Title:Professor, Korea University Business School, Korea

About: Professor Jay Hyuk Rhee is a leading authority on ESG and sustainable management at Korea University Business School. As a pivotal leader bridging academia and practice, he serves as Director of the ESG Research Institute and pioneered the university’s first ESG curricula. Professor Rhee has profoundly shaped national policy as the chief architect of the South Korean government’s "K-ESG" guidelines and through key advisory roles with the International ESG Association (IESGA), the Korea Exchange (KRX), and the National Pension Service (NPS). An acclaimed scholar, he has been inducted into the Korea University Hall of Fame and is a recipient of multiple prestigious awards for excellence in both research and teaching. His influential authored works include 'Sustainability and ESG Management' and 'Stakeholder-Centric Management'. Today, he remains a premier advisor to major conglomerates and multinational firms, steering the future of sustainable strategy in Korea and beyond.

Title:Professor ,Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. ,Hong Kong

About: Prof. Dan Tsang is the Executive Director of School of Engineering, Director of Research Center on Decarbonization Technology, and Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He holds fellowships at the Institution of Civil Engineers (FICE), Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM), Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), and Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (FHKIE). Dan also serves as the founding Editor-in-Chief of npj Materials Sustainability (Nature Portfolio), Chairman of the Hong Kong Waste Management Association (2023–2025), and Waste Management Subcommittee Chair (2023&2024) of the Advisory Council on the Environment of the Hong Kong Government.

Title: Staff Scientist ,Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA

About:Edward Baidoo, Ph.D., is a Staff Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Deputy Director of Functional Genomics in the Technology Division of the Joint BioEnergy Institute. His research interests lie in the use of metabolomics analyses to characterize engineered biosynthetic and metabolic pathways towards addressing key environmental challenges and engineering robust plant and microbial platforms for producing valuable renewable bioproducts. He received his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Sheffield Hallam University in the UK (2003), where he was advised by Prof. Malcolm Clench, Dr. Robert Smith, and Dr. Lee Tetler. Prior to his doctoral studies, he earned his master’s and bachelor's degrees in Biomedical Sciences and Biochemistry, respectively, at the University of Wolverhampton in the UK.

Title: Professor,Bergische University Wuppertal, Germany

About:Dr. Jörg Rinklebe is Professor for Soil- and Groundwater-Management at the University of Wuppertal, Germany. He has been selected as ISI Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. Prof. Rinklebe was Vize-President, President and Past-President of the International Society of Trace Element Biogeochemistry (ISTEB). His academic background covers environmental science, bioavailability of emerging contaminants, and remediation of contaminated sites. His main research is on soils, sediments, waters, plants, and their pollutions and linked biogeochemical issues with a special focus in redox chemistry. He also has a certain expertise in soil microbiology.

Prof. Rinklebe published plenty of scientific papers in leading international and national journals. According to SCOPUS data base (10.12.2025), he published 603 articles, which have been cited 53,784.0 times with h-index = 124. The Google Scholar total citation= 64,530.0; Google h-index = 134, and i10-index = 519. Also, he published six books entitled "Trace Elements in Waterlogged Soils and Sediments” (2016), “Nickel in Soils and Plants” (2018), “Soil and Groundwater Remediation Technologies” (2020), “Vanadium in soils and plants” (2022), “Methylmercury Accumulation in Rice” (2024), Green Technologies for Pollutants Remediation and Recovery from Water and Soil (2026) as well as numerous book chapters.

Prof. Rinklebe was serving as Editor in Chief for Environmental Pollution, and he was Chief Editor of special issues of the Journal of Hazardous Materials; Co-Editor in Chief of the international journal Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology (CREST) and guest editor of the international journals Environment International, Chemical Engineering Journal, Science of the Total Environment, Chemosphere, Journal of Environmental Management, Applied Geochemistry, and Environmental Geochemistry and Health. Also, he is member on several editorial boards (Ecotoxicology, Geoderma, Water, Air, & Soil Pollution, Archive of Agronomy and Soil Science).

Prof. Rinklebe was the chair of the first joint international conferences of Biogeochemistry of Trace Elements” (ICOBTE) and “International Conference on Heavy Metals in the Environment” (ICHMET) in September 2023,. He was an invited speaker (plenary and keynote) at many international conferences. In 2016, Prof. Rinklebe got an appointment as Honorable Ambassador for Gangwon Province, South-Korea which was renewed in June-2018. Also, he got an appointment as Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia, Visiting Professor at the Sejong University, Seoul, South Korea and Guest Professor at the China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.

He got those awards:

• Award as "Distinguished Scientist" by the Academy of Sciences, China
• Award for internationalisation of research and teaching: Weltlöwe
• JIOMICS & Proteomass Scientific Society Career Awards
• IESGA Fellowship Award 2023

Title: Professor,Department of Environmental Sciences,Central University of Jammu, India

About:Dr. Richa Kothari is Professor at Department of Environmental Sciences, Central University of Jammu, Jammu, (J&K), India. She was a WARI Fellow (IUSSTF) at Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, USA. She has more than 22 years of teaching and research experience at Amity University, Noida (U.P.), Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (Central University), Lucknow (U.P.), India.

Dr. Kothari has been actively involved in research in the areas of algal-based biofuel production, bio-hydrogen production and utilization of renewable energy for wastewater treatment. She is also the recipient of prestigious research fellowships from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) by Government of India.Also, he published six books entitled "Trace Elements in Waterlogged Soils and Sediments” (2016), “Nickel in Soils and Plants” (2018), “Soil and Groundwater Remediation Technologies” (2020), “Vanadium in soils and plants” (2022), “Methylmercury Accumulation in Rice” (2024), Green Technologies for Pollutants Remediation and Recovery from Water and Soil (2026) as well as numerous book chapters.

Dr. Kothari has published more than 180 research papers/book chapters in reputed international peer-reviewed (SCI/Scopus) journals with high impact factor and supervised several M.Sc.(>50), M.Phil.(02), M.Tech.(>20) and Ph.D. students (10).

She has written a textbook titled Environmental Science for Undergraduates and edited thirteen books with National and International publishers. She has more than 7000 citations with h-index 50 and i-10 index 121. She has delivered several keynote/invited lectures in different countries (Vietnam, Malaysia, South Africa, USA, India). She is listed for 2% Scientist since 2020 continuous by Database published by Stanford's University and Elsevier.

Title: Professor,University Mohamed 6 Polytechnic (UM6P), Morocco.

About:Pr. Hicham ELARROUSSI is Professor, in Algal Biotechnology, MAScIR, University Mohamed 6 polytechnic, Morocco. With 20 Years’ experience on natural resources valorization using biotechnological tools, his research team was involved during last 10 years in several projects related with microalgae and seaweeds production and valorization in different applications such as wastewater treatment, agriculture, environment and bioenergy. .

Prof. ELARROUSSI’s research focuses on based algae bioprocess, and studies of theirs intercations with biological and chemical of wastewater. In addition, Prof. ELARROUSSI has developed strong expertise in the microalgae-bacteria studies consortium for watewater tretament and biomass production and valorisation to biofuel development.

Prof. ELARROUSSI is researcher with important contributions include several international patents and publications in algae biotechnology for bioproducts and new process development in different field such as wastewater treatment and bioproducts development for sustainable bioeconomy. Prof. ELARROUSSI has set up and led several projects on a national and international scale. Prof. ELARROUSSI is the founder of TECALGA, an innovative startup focused on the development and production of plant biostimulants based on microalgae biotechnology.

Title: Chair Professor,Universidad de Cordoba, Spain.

About:Rafael Luque (PhD in 2005 from Universidad de Cordoba, Spain) has significant experience in biomass and waste valorization practices to materials, fuels and chemicals including nanoscale chemistry, green chemistry and catalysis as well as environmental remediation with a particular interest on plastic waste (>1000 publications, h-index 121, >65,000 citations, 7 patents, >10 edited books). He was named 2018-2022 Highly Cited Researcher (Clarivate Analytics) and received Honorary Professor titles (Doctor Honoris Causa) at Universitá degli studi Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria and RUDN University.

Prof. Luque is currently Head of B4 group (Bioresources, Biopolymers, Biotechnology and Biorefineries) and Project Director at National University of Science and Technology Polytehnica Bucharest (Romania), holding various positions as DFSP Chair Professor at King Saud University (Saudi Arabia), Distinguished Visiting Professor at University of Lahore (Pakistan) and International Distinguished Scientist and Rectoral Advisor at Universidad ECOTEC (Ecuador). .

Title: Professor,Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Korea.

About:Dr. Sung Kuk Lee is a Professor in the Department of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST (Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology; https://sites.google.com/site/skleelab/), Korea. He received his BS (1994) from the Department of Microbiology at Kyungpook National University, Korea, and his MS (1997) and PhD (2001) from Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Korea. Before joining UNIST, he worked at the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA (2001–2003), SynBERC/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) (2004–2007), and the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI)/LBNL, where he served as Co-Director of the Fuel Synthesis Division (2007–2008). Prof. Lee is an Editorial Board member of Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering (BBE) and the Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology (JMB), and serves in professional societies including KSBB, KMB, MSK, and the Korean Society for Synthetic Biology. His major research interests include metabolic engineering and synthetic biology for the development of microbial platforms and recombinant DNA tools to produce biofuels, bioplastics, chemicals, cosmetics, and drugs. His work has been recognized with multiple BBE Best Paper/Best Article Awards. Dr. Lee has mentored numerous graduate students, published more than 80 peer-reviewed research papers, and filed or registered many domestic and international patents and patent applications.

Title: Associate Professor,Korea University, South Korea.

About:Sun-Mi Lee is an associate professor in the Division of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering at Korea University. She received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. She worked as a research scientist at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) for twenty years. She serves on the expert committee of the Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology in Korea and holds editorial roles as an Associate Editor for Biomass & Bioenergy and an Editorial Board Member of Bioresource Technology. Her research focuses on applying synthetic biology tools to address energy and environmental challenges. Her work primarily involves engineering yeast as a cell factory for the sustainable production of fuels and chemicals from lignocellulosic biomass, as well as for the bio-upcycling of plastics. To enhance the efficiency and expand the capabilities of these cell factories, she evolves enzymes, optimizes cellular networks, and develops integrated bio-chemical processes.