Prof. Rajan Jose, University Malaysia Pahang, Malaysia

Professor Rajan Jose is a senior Professor in the Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP) and is the Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Springer Nature journal Materials Circular Economy. He has served as the Dean of Research (Technology) of UMP during Feb 2016 – Aug 2019 besides serving as the Member of Senate and Graduate Council of UMP.
He has investigated nanostructured perovskite ceramics for microwave and superconducting electronics during doctoral research at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Trivandrum, India and has received PhD degree in the year 2002. He has contributed to the science and engineering of diverse range of materials including inorganic and organic semiconductors, polymers, metals and alloys, materials for molecular electronics, biomaterials, glasses, and glass ceramics. He was employed as a scientist at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (India), AIST (Japan), Toyota Technological Institute (Japan), and the National University of Singapore (Singapore) before joining UMP. He has published over 320 papers in the Web of Science (Thomson Reuters/Clarivate Analytics) indexed journals which are cited over 18000 times with an h-index of 68 according to Google Scholar database. He holds 25 patents. He has supervised 6 Postdoctoral, 30 Doctoral, and 11 Master’s researchers. Stanford University places him as a top 2% Materials Scientists in the world ever since the list was produced during 2020. Currently, he ranks 2075/315721 Materials Scientists in the world – representing top 0.65%. He is also ranked top #5 Materials Scientists in Malaysia by Research.com. His current research interests include renewable energy devices, sustainable materials, circular economy, data science, and artificial intelligence.

Prof. Kwang Leong Choy, Duke Kunshan University, China

Kwang Leong Choy is the Professor of Materials Science at Duke Kunshan University (DKU). Prior to this, she was a Professor of Materials Discovery and the founding Director of the UCL Institute for Materials Discovery at University College London (UCL). She also held a Chair in Materials, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham (2002-2014), where she was the Research Director of the University Innovation Centre and University’s Knowledge Exchange Board. Professor Choy earned her D.Phil. in Materials Science from the University of Oxford, where she was awarded the Hetherington Prize and Oxford Metallurgical Society Award. Additionally, she has received accolades such as the Grunfeld Medal Prize and Kroll Medal & Prize. She has been awarded the Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Mining and Minerals (FIMMM) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). She has authored over 300 publications, including 4 books and 20 patents, given over 150 keynote papers/invited lectures and conference session Chairman. She also helped to establish two university spin-out companies. Her expertise has been recognized through Guest Professorships at the University of Uppsala (2001/03), Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE, 2010/2012), and a Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Visiting Professorship for Senior International Scientist (2011/2013).
She is leading a multidisciplinary research team and collaborating closely with material engineers, chemists, physicists, bioengineers, nanobiotechnologists, and engineers to create new opportunities in materials creation, discovery and utilization. Her team focuses on developing high-performance, eco-friendly, and cost-effective processes for the production of new nanostructured materials, nanocomposites, thin films, and coatings. These materials find applications in various fields, including solar cells, clean energy generation, energy storage, electrical systems, optoelectronics, environmental sustainability, healthcare, and biomedicine.
Professor Choy has successfully obtained and managed numerous multimillion-pound national and European flagship research programs, fostering extensive collaboration between academia and industry. In addition, she has established state-of-the-art nanomaterials, innovative thin/thick film processing, and characterization facilities, representing a significant investment in cutting-edge infrastructure.