Committee

Dr. Mengcun Chen, M.D., Ph.D., is a Research Associate at the Center for Translational Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University, and serves as an Attending Surgeon in the Department of orthopaedic Surgery at Wuhan Union Hospital. Dr. Chen earned both his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, followed by advanced research training at the University of Pennsylvania. His research primarily focuses on biomedical and biomechanical alterations in tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and bone tissues. His contributions to the field have been recognized in esteemed journals such as Am J Sports Med, J Neurosurg Spine, J Biomech Eng and Ann Biomed Eng. Additionally; he has been honored with prestigious accolades, including the Best Researcher Award at the International Research Awards on Infectious Diseases and the ORS/OREF Travel Award in orthopaedic Research Translation. In addition to his research, Dr. Chen actively contributes to the academic community as a Guest Associate Editor for Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering and as a Technical Program Committee member for the 13th International Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology

Shawn Cradit, Ed.D., MS, MA, EP-C, ATC: Assistant Teaching Professor in Health and Exercise Studies at North Carolina State University, USA. Teaching a combination of Physical Activity and Lecture courses (Exercise Physiology and Sports Science; Coaching American Football) and in the Master of Physiology department Graduate faculty (Exercise Physiology and Sport Science and under review Musculoskeletal Physiology, Palpatory Anatomy and Dynamic Kinesiology). Areas of interest include Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (research in recent past and current courses), Sports Medicine and injury prevention, care and recognition, and professional development courses in Biomedical Engineering, Physiology, Data Science, Teaching improvement and innovation, improving course format and accessibility. Certified in Quality Matters, Instructional Excellence, and Instructional Innovator for teaching and Exercise Physiologist Certification through the American College of Sports Medicine in December 2023.

Fernanda M. Coutinho holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Coimbra, a M.Sc. in Electronic Engineering from the University of Aveiro, and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Coimbra. She is a researcher at the RCM2+ Research Center. Her research interests include robotic telemanipulation with explicit force control and haptic feedback for medical applications, calibration and maintenance of medical devices, and embedded systems design. One of her recent work includes developing a smart cane prototype to improve gait in Parkinson’s disease patients. Since 1995, she has been a Full Professor at the Polytechnic University of Coimbra, where she coordinates the M.Sc. Course in Biomedical Instrumentation. She is the author of several publications in refereed scientific journals and in international scientific conferences in the area of Electrical and Biomedical Engineering. She has participated in several R&D projects related to robot-assisted surgery. She is a Member of IEEE Engineering Medicine & Biology Society.

Dr. Lu Bai received the Ph.D. degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Kent, Canterbury, U.K., in 2014. She was a Research Associate with the School of Engineering and Digital Arts, University of Kent, in 2015. She was a Research Associate of mobile sensing with the Department of Computer Science, The University of Sheffield, from 2016 to 2018. She was a KTP Associate and a Data Scientist with Shearwater Systems Ltd., in 2019. She was a Lecturer in Data Analytics with Ulster University, U.K from 2019 to 2023. She joined School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science as a Senior Lecturer in July 2023. Her research primarily focuses on the development of smart sensing systems and the application of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data analytics to address challenges in digital health. Her recent work has concentrated on upper limb motion monitoring using inertial sensing systems, which involves developing advanced wearable devices to accurately track and analyses human movement for applications in rehabilitation and assistive technology.

Associate Professor Gulsen Meral graduated from Istanbul University Cerrahpasa School of Medicine in 1994. She became a specialist in pediatrics in 2001 . She is Associate Professor in Pediatrics and worked as a specialist as well as deputy chief physician and chief physician at several hospitals. She was the Rectors advisor between 2019-2021 at the Northern Cyprus ITU. She is also an Acupuncture instructor. She worked as a Nutrigenetics graduate course and lecturer and gave undergraduate and graduate courses on child development. She has many national and international publications, and worked on editorial boards and as reviewers. She has a Master's Degree in Hospital Management. She has a Turkish language literature undergraduate education. She completed PhD program in Medical Genetics. In addition to her scientific achievements, she is ambitious about poetry and has 5 poetry books. She is the Founder of the Nutrigenetics and Epigenetics Association, and has memberships in the Green Crescent and Rumelia Association, Istanbul Acupuncture Association, and International Society of Nutrigenetics & Nutrigenomics. She participated in the first and second International Epigenetic Congress as the president. She is still the organizer and educator of the Epigenetic Coaching Program. She is actively giving trainings on Nutrigenetic & Epigenetic Counselling to health professionals from all over the World as a certified CPD program. She continues research and training as the founder and manager of Epigenetic Coaching.

Esteban Pena Pitarch holds a doctorate in the UPC. He has carried out his teaching work at the Technical College of Manresa (EPSEM), since 1988 and belongs to the department of mechanical engineering. He collaborates with the Institute of Industrial and Control Engineering (IOC), UPC, since 2008, in the robotics division. His research is focused on rehabilitation and simulation of stroke survivors, the creation of medical devices and the application of kinematics and dynamics to the human body by way of mathematical tools used in robotics. He manages a group with doctors specialized in physical medicine, rehabilitation, and engineers from a number of different fields. This group has published articles in magazines and congresses and owns two patents relating to medical apparatus. Esteban Pena Pitarch belongs to the Service and Industrial Robotics (SIR) research team and is currently working on two competitive projects as the main researcher of one and collaborating in the other. He is a professor and ex-dean of college Escola Polytechnic Superior engineering de Manresa (EPSEM) at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia(UPC). His teaching expertise are in Kinematics and Dynamics, and Machinery Design for Undergraduate and Graduate degree for more than 30 years. He has two patents and more than 100 papers on international journals and conferences. Research interests are in Virtual Human Modeling, Rehabilitation, and Human Exoskeleton Construction.

Prof. Zhang is a professor at the Robotics and Microsystem Research Center, Soochow University, Visiting Researcher at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Humanoid Robot Academician Workstation of the Jiang Huai Frontier Technology Collaborative Innovation Center, and the founder and CTO of Suzhou Chundong Touch Robot Co., Ltd. He serves as an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics, and ICRA. He received his Ph.D. from the State Key Laboratory of Robotics and Systems of Harbin Institute of Technology under Prof. Liu Hong' s (Academician) supervision. He has worked at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and engaged in postdoctoral research for 4 years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States. As the first/corresponding author, he has published over 50 papers and 2 cover articles in international journals and conferences such as IEEE/ASME TMECH, IEEE RAM, IEEE TASE, IEEE TNSRE, ICRA, IROS, etc. He has presided over the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Key R&D Program and won the first prize in the Guangdong Provincial Technological Invention Award, the "Jiangsu Provincial Distinguished Professor" Talent Program, and the United States NSF- Innovation Corps Program Award.,

Boniello Carmine done his Ph.d in 2008 at University of Salerno. He has done a journal analysis regarding under some volumes applied mathematical he has achieved her frame work regarding under faculty of economics, under laws he need survey regarding in applied advance Pharmacy. He had participated in dynamic optimization game theory he had done some international conferences in science.

As a research scientist, Dr. Omid Akbarzadeh Pivehzhani works with Texas A&M University, Department of Petroleum Engineering. He worked with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the USA and Nanotechnology and Catalysis Research Centre (NANOCAT) at the University of Malaya in Malaysia. His main research areas are heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis, catalytic reaction engineering, nanocatalyst synthesis, nanomaterials characterization, CO2 conversion, and gas process. He has spent 15 years in academic-industrial projects as a research officer and post-doctoral. He developed advanced smart catalysts, especially for the oil and gas industries. Omid has contributed to two PETRONAS Research Sdn Bhd industrial catalyst projects and worked on an international Airbus R&D project in NANOCAT. He was a project member of the FRGS grant in UTP Malaysia. Omid was the Chairman, keynote speaker, and organizing committee of many international conferences. He supervised three PhD students from different countries. He has published many ISI papers; book chapters and inventor of two approved and granted international patents. Also, he has hands-on experience and passed several pieces of training on handling different types of advanced equipment which are being widely used for nanomaterials synthesis, characterization, and performance evaluation. He is in close collaboration with other departments, government agencies, and universities worldwide. He was a visiting researcher at Jiangsu University China and Hokkaido University Japan. He is a Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) member and a Senior Member of the Hong Kong Chemical, Biological & Environmental Engineering Society. Omid was awarded a full fellowship from the University Technology PETRONAS during his PhD and was involved as a lab demonstrator and teaching in the different courses of chemical engineering. He was awarded a Silver Medal at the 27th International Invention & Innovation Exhibition (ITEX 2016), Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre in Malaysia, and a Silver Medal of Post Graduate Research Project at the 35th Science & Engineering Design Exhibition (SEDEX 35).

In 1999, Alberto Bravin received a PhD in Physics from the University of Trieste discussing a Thesis on the pioneering developments of X-ray phase contrast imaging applied to medicine. He then moved to the ESRF as a post-doc and in 2003 he was assigned the responsibility of the ID17 biomedical beamline. Alberto’s research activities have been equally shared in two fields: X-ray imaging and the therapeutic use of X-ray microbeams, by publishing a total of 220 peer reviewed papers.He created a network of international collaborators, which made grew up and diversify the beamline’s activities, becoming the recognized world reference in biomedical applications of synchrotron radiation.Since 2016, he is nominated fellow of American Association of Medical Physicists. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the reference medical physics journals. In 2018 he received the “Outstanding Scientist Award” from the Italian Synchrotron Radiation Society. On October 2021, he was nominated Professor of Applied Physics at the University Bicocca in Milan where he will continue his research career.

Prof. Patrick Siarry was born on May 28, 1952, in Pertuis. His research area is relatively (since 1982) new “metaheuristic” optimization such as simulated annealing, which are indicated for the so-called problems of “hard optimization” because of their ability to avoid in principle, trapping in sub-optimal solutions. This topic is multidisciplinary in nature, both by the source of the methods studied (physics, biology, ethology). Prof. Siarry has 12 frames at 100% of doctoral theses, including 1 in progress; 9 frames at 50% of doctoral theses, including 6 ongoing; 6 joint supervision of doctoral theses, including 5 courses; 4 frames partial (< 30%) of doctoral theses; 2 research post-doctoral; 18 internships DEA or Master 2 research; 2 stages of “ownership” of the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal; 2 memories Engineer CNAM; 1 team of industrial research project (two engineers and one technician); 10 training engineering degree or master’s and 2 stages of BTS or DUT.

Dr. Jackson then accepted a research fellowship at the world-famous Cavendish Laboratory in the University of Cambridge working with Professor John Field, on impact and friction of diamond and related materials before becoming a lecturer in engineering at the University of Liverpool. In 2002, Dr. Jackson became associate professor at Tennessee Technological University and a faculty associate at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He continued his research, and teaching and engagement activities, by joining Purdue University in 2004 becoming Associate Department Head for Research in 2010. For his applied research, he was awarded the University Faculty Scholarship at Purdue and subsequently joined Saint-Gobain Corporation as Research Leader. In 2011, he created a new product development strategy for the field of machining science. After working as a Department Chair of Mechanical Engineering Technology at the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts, Dr. Jackson began his duties as Professor and Department Head of Engineering Technology at K-State Salina on July 1, 2013. He is a McCune and Middlekauff Endowed Chair at Kansas State University, Salina. Dr. Jackson’s focus for the Engineering Technology is to engage with the local community in ways that will increase economic growth and prepare the next generation of engineers

Francesco Zirilli born in Genoa in 1949 graduated from Sapienza University of Rome in 1971.He has been a professor in University of Camerino, University of Catania, University of Salerno. He is currently professor in Sapienza University of Rome .He has been visiting professor in the USA several times ,principal investigator in research grants funded by national and international agencies, Editorial board member or editor in chief of several scientific journals. The research Interest of Francesco Zirilli are applied and numerical mathematics and their applications in science and engineering. He is author or coauthor of about 160 scientific publications in refereed journals and books.

Dr. David Galan-Madruga is a researcher at the National Center for Environmental Health, Carlos III Health Institute, leading the Environmental Health research group. He earned his Ph.D. from Madrid Complutense University in 2004 and holds a Master of Engineering in Computer Engineering. With 25 years of experience in scientific investigation, he specializes in instrumental techniques for material characterization. Dr. Galan-Madruga has published extensively in high-impact journals and serves on scientific committees for international conferences. He is the editor of the Annals of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Journal of Biomedical Research & Environmental Sciences, and a board member of the Annals of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care.

Dr. Ioannidis studied medicine in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and graduated at 2005. He received his MSC in “Medical Research Methodology” in 2008 from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and in “Surgery of Liver, Biliary Tree and Pancreas” from the Democritus University of Thrace in 2016. He received his PhD degree in 2014 from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki for his thesis “The effect of combined administration of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in ulcerative colitis, Experimental study in rats.” He is a General Surgeon with special interest in laparoscopic surgery and surgical oncology and also in surgical infections, acute care surgery, nutrition and ERAS.