Imperial College London

Yang Xu is an Associate Professor in Energy Storage in the Department of Chemistry at University College London (UCL), UK. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Science and Technology of China in 2011. He carried out postdoctoral research at Boston College (US) and University of Alberta (Canada) and then worked as a Senior Scientist at Ilmeanu University of Technology (Germany). He joined UCL Chemistry as an assistant professor in 2019 and became an associate professor in 2023. His research spans materials science, electrochemistry, and energy devices for next-generation batteries, particularly sodium- and potassium-based, with a focus on intercalation chemistry, metal electrodeposition, interfacial processes, and anionic redox activity. He has had ~100 publications and received research fundings from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Faraday Institution, Royal Society, Science and Technology Facilities Council, and Leverhulme Trust. He was awarded the MINE Outstanding Young Scientist Award (2019), Royal Society Short Industry Fellowship (2020) and STFC Early Career Award (2023). He is an associate editor for ACS Appl. Energy Materi. (ACS) and a member of the editorial/advisory boards of JPhys. Energy (IOPP), J. Mater. Chem. A (RSC), Mater. Adv. (RSC), Electron (Wiley) and eScience (Elsevier). 

Chris Lorenz is Professor of Computational Materials Science and Head of the Department of Engineering at King’s College London. He is also a Senior Editor of ACS Omega, where he was previously an Associate Editor. He received his BSE, MSE and PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan. He then held postdoctoral positions at Sandia National Laboratories and Iowa State University before joining King’s in 2007. His group combines molecular dynamics simulations, quantum chemistry, cheminformatics and machine learning to understand how molecular structure governs the properties of self-assembled nanostructures and how biological and synthetic materials interact, with the aim of designing new materials for healthcare and energy applications. More recently, the group has been building molecular simulation into automated synthesis and self-driving laboratories, supported by an ARIA AI Scientist award. He has published more than 150 papers and led the development of the HOOMD (now HOOMD-Blue), LiPyphilic, PySoftK and PUCHIK software packages, which provide unique tools for building complex polymer geometries and analysing molecular dynamics simulations of lipid membranes and soft nanoparticles.  He also established and directs the Computational Molecular Engineering Laboratory in Yerevan, Armenia. In 2021, he received the National Physical Laboratory’s Rayleigh Award. 

Erich A. Müller is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, and a Professor of Thermodynamics at Imperial College London. He has over 30 years of experience in the molecular description of complex fluids and interfaces, with a particular focus on bridging the gap between detailed molecular studies and industrial applications. He has published over 200 papers, garnering over 13k citations, and has served as Editor-in-Chief of Adsorption Science and Technology. He also serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals. His current research interests center on the digitalization of Thermodynamics, aimed at providing engineering solutions based on molecular simulations and fundamental physical sciences.  In the past decade alone, six of a total of twenty postdoctoral researchers in his group have been coached to obtain academic faculty positions and/or key industrial research positions in the UK, EU, and USA. During this period, a further twenty PhDs were supervised and supported. His group actively supports equality, diversity, and inclusion. 

Adam Hawkes is Professor of Energy Systems in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London, Research Director for the FCDO Climate Compatible Growth Programme, and leads whole systems research in the EPSRC HI-ACT project. He is Editor-in-Chief of Elsevier’s Renewable and Sustainable Energy Transition journal. A Chartered Engineer, Prof Hawkes has more than 25 years’ experience of technical leadership and management in the field of energy systems design and modelling, with a track record of high-impact research and translation for industry, government and international development audiences. His team uses quantitative energy systems modelling to assess the technical, economic, security and environmental dimensions of energy transitions, providing evidence for engineering and climate policy debates. He has authored more than 200 scientific publications, including some of the most highly cited articles in the field, and is recognised as a leading authority on how to deliver energy transitions that are affordable, secure and fair. 

Jerry Heng is Professor of Particle Technology at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London. His research interests include particulate materials, crystallisation, and biopharmaceutical purification. He has published around 200 papers and book chapters and supervised 35 PhD graduates. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institution of Chemical Engineers. He is Editor-in-Chief of Chemical Engineering Research and Design (ChERD) and a Thematic Editor of Particuology. 

Silvia Imberti holds a PhD in Physics and has a background in physical chemistry, with particular expertise in neutron scattering. She worked at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory as an instrument scientist for 13 years, supporting the total scattering and disordered systems community. Since 2019, she has built extensive experience in scientific publishing and editorial leadership, supporting the evaluation and dissemination of research across a broad range of chemistry disciplines. As Lead Editor for ACS Omega, she leads a team of 10 editorial staff and works closely with editors, authors, and reviewers to maintain high standards of scientific quality, integrity, and peer review. In her free time, she enjoys baking, crocheting, reading, walking, and hosting, and values spending time with her husband and two teenage children. 

Jhoan is a Venezuelan physicist, industry advisor, and managing editor currently based in Oxford. He joined the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research at 19, where he started working in colloidal systems, in particular, emulsion stability. He obtained his Ph.D. in physics from the same institute and moved to the USA for a postdoctoral position to complete the analysis of the coalescence of emulsion droplets. He returned to his home country to start his research group and was appointed as the head of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Physics. After six active and professional successful years, due to the situation in Venezuela, Jhoan decided to move to Spain in pursuit of a new challenge, working in protein-nanoparticle interactions and medicine applications. After three years, he and his family moved again, this time to Oxford, where a new chapter began, this time as managing editor for the American Chemical Society. 

Paz Vaqueiro obtained her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. In 2003, she was awarded a prestigious five-year EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship to conduct research on thermoelectric materials at Heriot-Watt University in the UK. She is currently a Professor of Solid-State Chemistry at the University of Reading, where her research focuses on the design, synthesis, and characterisation of functional materials for energy applications, with a particular emphasis on thermoelectric materials. She has extensive expertise in structural characterisation, especially using X-ray and neutron scattering at central facilities, to investigate the relationships between structure, composition, and properties.