Professor Mattheos (Mat) Santamouris
University of New South Wales, Australia

Mat Santamouris is the Anita Lawrence Professor of High-Performance Architecture in the University of New South Wales in Australia. He is a past a professor at the University of Athens, Greece and visiting Professor at Metropolitan University of London, Tokyo Polytechnic University, Bolzano University, Brunel University and National University of Singapore. He served as President of the National Center of Renewable Energy and Energy Savings of Greece. He is Editor in Chief of the journal Energy and Buildings, Past Editor in Chief of the Journal of Advances Building Energy Research, Associate Editor of the Solar Energy Journal and actual or past Member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Solar Energy, Journal of Buildings and Environment, Journal of Sustainable Energy, Journal of Low Carbon Technologies, Journal of Open Construction and Building Technology, Sustainable Cities and Society and the Journal of Ventilation. He is editor and author of 15 international books on topics related to heat island, solar energy and energy conservation in buildings published by Earthscan, Springer, etc.

He has been the scientific coordinator of many international research projects and, until  early 2025, author of over 460 scientific papers published in peer reviewed international scientific journals as well as reviewer of research projects in 15 countries including USA, UK, France, Germany, Canada, and Sweden.

Prof. Julian Blanco (Industrial Engineer by Seville Univ., 1985 and PhD by the Univ. of Almeria, 2003) has 39 years of experience working in different sectors. He has worked at the PSA (Plataforma Solar de Almeria, international reference center concerning R&D on Concentrating Solar Thermal –CST- technologies) since 1990 and he has been involved in 26 EU and 18 National R&D+i projects (respectively coordinating 7 and 3) related to the development of solar energy and water-related technologies (public calls). From 2018 until 2024 he was the Director of PSA. Author of 1 book, co-author of 10 books, and 24 chapters in others.

Co-author of 5 patents. He has also co-authored more than 90 publications in indexed international journals until early 2025, as well as many articles in technical journals and contributions to International Congresses and Symposia. Honorary/guest editor of Books/Journals/Conference Proceedings 5 times, giving over 80 invited talks (around 20 keynotes) and participating in more than 50 international courses. Among other appointments, he has been a visiting Professor at King Saud University (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) and a member of international Advisory Committees in centers and organizations from Chile, Argentina, Mexico and Tunisia. In addition to Spain, he has developed projects and professional activities in 32 additional world countries.

Christos Christofi holds a Bachelor’s degree in geology from Rutgers State University, NJ, USA, a Master’s degree in Environmental Science (on the adsorption of heavy metals on iron oxyhydroxides) from New Jersey Institute of Technology, NJ, USA and a PhD in Energy Environment and Atmospheric Science from the Cyprus Institute. His PhD thesis dealt with the development of hydrogeological descriptions of observed water types from Troodos fractured aquifer based on hydrogeochemistry and isotope hydrology. In 1999, he started his professional career as a geologist in the mining industry. In 2001, he joined the Cyprus Geological Survey Department where he is currently the head of hydrogeology and drilling.

Dr Christofi has over two decades of experience in the fields of earth sciences and hydrogeology with special interest on applied research, groundwater prospecting and protection, hydrochemistry and isotope hydrology. He also participates in a number of technical and scientific committees pertaining to groundwater management and protection.

Enrica De Cian is full professor in Environmental Economics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Before joining Ca' Foscari, she was senior researcher at Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) and scientist at CMCC Foundation – Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici. Her research focuses on the global impacts of climate change on the economy and households. She combines different disciplines, specifically environmental economics, climate science, microeconomics.

At the moment her work focuses on households and firms' adaptation to climate change in the context of the energy transition, with a focus on energy habits as a mean to respond to weather shocks and adjust to climate conditions.

Gilles Flamant is an internationally recognized expert in solar concentrating technology who holds 10 patents, has authored or co-authored over 350 peer reviewed publications in international scientific journals, authored 10 book chapters and one book, and served as Editor in Chief of the ASME Journal of Solar Energy Engineering. At CNRS, he has directed solar research since 1989, driving the development of volumetric and particle solar receivers, thermal energy storage solutions, solar fuels, high temperature reactors and solar thermochemistry. He led major solar research programs over the last 15 years, in particular he coordinated four European projects (FP7, H2020 and HE).

He is the chairman of SolarPACES ExCo (IEA TCP) since 2022. He obtained his engineering degree in 1975 at ENSCP (now Chimie-Paristech), his PhD in 1978 at Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse and his Doctorat es-Sciences at the Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse in 1985.

Dr. Steven Griffiths is Professor and Vice Chancellor for Research at the American University of Sharjah (AUS). Prior to joining AUS, he served as Senior Vice President for Research and Development (R&D) and Professor of Practice at the Khalifa University of Science and Technology (KU), where he designed, implemented and led the university’s research functions when the university was formed in 2017 through the merger of the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Petroleum Institute and the Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research. As Professor, Dr. Griffiths continues his frequently cited work on energy technology development and adoption within a sociotechnical systems context.

He is Associate Editor of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (Elsevier), Associate Editor of Energy Strategy Reviews (Elsevier), Associate Editor of Carbon Neutral Technologies (Elsevier), and Editorial Board member Smart Energy (Elsevier). He further is a non-resident Fellow of the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines, a leading Institute focused on energy, natural resource and environmental policy. Dr. Griffiths holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Prof. Isaac A. Meir is a Professor at the Civil and Environmental Engineering Dept., Faculty of Engineering Sciences (since 2018); and Desert Architecture & Urban Planning Unit (since 1986), J. Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), Israel. Affiliated also to the BGU Energy and Sustainability Centre, and the School for Sustainability and Climate Change. His research interests include sustainable design in arid zones; Post Occupancy Evaluation; Indoor Environment Quality; Life Cycle Energy Analysis; Zero Energy Settlements; energy and tall buildings. He participates in the design of environmentally conscious, experimental projects in deserts, and he is a consultant to the Israel Ministries of Construction and Housing; Energy Water and Infrastructures; Israel Land Administration; and Standards Institute of Israel.

He heads multidisciplinary teams focusing on green technologies and sustainable development. He is also a recipient of 12 national and international awards, including the Israel Green Building Council Award for Leadership in Green Building (2016), and an Excelling Course Award (with others) for a MOOC on Environmental Protection and Sustainability offered on edX since 2021, attended by over 50,000 students worldwide.

Professor Brian Norton
President, European Sustainable Energy Innovation Alliance; Vice President, European Academies Scientific Advisory Council

Professor Brian Norton PhD DSc DUniv(h.c.) FIAE MRIA is Emeritus Professor of Solar Energy Applications at TU Dublin, President of the European Sustainable Energy Innovation Alliance and a Vice-President of the European Academies Science Advisory Council. His research is on the applications of solar energy, particularly in the context of buildings. It has led to innovations in photovoltaics, glazing, daylighting devices and solar water and air-heating. He is particularly associated with conceiving and developing the use of phase change materials to cool photovoltaics. His honours include an Honorary Doctorate from Universite de Technologie de Troyes, France, Fellowship of the Irish Academy of Engineering, Honorary Membership of the Daylight Academy, and Honorary Fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers.

He is Visiting Professor at several universities internationally, supervised over sixty doctorates and his research outputs had received until early 2025 over 17,000 citations with an h-index of 67. Professor Norton was Head of Energy Research at Tyndall National Institute, a Research Professor at University College Cork and Professor of Solar Energy Applications at TU Dublin. He was formally President of (what is now) Technological University Dublin for sixteen years and prior to that Dean of Engineering at Ulster University.

Professor Alan Mark Pollard’s research over the past 35 years has encompassed the application of the physical sciences, particularly chemistry, within archaeology, and has included a wide range of topics. He is a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Member of the Oriental Ceramic Society.

Dr. Anastasia Drandaki is the Curator of the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Collection at the Benaki Museum, Athens. She has organized exhibitions on diverse aspects of Byzantine art and culture including jewelry, ceramics, and icons. She has published articles on late antique and medieval metalwork, on icons, and on the collections and history of Saint Catherine’s Monastery at Sinai.

Professor Mary Lewis is the Head of Archaeological Science and the Programme Director of MSc Professional Human Osteoarchaeology at the University of Reading. Her research interests are the Child Paleopathology, Child growth and development, Osteology of the life course, Adolescence and Puberty and Medieval and Roman Child Health.

Roberto Scopigno
Research Director at CNR-ISTI

Roberto Scopigno is Research Director at CNR-ISTI, an institute of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) located in Pisa, Italy. He served as the former leader of the Visual Computing Lab, a research lab that he contributed to found in mid-1990.
Roberto won a permanent researcher position at CNR-CNUCE in 1986, became Senior Researcher in 1997 and finally Research Director in 2001 at CNR-ISTI. On April 1st, 2019, he was nominated Director of CNR-ISTI for a four-year term.
Since 1990 he had joint appointments at the Department of Computer Engineering and at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Pisa, where he taught Computer Graphics courses. He was Visiting Researcher at the Univ. of Vigo (Spain) and at the Univ. of California at Santa Cruz (USA); he has been invited for short stages, seminars and PhD courses by several other international universities.

Marina Solomidou-Ieronymidou graduated from Sorbonne University (Paris IV) in 1980 and obtained her D.E.U.G. (1979), Licence (1980) and Maîtrise (1981) in Archaeology and Art History, while in 1984 she received her postgraduate title D.E.A. in Archaeology. In 2001 she received her PhD with honors in Medieval Archaeology from Sorbonne University (Paris I). She is a member of the Department of Antiquities since 1986. She was promoted to an a Curator of Antiquities (Ancient Monuments Sector) in 2006, where she was responsible for the coordination of works in relation to the conservation, restoration, protection and promotion of all Ancient Monuments in Cyprus. In 2014 she was appointed Director of the Department of Antiquities.

Professor Dr. Jørgen Wadum
Director of Conservation at Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK), Denmark

Professor Dr. Jørgen Wadum is Director of Conservation at Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK), the national gallery of Denmark, and Director of the Centre for Art Technological Studies and Conservation (CATS), a research consortium between SMK, The National Museum of Denmark (NMD), and the School of Conservation (KADK), Copenhagen.

Professor Srinivas Aluru
Regents' Professor, School of Computational Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Srinivas Aluru is a Regents' professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering and serves as the Executive Director of the Georgia Tech Interdisciplinary Research Institute (IRI) in Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS). He co-leads the NSF South Big Data Regional Innovation Hub which nurtures big data partnerships between organizations in the 16 Southern States and Washington D.C., and the NSF Transdisciplinary Research Institute for Advancing Data Science. Aluru conducts research in high performance computing, data science, bioinformatics and systems biology, combinatorial scientific computing, and applied algorithms. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).

David Keyes is Professor of Applied Mathematics and Computational Science and the Director of the Extreme Computing Research Center, having served as the Dean of the Division of Mathematical and Computer Sciences and Engineering at KAUST for its first 3.5 years. Professor Keyes works at the algorithmic interface between parallel computing and the numerical analysis of partial differential equations, with a focus on implicit scalable solvers for emerging architectures and their use in the many large-scale applications in energy and environment. He has named and contributed to Newton-Krylov-Schwarz (NKS), Additive Schwarz Preconditioned Inexact Newton (ASPIN), and Algebraic Fast Multipole (AFM) methods for large sparse linear and nonlinear systems arising from PDEs. Through the ECRC, he now works on meeting the requirements of drastic reductions in communication and synchronization, increases in concurrency for cores sharing memory locally, local load redistribution, and algorithm-based fault tolerance for these and other algorithms.

Ioannis Emiris is the Director of the ATHENA research center in Greece, and a Professor of Informatics & Telecommunications at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He has been a Tenured Researcher at INRIA Sophia-Antipolis from 1995 to 2002, and is an external collaborator since then (Geometric Modeling group). For the past three years he served as member of the scientific board of Hellenic Foundation of Research and Innovation, representing Informatics and Mathematics. His interests span Scientific Computing, Computational Geometry, Robotics, Bioinformatics, and Machine Learning, with emphasis on polynomial system solving, high-dimensional geometric computing, computer-aided design, robot and molecular kinematics, similarity search, and deep geometric learning. He has founded and leads the Lab of Geometric and Algebraic Algorithms, which has enjoyed funding through several European, bilateral, national, and industrial projects; he has coordinated a number of them, including three H2020 MSCA networks, of which an ITN on Learning, Processing and Optimizing shapes (GRAPES) is currently on-going.

Lydia E. Kavraki is the Noah Harding Chair and professor of Computer Science, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Bioengineering. She is the director of the Ken Kennedy Institute at Rice University. Professor Kavrakis works broadly in robotics, computational biomedicine, and physical AI. Her research has been funded by NSF, NIH, ARO, DOD, NASA, industry, and the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT). Through her role at the Ken Kennedy Institute, she brings faculty together across seven schools and twenty-seven departments to shape large research projects and future directions in AI, data, and computing at Rice University. Kavrakis is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), Academia Europaea, and the Academy of Athens.

Professor Matej Praprotnik, Head of the Laboratory for Molecular Modeling at the National Institute of Chemistry

Matej Praprotnik is Head of the Laboratory for Molecular Modeling at the National Institute of Chemistry and professor of Physics at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana. He has held visiting scientist positions at the Computational Science & Engineering Laboratory (ETH Zurich), the Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications (University of Minnesota), the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (University of California, Santa Barbara), and the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics China (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing). Matej is former Chair of the PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) Scientific Steering Committee. He served as President of the Slovenian Biophysical Society from 2015 to 2019. His research is focused on computer simulation of soft and biological matter. The focus is on developing and combining innovative computational and theoretical methods augmented by machine learning techniques to study complex molecular systems.