Speakers

Professor Mitsuhiko Shionoya

The University of Tokyo

Mitsuhiko Shionoya is a Professor of Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, the University of Tokyo (1999 to the present day), Editor-in-Chief of Chemistry Letters from 2013, and head investigator for scientific research on innovative areas on “Coordination Asymmetry” from 2016.

His research interests involve bio-inspired supramolecular array, space, and motion (e.g. metallo-DNA, molecular machines, supramolecular capsules and cages, porous crystals and functional aggregates, chital-at-metal chemistry).

His recent awards include the CSJ Award for Creation Work (2007), Inoue Prize for Science (2007), University of Louis Pasteur Medal (2008), Prizes for Science and Technology/Research category (2016), Japan Society of Coordination Chemistry Award (2018), The Chemical Society of Japan Award (2020), and International Izatt-Christensen Award (2020).

Professor Rosa Palacin

Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona, USA

Rosa Palacin is a Professor at the Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC, Spanish National Research Council). Her full career has been focused in rechargeable battery materials initially either nickel or lithium based and more recently covering alternative chemistries such as sodium-ion, magnesium and calcium. Specific emphasis is set in tailoring structure and microstructure of electrode materials to maximise electrochemical performance for traditional technologies and in the development of new materials for emerging concepts.

Rosa is an associate editor for Chemistry of Materials and serves in the boards of the International Battery Association, IMLB and Batteries Europe ETIP.

Professor Nigel Robinson

Durham University, UK

Professor of Biomolecular Sciences, Department of Chemistry and Department of Biosciences, Durham University (2013 to the present day). Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2013). Professor of Genetics (Molecular Genetics) in the Medical School of Newcastle University (1994 to 2011). Royal Society University Research Fellowship, Durham and Newcastle Universities (1987 to 1995). Postdoctoral staff member and Postdoctoral Fellow (Natural Environment Research Council Fellowship and Directors-funded Fellowship) Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA (1984 to 1987). Liverpool University, UK, Ph.D. Biochemistry (1981-1984) and B.Sc. Life Science (1981).

Professor Ivana Ivanović-Burmazović

Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy, Germany

Ivana Ivanović-Burmazović was trained in Inorganic Chemistry as an (under)graduate student at the University of Belgrade, Serbia, where she worked as Assistant Professor. She received her Habilitation at Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Germany, became the Chair of Bioinorganic Chemistry and was a speaker of the Emerging Field “Medicinal Redox Inorganic Chemistry”. Having a synthetic and mechanistic background her goal is to design metal complexes that can trigger bioinorganic redox signaling through interactions with O2, O2-, H2O2, NO, ONOO-, H2S, CO2, and could be used as enzyme mimetics, biological tools, unconventional pharmaceuticals and catalysts of environmental and energy relevance. Besides syntheses the group applies high-pressure/low-temperature stopped-flow, electrochemistry, NMR and cryo-spray MS studies.

Zijian Guo

Nanjing Unversity, China

Zijian Guo is a professor of chemistry at the Nanjing University, China. He received his PhD degree from the University of Padua, Italy in 1994 and worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London and a research associate at the University of Edinburgh from 1994 – 1999. He joined the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Nanjing University since 1999 and served as the dean of the school and the director of the State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry. He was elected to the fellow of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2017. His major research interest focuses on the design and application of fluorescent sensors for bioinorganic species and the design, mechanistic studies and targeted delivery of metal-based drugs.

Professor Elizabeth Nolan

Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Elizabeth M. Nolan is a Professor of Chemistry at MIT. She pursued her graduate studies with Professor Stephen J. Lippard at MIT and her post-doctoral studies with Professor Christopher T. Walsh at Harvard Medical School. Her current research interests address the chemistry and biology of human innate immunity and microbial pathogenesis. Her lab employs the toolkits of biological chemistry, inorganic chemistry, and microbiology to decipher the interplay between the human innate immune system and microbes, and to conceptualize and evaluate new strategies for preventing and treating microbial infections.

A/Professor Omar K. Farha

Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, USA

Omar K. Farha is an associate professor of chemistry at Northwestern University, Co-founder and President of NuMat Technologies, and Associate Editor for ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. His current research spans diverse areas of chemistry and materials science, focusing particularly on the rational design of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) for applications of sensing, catalysis, storage, separations and water purification.

His research accomplishments have been recognized by several awards and honors including Kuwait Prize, the Japanese Society of Coordination Chemistry’s “International award for creative work”; the Royal Society of Chemistry’s “Environment, Sustainability and Energy Division Early Career” Award; the American Chemical Society’s “Satinder Ahuja Award for Young Investigators in Separation Science”; and an award established by the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University in his honor: the Omar Farha Award for Research Leadership “awarded for stewardship, cooperation and leadership in the finest pursuit of research in chemistry” to an outstanding research scientist in the department.

Professor Polly Arnold

University of California Berkeley, USA

Polly Arnold is a professor of chemistry at the University of California Berkeley and the Chemical Sciences Division Director at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. She received her PhD in 1997 from Sussex University, after which she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to MIT. In 2009 she became the Chair of Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh and in 2019 she joined the University of California as Professor. Her research is focused on making new and reactive molecules that are changing the way the world thinks about the f-block metals, an important but poorly understood area of the periodic table. Her group’s fundamental studies have demonstrated unprecedented bond forming reactions with actinide ions of relevance to nuclear waste stewardship, and has developed the first catalyst from anywhere across the periodic table that, under ambient conditions, catalytically converts atmospheric dinitrogen into a secondary amine – a more versatile precursor to amino acids than ammonia, which is still made via the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process.