Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

Dr. Pavel Hobza, dr.h.c., FRSC is Distinguished Chair at Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague. He received his PhD (1974) from the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. His research team works on noncovalent interactions and their applications in bio- and material sciences, databases of accurate interaction energies and on In silico drug design. He has co-authored 4 books, more than 450 papers and 35 review papers in peer-reviewed journals, his H-index (WOS) is 98, Sum of Times Cited is more than 35 000. He was awarded by “Highly Cited Researcher” in chemistry in 2014 – 2016 (Thomson Reuters, later Clarivate Analytics) and Schrödinger Medal in 2017 (World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists).

Quantum chemistry and computational chemistry, non-covalent interactions, structure and dynamics of molecular and biomolecular clusters and biomolecules, hydrogen-bonding and improper, blue-shifting hydrogen-bonding, halogen bonding, drug design.

Horst Köppel has been a Senior Lecturer, and later Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at Heidelberg University since 1991. His research interests focus on theory of the Jahn-Teller effect, molecular excited state processes and vibrational structure in electronic spectra. Special focus is on phenomena which cannot be described within the conventional Born-Oppenheimer separation of electronic and nuclear motions. He authored and coauthored about 250 peer-reviewed original research papers, edited three books with topical reviews and organized several conferences in the field.

Horst Köppel research interests focus on theory of the Jahn-Teller effect, molecular excited state processes and vibrational structure in electronic spectra.

Junrong Zheng completed his PhD and Post-doctoral studies at Stanford University. He is Professor of Chemistry at Peking University, and a Co-founder of Uptek Solutions, a Long-Island-based laser company. He is a recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the Sloan Fellowship and the Packard Fellowship

Physical Chemistry Polymer Chemistry

Dr. Wai-Yim Ching is a Distinguished Curators’ Professor of Physics at the University Missouri-Kansas City, USA. He leads the Electronic Structure Group (ESG) in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. His research focuses on condensed matter theory and computational materials science using first-principles methods. With more than 40 years of experience, he is an author or co-author of over 410 journal articles in diverse areas related to materials and with a Google Scholar Citation H-index 64. He is an Academician of World Ceramic Academy, a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society and the American Physical Society. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society and is on the Editorial Board of Nature Scientific Reports.

Dr. Ching's research area is theoretical condensed matter physics and materials science. He is interested in the electronic, optical, structural, dynamical, magnetic and superconducting properties of a variety of solids

Dr. Wai-Yim Ching is a Distinguished Curators’ Professor of Physics at the University Missouri-Kansas City, USA. He leads the Electronic Structure Group (ESG) in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. His research focuses on condensed matter theory and computational materials science using first-principles methods. With more than 40 years of experience, he is an author or co-author of over 410 journal articles in diverse areas related to materials and with a Google Scholar Citation H-index 64. He is an Academician of World Ceramic Academy, a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society and the American Physical Society. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society and is on the Editorial Board of Nature Scientific Reports.

Dr. Ching's research area is theoretical condensed matter physics and materials science. He is interested in the electronic, optical, structural, dynamical, magnetic and superconducting properties of a variety of solids

Werner Paulus is exploring low temperature oxygen diffusion mechanisms in transition metal oxides. Oxygen doping, via topotactic reaction mechanisms while proceeding at ambient temperature is a powerful tool to access structural and electronic complexity in a controlled way. It also allows to better explore the underlying diffusion mechanisms on an atomic scale, having huge importance in solid state ionics, e.g. for the optimisation of battery materials, fuel cell membranes/electrolytes or sensors. Research activities cover synthesis methods from powder to large single crystals and to explore oxygen intercalation reactions in especially dedicated electrochemical cells on single crystals and polycrystalline electrodes by neutron and X-ray diffraction (synchrotron & laboratory), spectroscopy (XAFS, Raman, INS, IXS, NMR) combined with 18O/16O oxygen isotope exchange reactions and sophisticated data analysis (Maximum Entropy, twinning).

Research activities cover synthesis methods from powder to large single crystals and to explore oxygen intercalation reactions in especially dedicated electrochemical cells on single crystals and polycrystalline electrodes by neutron and X-ray diffraction (synchrotron & laboratory), spectroscopy (XAFS, Raman, INS, IXS, NMR) combined with 18O/16O oxygen isotope exchange reactions and sophisticated data analysis (Maximum Entropy, twinning).

Werner Lottermoser has completed his thesis work about neutron diffraction and magnetism of special silicates from Francfort University (Germany) and university lecturing qualification on Single Crystal Mössbauer Spectroscopy (SCMBS) in 1996 from Salzburg University (Austria). He is now working on sub-nanometric imaging, nanomaterials and materials for industrial applications. He has published more than 65 papers in reputed journals and 150 abstracts and has been serving e.g. for one year as a referee board member at the Journal of Physical Chemistry A. Recently, he was awarded the Austrian Staatspreis for Innovation together with AB-Microelectronics, Salzburg

Materials Science and Mineralogy

PD Dr. rer. habil. Daniel A. M. Egbe was born in Mambanda Cameroon on the 20th of May 1966. He obtained his BSc in Physics and Chemistry (major: Organic Chemistry ) in 1991 at the University of Yaoundé Cameroon (presently known as University of Yaoundé I (UYI)- uy1.uninet.cm). He moved to the Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena Germany (uni-jena.de) in 1992, where he obtained a Masters and a Ph. D in Chemistry in 1995 and 1999, respectively. He completed his "Habilitation" in Organic Chemistry at the same institution in 2006, before spending postdoctoral stays at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany (02/2006-08/2006), at the Technical University of Eindhoven in Holland (2006-2007) and at the Technical University of Chemnitz, Germany (2007-2008). Since 2009, he is a senior scientist the Linz Institute for Organic Solar Cells (LIOS) (lios.at) of the Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria (jku.at). His research interests are the syntheses and the study of structure-property relations of (semi)conducting organic and organic/inorganic (hybrid) materials (small molecules and polymers) finding applications in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), organic photovoltaics (OPVs), organic field effect transistors (OFETs), CO2 reduction, etc. He is member of German Chemical Society (GDCh), Organic Electronics Association (OE-A), American Chemical Society (ACS), World University Service (WUS), german chapter (member of board of directors) (wusgermany.de). He is the initiator of the German-Cameroonian Coordination office (KBK-cameroon.net), initiator of ANSOLE, initiator and chairman of ANSOLE Germany e.V. (ansole.org). Since July 2012, he is consultant at ICTP (The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste Italy) on energy issues. He speaks more than 5 languages.

His research interests are the syntheses and the study of structure-property relations of (semi)conducting organic and organic/inorganic (hybrid) materials (small molecules and polymers) finding applications in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), organic photovoltaics (OPVs), organic field effect transistors (OFETs), CO2 reduction, etc.

Nina Dimcheva graduated from the University of Sofia (M.Sc. in Chemical Physics, 1990) and obtained her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at the University of Plovdiv (2001). Since mid-2006 she is Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry in the same department, The University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Her research interests are focused on the catalytic activities and electrochemical characteristics of immobilized enzymes; electrodeposition of nano-clusters of noble metals on graphite/glassy carbon; modification of electrodes by electrically active enzymes and related studies aiming at the development of enzyme-based biocatalytic electrodes.

Electrochemistry, Heterogeneous catalysis, Immobilized oxidative enzymes, Enzyme-modified graphite and noble metals electrodes, Amperometric biosensors, Biofuel cells.