Speakers

Keynote speakers

Ximin He

University of California and Faculty of California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI), USA

Dr. He’s research focuses biologically inspired functional smart materials, chemical and biological sensors, actuators with broad applications in materials science, biomedicine, environment, energy, and robotics.

Yan Ji

Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

Yan Ji’s primary research interests are polymers containing dynamic covalent bonds, stimuli-responsive polymers, polymeric nanocomposites, and soft robots.

Carlos Sánchez Somolinos

CSIC, University of Zaragoza, Spain

Dr. Somolinos’s expertise and scientific objectives are focused on developing polymers and their processing through advanced manufacturing techniques in the search for polymeric surfaces or functional systems of interest in optics, biomedicine and soft robotics.

Timothy (Tim) White

University of Colorado Boulder, USA

Research of White’s group is highly interdisciplinary, bridging chemical engineering, materials science, polymer science, mechanics, optics, and applied physics. He developed a materials chemistry to prepare liquid crystal elastomers and networks with directed self-assembly properties. He is also interested in reconfigurable optical elements and is focused on realizing a new generation of optical elements.

Hong Yang

Southeast University, China

Dr. Yang’s research interests are liquid crystal materials, functional polymeric materials, polymer synthesis methodology, organic synthesis, heterocyclic chemistry, and medicinal chemistry.

Yanlei Yu

Fudan University, China

Dr. Yu’s research interests focus on the development of photodeformable smart materials and light-controllable interface materials with photosensitive polymers and liquid crystal polymers.