Professor Ali Dhinojwala is W. Gerald Austen Endowed Chair and H.A. Morton Professor of School of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering (SPSPE), the University of Akron, USA. Dr. Dhinojwala obtained a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University and spent two years as a research scientist at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After spending one year at GE Plastics, he joined The University of Akron in 1997. His current research is in the areas of adhesion, friction, and wetting.

His group has developed unique surface technique to study buried polymer interfaces. His recent interest is in understanding how geckos and spiders use adhesives for locomotion and prey capture. These studies have led his team to develop synthetic adhesives using aligned carbon nanotubes. His latest passion is on developing structural colors, a strategy inspired by bird colors.

Dhinojwala’s research is focused in the area of interfacial science. His group is using infrared-visible sum-frequency-generation spectroscopy (SFG) techniques to study fundamental problems in adhesion, wetting, and friction. They have developed approaches to couple SFG and mechanics together to relate macroscopic properties such as adhesion and friction with the structure and dynamics of interfacial molecules. His group is applying this fundamental knowledge of interfacial science to design new materials inspired by nature. His group works on gecko adhesion, spider silk, mussel adhesion, and structural colors inspired by birds and other organisms. His research work is supported by National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and Industries.

 

Prof. Peter Fratzl is director at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany, heading the Department of Biomaterials. He received an engineering degree from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, France, and a doctorate in Physics from the University of Vienna, Austria. He is honorary professor at Humboldt University Berlin and at Potsdam University. Currently he is serving as chair of the Chemistry, Physics and Technology Section of the Max Planck Society. Prof. Fratzl's lab studies the relation between (hierarchical) structure and properties of biological and bio-inspired composite materials, and conducts research on osteoporosis and on tissue regeneration. His research interests include biomaterials systems for mechanosensing and actuation, as well as interdisciplinary research together with cultural science and design. Prof. Fratzl has published more than 500 papers in journals and books and he is member of several Academies of Science and of the German Academy of Engineering.

Prof. Huajian Gao
Brown University，USA
https://vivo.brown.edu/display/hgao 

Professor Huajian Gao is the Walter H. Annnenberg University Professor at Brown University. He received his B.S. degree from Xian Jiaotong University of China in 1982, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Engineering Science from Harvard University in 1984 and 1988, respectively. He served on the faculty of Stanford University between 1988 and 2002, where he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 1994 and to full Professor in 2000. He worked as a Director and Professor at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart, Germany between 2001 and 2006, and then joined Brown University in 2006. Professor Gao has a background in applied mechanics and engineering science. He has more than 30 years of research experience and more than 300 publications. Professor Gao's research group is generally interested in understanding the basic principles that control mechanical properties and behaviors of both engineering and biological systems. His research spans over Solid Mechanics, Nanomechanics and Biomechanics. He works on mechanics of thin films and hierarchically structured materials, mechanics of biological and bio-inspired materials, mechanics of nanostructured and nanotwinned materials, mechanics of cell adhesion, mechanics of cell-nanomaterials interactions, mechanics of energy storage systems, and mechanics of metallic glasses. Professor Gao is a receipient of numerous academic awards including the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Best Achievement Award for Young Investigators in Applied Mechanics, the Society of Engineering Science Young Investigator Award, the Chang Jiang Guest Chair Professorship of Tsinghua University, the Outstanding Oversea Young Investigator Award by the Ministry of Education of China. the Humboldt Research Fellowship, the NSF Young Investigator Award, the Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, the IBM Faculty Development Award, and the Alcoa Science Award. He is Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Prof. Stanislav Gorb
Kiel University, Germany
https://www.sgorb.zoologie.uni-kiel.de/?page_id=658 

Stanislav Gorb is Professor and Director at the Zoological Institute of the Kiel University, Germany. He received his PhD degree in zoology and entomology at the Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kiev (Ukraine). Gorb was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vienna (Austria), a research assistant at University of Jena, a group leader at the Max Planck Institutes for Developmental Biology in Tübingen and for Metals Research in Stuttgart (Germany). Gorb’s research focuses on morphology, structure, biomechanics, physiology, and evolution of surface-related functional systems in animals and plants, as well as the development of biologically inspired technological surfaces and systems. He received the Schlossmann Award in Biology and Materials Science in 1995, International Forum Design Gold Award in 2011 and Materialica "Best of" Award in 2011. In 1998, he was the BioFuture Competition winner for his works on biological attachment devices as possible sources for biomimetics. In 2018, he received Karl-Ritter-von-Frisch Medal of German Zoological Society. Gorb is the Academician of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Germany (since 2011). Gorb has authored several books, more than 500 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and five patents.

Prof. Zhiwu Han is the dean of Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education), Jilin University. His research interests include machinery biomimetics, functional surface, biomimetic sensor, and industrial applications of biomimetics. He has been selected as the Distinguished Professor of Chang Jiang Scholars Program, and the Distinguished Young Scholar of National Natural Science Foundation of China. He was a senior visiting scholar at Oxford University in UK. Prof. Han has obtained 4 scientific and technological awards on the state and provincial level and 2 international academic awards. He has also published over 100 articles indexed by SCI，including Nature, Advanced Materials, Small, ACS Nano, Langmiur, etc. Prof. Han is the Country Representative and Fellow of International Society of Bionic Engineering (ISBE), editor-in-chief of Journal of Advanced Biotechnology and Bioengineering, associate editor of International Journal of Complex Systems - Computing, Sensing and Control, as well as the editorial board member of Journal of Bionic Engineering and Tribology.