass. He worked as industrial research scientist and held faculty positions in departments of biotechnology, chemical and biological engineering, and environmental engineering in South Africa and USA. Currently he also served as Director of the Center for Bioprocessing Research & Development at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology lead a team of over 130 researchers from 15 departments at 2 universities in South Dakota, USA. His research mission is to add value to the national and global bioeconomy by applying an integrated biorefinery approach for the development of renewable energy technologies. Dr. Christopher is a member of the editorial board of several international biotechnology journals, advisory boards, and professional societies. He has over 400 contributions that include 8 patents, 4 books, 80 peer-reviewed publications, and over 290 presentations and invited lectures delivered in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia.

Industrial biotechnology and bioprocessing of lignocellulosic biomass

Dr. Foster Agblevor is currently the Utah Science Technology and Research (USTAR) endowed Professor of Biological Engineering at Utah State University (USU), Logan UT and Director of USTAR Bioenergy Center, Utah State University. He is also Adjunct Professor of Biological Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA. He received Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry from the University of Toronto. He did postdoctoral work at the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, University of Hawaii, Manoa Campus, Honolulu, HI. Prior to joining USU in 2011, Dr Agblevor was Professor of Biological Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA. He was also a Senior Chemical Engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Co. before joining Virginia Tech. Some of his awards and recognitions include the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Excellence in Basic Research Award, the Virginia Tech College of Engineering Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research. US Department of Energy Special Research Award. His research involves the thermochemical and biochemical conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals. He is currently working on the fractional catalytic pyrolysis of biomass to produce biochar, chemicals, and biogasoline.

Thermochemical and biochemical conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals & fractional catalytic pyrolysis of biomass to produce biochar, chemicals, and biogasoline.

Professor. Daniela Thrän is Head of the Department of Bioenergy Systems at the German Biomass Research Center (DBFZ) and Head of the Department “Bioenergy” at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ). She is a graduate Diplom-Engineer for environmental technologies from the Technical University of Berlin and did her PhD at the University of Weimar. Her doctoral-thesis dealt with “Material Flow Account in rural areas”. Since 2011 she holds the professorial chair bioenergy systems at the Institute for Infrastructure and Resources Management, University of Leipzig. Further she is responsible for the coordination and management of national and international research projects for governmental, industrial and nongovernmental organisations in her leadership role as head of the department bioenergy systems at DBFZ and the department bioenergy at UFZ. Her work focuses on resource analysis on biomass, standardisation of solid biofuels, assessment of biomass technologies and trade, sustainability aspects and system integration of biomass and bioenergy, and development of market implementation strategies and support schemes for bioenergy. Furthermore she is member of working groups at ISO, CEN, VDI, DIN and European technology platform for biofuels. She has a long term work experience with over 100 publications in the biomass field.

Biomass & Bioenergy

Dr. Frank Rosillo Calle has done PhD in Biological Sciences and Policy, in the year 1985 from University of Aston, He has been working in the area of biomass for energy for more than 30 years. His areas of interests are: Biomass resource assessment, biomass energy (production, conversion and use, biofuels), agriculture, biofuels and food security implications. He has published about 100 research articles in the respective area. He is also the editorial board member and advisor of various scientific journals.He has worked on EU funded Projects on Biomass Energy since early 1990s. He also acted as Consultant in biomass energy for over 30 years which include Rockefeller Foundation’s Global Environmental Leadership Programme 1991-1992, BUN, FAO, The Beijer Institute/SEI, UNDPCSD, Shell International, WEC, OTA of the US Congress, DTI, SOPAC-South Pacific Applied Geo-science Commission, etc.He also acted as Coordinator of a British Council/CESPES project in Brazil- Kings College London (KCL)/BUN, 1996-1999, Coordinator of British Council, KCL- Jos University, Nigeria, Higher Education Exchange, 1999-2002. He has been UK Representative of the IEA Bioenergy Task 40 from 2004 to 2012. He has taught biomass energy-related subjects to PhD and MSc level at Universities of Campinas and Manaus, Brazil, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonbury, Bangkok, Thailand; and Basque Country (Bilbao), Oviedo and Vigo, Spain.

Biomass resource assessment, biomass energy (production, conversion and use, biofuels), agriculture, biofuels and food security implications

Dr. Blake Simmons joined Sandia National Laboratories in 2001 as a Senior Member of the Technical Staff, serving as a member of the Materials Chemistry Department. He participated on and led a variety of projects, including the development of cleavable surfactants, enzyme engineering for biofuel cells, microfluidics, and the synthesis of silicate nanomaterials. He was promoted to Manager of the Energy Systems Department in 2006. The primary focus of the department was the development of novel materials-based solutions to meet the nation’s growing energy demands. He is one of the principal co-investigators of the Joint BioEnergy Institute, a $259M, ten-year DOE funded project tasked with the development and realization of next-generation biofuels produced from non-food crops. He is currently serving as the Chief Science and Technology Officer and Vice-President of the Deconstruction Division at JBEI, where he leads a team of 43 researchers working on advanced methods of liberating fermentable sugars and lignin from lignocellulosic biomass. He is also the Senior Manager of Biofuels and Biomaterials Science and Technology at Sandia, where he also serves as the Biomass Program Manager. He has over 220 publications, book chapters, and patents. His work has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the KQED televised science program quest.

Biofuel cells, nanophotonic materials, microfluidics, nanofluidics, desalination, biomineralization and enzyme engineering. Most recently, he has been studying enzymes isolated from extremophile organisms that could be applied to the deconstruction of lignocellulosic biomass into biofuel material.

Adam Lee holds a BA in Natural Sciences and PhD in surface science and catalysis from the University of Cambridge, and was appointed a Lecturer in Physical Chemistry at the University of Hull in 1997. After moving to the University of York and promotion to Senior Lecturer, he was appointed Professor of Physical Chemistry within the Cardiff Catalysis Institute at Cardiff University in 2009, and subsequently joint Chair of Sustainable Chemical Synthesis at the University of Warwick and Monash University. He was recently appointed Professor of Sustainable Chemistry in the European Bioenergy Research Institute, Aston University, where he holds an EPSRC Leadership Fellowship in “Nanoengineered Materials for Clean Catalytic Technologies”. Adam was awarded the 2000 CR Burch Prize by the British Vacuum Council, the 2004 Fonda-Fasella Prize of the Elettra synchrotron, the 2011 McBain Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Society of Chemical Industry, and 2012 Beilby Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, IOM3 and Society of Chemical Industry for outstanding contributions in the field of heterogeneous catalysis and surface science. His research spans heterogeneous catalysis, green chemistry and synchrotron science, in which he has authored over 140 articles (h-index = 33), with particular focus on the rational design of functional materials for sustainable chemical processes and energy production. Adam is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Associate Fellow of the IChemE, chair of the international spectroscopy peer review panel of the Diamond Light Source, and member of the international catalysis peer review panel of the Elettra Synchrotron.

Transformation of renewable and waste biomass into valuable fuels and chemicals.

Edward A. Bayer is a professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel. In his early work, he helped in development of avidin and streptavidin-biotin system as a general tool in the biological sciences. He is co-discoverer of the multi-enzyme cellulosome concept and has organized and chaired Gordon Research Conferences on this subject. He has also pioneered the development of designer cellulosomes for research and biotechnological applications. He has authored over 350 articles and reviews in these fields, is editor or serves on editorial boards of several journals in the field of biotechnology, on the scientific advisory board of the DOE BioEnergy Science Center (BESC), and was elected to Fellowship of both the American Academy of Microbiology and the European Academy of Microbiology. His interests focus on the structural and functional consequences of protein-protein, protein-carbohydrate and protein-ligand interactions, protein engineering, synthetic biology, nanobiotechnology, microbial and enzymatic degradation of plant biomass and biomass-to-biofuels processing.

Structural and functional consequences of protein-protein, protein-carbohydrate and protein-ligand interactions, protein engineering, synthetic biology, nanobiotechnology, microbial and enzymatic degradation of plant biomass and biomass to biofuels processing.

Dr. Philip T. Pienkos earned his BS in Honors Biology at the University of Illinois and his Ph.D, in Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin. He has nearly 30 years of biotechnology experience in the pharmaceutical, chemical and energy sectors. He is a co-founder of two companies: Celgene, an established biotech/pharma company, and Molecular Logix, a case study for technology-rich/funding-poor biotech startup. He joined NREL in 2007 as a section supervisor and now holds the title of Principal Group Manager for the Bioprocess R&D Group in the National Bioenergy Center. His group is involved in various aspects of strain development, process integration, compositional analysis, catalytic upgrading, and molecular modeling for advanced biofuels based on a wide variety of feedstocks including lignocellulosic biomass, algal biomass and methane. In addition to his line management responsibilities, he is also the Algal Biofuels Platform Lead for the National Bioenergy Center at NREL and serves as lead for a number of projects that are relevant to this proposal, including the BETO funded Lipid Catalysis Project and the ARPA-E funded Biological Gas to Liquid Project (part of the REMOTE Program). He is part of a team of algae experts from NREL and Sandia National Laboratories who worked with the Department of Energy to organize National Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap Workshop held in December, 2008 and was a contributor to the National Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap document, published in May, 2010. Philip is a founding member of the Algae Biomass Organization and has served as a member of the board of directors for that organization from 2008 to 2013. He is currently on the board of directors of the Algae Foundation. He was named in Biofuels Digest’s list of the top 100 people in biofuels for four running years.

Algae Biofuels,Biological toxicity characterization and mitigation,Biological transformations Advanced biomass deconstruction Feedstock process interface Zymohydrocarbon fuels Techno-economic modeling Biomass characterization Productivity modeling

Dr. Mark Nimlos received B.S in chemistry from University of Massachusetts, Boston in 1981 and Ph.D in Chemical Physics from University of Colorado, Boulder in 1986.Currently he is a Principal Scientist in the National Bioenergy Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). He has more than 25 years of experience in the design and management of complex, multiparty biomass-related research programs and projects, with a focus on thermochemical conversion research. Dr. Nimlos has served as lead scientist and manager on numerous projects funded by the Department of Energy and by private industry. His responsibilities have included DOE reporting, financial tracking and management, staff and subcontractor direction, and coordination of efforts by partner organizations. His areas of expertise are chemical and physical processes in thermochemical biomass conversion, including chemical kinetics and molecular modeling. He has authored or co-authored nearly 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers/book chapters.

Chemical and physical processes in thermochemical biomass conversion, including chemical kinetics and molecular modeling.

Luis Puchades Rufino was born in 1980 in Valencia (Spain). He is an Agricultural engineer and currently the managing director of Ludan renewable energy and biogas operation Spain. He was director of the Spanish branch of Biogas Nord AG (Germany), a German listed company (BG8:) and one of the pioneers and largest biogas companies in the world, from 2006 to 2009. In 2010 He founded a company called Biovic to run agricultural businesses (corn, elephant grass), trading of raw materials and waste management. He had been involved in the development, design, construction and operation of more than 40 biogas projects. His areas of interest includes conversion of waste to energy, waste to food and waste to fertilizers. He also have more than 20 publications and research articles .

Biogas and waste management.

Prof. Praveen Kumar Ramanujam is currently is working as Head of the Department in Department of Biotechnology, Arunai Engineering College, Tiruvannamalai, Tamilnadu, India. He has published 18 research papers in renowned journals and 1 book. He was the chair for 1st International Conference on Bioenergy, Environment and Sustainable Technologies (BEST2013) and organized various national level symposiums and conferences. He is also the chair for 2nd International Conference on Bioenergy, Environment and Sustainable Technologies (BEST2015) which is going to be held during 28-31 January 2015. He served as International Scientific Advisory Committee member in “The 2012 Asian Biohydrogen and Bioproducts Symposium (ABBS)” conducted by Chongqing University, on November 9-12, 2012 in Chongqing, China. He has visited various countries including USA, Australia, China, Italy & Bangladesh to attend various conferences. He has chaired sessions and delivered invited talks in various International conferences which include “World Renewable Energy Congress – Australia 2013” and “International Conference on Advances in Biotechnology and Bioinformatics organized by Dr. DY Patil University– ICABB2013”. He had done provisional registration for patent for his work on “Production of Paper from Algae”. He is a life member in various professional societies which includes Biotech Research Society of India (BRSI), Indian Institute of Chemical Engineering (IICHE), International Forum on Industrial Bioprocesses (IFIBiop), Biogas Forum of India (BigFin), Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE), Engineers Without Borders, India (EWBIndia).Currently he is serving as Management council member in Biotech Research Society of India

Renewable energy from biomass and municipal waste.

Dr. BHARATHIRAJA has 11 years of academic teaching experience. He has published 30 research papers in the field of Biofuels, Bioproducts and Environmental Engineering. .He is a Life Member in ISTE, IIChE, BIOGAS INDIA FORUM (IITD),BRSI and has guided more than 40 undergraduate students in their projects.

Biofuels, Bioproducts, Environmental Engineering.

Dr. Abd El-Latif Hesham is Associate Professor of Microbial Genetics and Environmental Meta-Genome Biotechnology at Assiut University, Egypt. He graduated and got his M.Sc from Genetics department, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University, Egypt and his PhD degree from Chinese academy of Sciences in Microbial Genetics and Environmental Meta-Genome Biotechnology. He awarded postdoctoral studies from CAS-TWAS. He expert in molecular biological techniques, including Clone library, RFLP and gene sequencing, phylogenetic analysis, florescent in situ hybridization (FISH), PCR-DGGE, MPN-PCR, reverse transcriptase PCR , and real time PCR (RT-PCR). He has published about 40 papers in reputed journals and serving as an editor in chief, editorial board member and reviewer of many international reputed journals.

Microbial Genetics, Environmental Meta-genome Biotechnology and Renewable Biofuel Production.