Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Prof. Brooks’ transdisciplinary research interests broadly include understanding and managing anthropogenic activities and stressors across levels of biological organization. He routinely works internationally on water quality, environmental contaminants and sustainability issues, particularly related to rapidly urbanizing regions on six continents. Brooks also serves as the visiting Pearl River scholar chair professor at Jinan University. He coordinates the Global Horizon Scanning Project, which identifies priority research questions necessary to achieve sustainable environmental quality around the world and is principal investigator on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s UNCOVER-EH initiative, which identifies challenges and research needs for environmental health in the U.S. A native Californian, Brooks received a B.S. and M.S. in biological sciences from the University of Mississippi and completed his Ph.D. in environmental science at the University of North Texas in 2002.

Prof. Wonyong Choi received B.S. (honors) from Seoul National University (Korea) in 1988, M.S. from POSTECH (Korea), and Ph.D. from CALTECH (USA) in 1996. He then worked at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1996 to 1998 as a postdoctoral scholar. He joined POSTECH in 1998 as an assistant professor and became a full professor in 2008. His research interests are mainly focused on semiconductor photocatalysis and photochemistry for solar energy conversion and environmental applications, advanced oxidation processes, and environmental chemistry. He was appointed as Namgo Chair professor (POSTECH) in 2012, elected as Academician of Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) in 2013, and Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2014. He received Young Scientist Award (KAST) in 2005, KAST Science and Technology Award in 2015, and Korea Engineering Award in 2018. Prior to serving as Editor-in-Chief, Professor Choi served as an associate editor of Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T: 2017-2019) and as an editor of Journal of Hazardous Materials (2008-2017). He has also been on the advisory board of Energy and Environmental Science (since 2008) and ACS Earth and Space Chemistry (since 2017). Current Research: Semiconductor photocatalysis for environmental and energy applications; Solar fuels; Development of visible light active photocatalysts; Photochemical purification of water and air; Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs); Environmental (photo)chemistry; Ice (photo)chemistry; Redox processes of environmental significance Selected Honors and Accolades: US National Academy of Engineering (NAE), international member (2024) Highly Cited Researcher (Clarivate Analytics, 2019-2023) Academic Award, Korean Society of Environmental Engineers (2019) Korea Engineering Award (Presidential award, 2018) KAST Science and Technology Award (2015)

Dr. Michael S. Wong is professor and chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice University. He is also professor in the Departments of Chemistry, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Materials Science and NanoEngineering. He was educated and trained at Caltech, MIT, and UCSB before arriving at Rice in 2001. His research program broadly addresses chemical engineering problems using the tools of materials chemistry, with a particular interest in energy and environmental applications (“catalysis for clean water”). RESEARCH AREAS Dr. Wong’s research program broadly addresses chemical engineering problems using the tools of materials chemistry, with a particular interest in energy and environmental applications (“catalysis for clean water”) and an emphasis on understanding synthesis-structure-property relationships in heterogeneous catalysis. Current research activities and interests are (i) structure-property analysis of palladium-on-gold catalysts; (ii) metal-on-metal nanoparticle synthesis; (iii) treatment of dioxane, nitrate, fluorocarbons, and chlorocarbons from water; (iv) sugar upgrading chemistry, and (v) nanoparticle assembly.