Javier Ruiz-Martinez holds a master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Granada and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He earned his PhD in Heterogeneous Catalysis from the University of Alicante in 2009. Following his doctoral studies, he completed postdoctoral research and served as an assistant professor at Utrecht University. Dr. Ruiz-Martinez later joined AkzoNobel as a heterogeneous catalysis specialist in the Specialty Chemicals Division.

Since June 2019, he started at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), where he serves as Associate Professor and leads the Catalysis, Nanomaterials, and Spectroscopy research group. His research focuses on understanding heterogeneous catalysts through advanced spectroscopic techniques and the rational design of catalyst materials, including zeolites, mixed oxides, and metal-supported nanoparticles.

EDUCATION

April 1995 to March 2004: Bachelor, Master and Ph.D. course studies at the University of Tokyo, Japan. Ph.D. degree at the University of Tokyo, Department of Chemical System Engineering in March 2004. Ph.D. thesis title: “Elucidation and Control of Aluminosilicate Species Contributing to Zeolite Crystallization”

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCES

·        April 2020 – Present: Professor
Institute of Engineering Innovation, The University of Tokyo, Japan

·        April 2013 – March 2020: Associate Professor
Department of Chemical System Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Japan

·        April 2012 – March 2013: Associate Professor
Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, Japan

·        April 2007 – March 2012 Assistant Professor
Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, Japan

·        April 2004 – March 2007 Research Associate
Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, Japan

The main topics of the research are on zeolite and related micro and mesoporous materials, as well as ceramic processing. Up to now, Prof. Wakihara has published 250 research papers and 10 review papers in international journals, given more than 50 invited lectures, and been authorized more than 40 patents.

To be updated

Jun Xu received his PhD (2007) from Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He has been a visiting scholar at Cardiff University and University of Lille. Since 2014, he has been a full professor at Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, CAS, where he is the director of the division of NMR for materials and chemistry and Vice-director of the state key laboratory of magnetic resonance spectroscopy and imaging. His research interest focuses on the structural characterization of zeolites and zeotype materials and study of reaction mechanisms in heterogeneous catalysis using solid-state NMR spectroscopy.

Ana Palčić (Zagreb, Croatia) studied chemistry at the University of Zagreb and completed her PhD thesis at the same University. She has worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the group of Prof. Valentin Valtchev in Laboratory of Catalysis and Spectroscopy in Caen, France. In 2015 she was promoted to research associate at the Ruđer Bošković Institute while in 2022 was appointed senior research associate. At present Dr Palčić is the president of the Croatian Zeolite Association and member of the Federation of European Zeolite Associations board. Her research is focused on green synthesis of zeolites with pre-determined properties for application in catalysis and environment protection.

Maricruz Sánchez-Sánchez is Full Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) in Austria, where she leads a research group focused on sustainable catalytic processes. She studied Chemical Engineering in Granada, Spain, and completed her PhD at the Institute of Catalysis and Petrochemistry (CSIC) in Madrid. In 2010, she joined the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin as a postdoctoral researcher, working on selective oxidation catalysts for alkane functionalization. She later moved to the Technical University of Munich, where she focused her research on methanol conversion to olefins among other zeolite-catalysed reactions. In 2017 she received the Jochen Block Prize of the German Catalysis Society for her contribution to catalysis of hydrocarbon interconversions.

Her research centres on thermal, heterogeneous catalysis, with a strong emphasis on zeolite-based materials for hydrocarbon transformations and CO2 valorization. She develops multifunctional catalysts combining metal and metal oxide nanostructures with zeolites, exploiting confinement effects, shape selectivity, and tailored active sites to enhance activity and selectivity.

Prof. Fei-Jian Chen is currently a full Professor at Jilin University (China). He earned his PhD from Nanjing University in 2014，then he went to Bengbu Medical College as an associate professor (2014-2022). In 2022, he joined in the State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, Jilin University, and is a member of International Center of Future Science, Jilin University. In 2024, he received National Funds for Distinguished Young Scientists. His research mainly focuses on rational synthesis of new type of large and extra-large pore zeolites.

Qinming Wu received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Zhejiang University in 2016 under the supervision of Prof. Feng-Shou Xiao. After a postdoctoral research at Zhejiang University and Tomaya University in Japan, He joined the College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University as a researcher in 2020. So far, he has published over 50 papers as the first or corresponding author such as J. Am. Chem. Soc. and Angew. Chem. His research interest focuses on designed synthesis of zeolites and their catalytic application.

To be updated

Dr. Sezin Galioğlu Özaltuğ is a principal investigator at the National Nanotechnology Research Center (UNAM), Bilkent University, Ankara, Türkiye. She also holds a position as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Ankara University. She received her BS degree in Physics Engineering from Ankara University and a Ph.D. degree from the Micro and Nanotechnology Department at Middle East Technical University. Her doctoral work was mainly on the synthesis of various zeolites and zeo-type materials and exploring them in application areas such as photochromism and ionic conductivity. She has established an interdisciplinary background in nanotechnology throughout her research career and got involved in collaborative TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye) and European Union (ERC) projects. During her postdoctoral studies at UNAM, Bilkent University, she conducted experimental work on dissipative colloidal self-assembly using ultrafast lasers, which resulted in publication in Nature Physics. She invented a new ultrafast laser-driven assembly technique for nanoporous zeolite synthesis, published in Advanced Materials. Currently, she is leading two TUBITAK projects - a 3501 Career project and a 1001 Basic Science project - as the PI with her group.

Professor Li-Hua Chen, State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China. His current research focuses on the design and synthesis of hierarchical porous functional materials and their applications in energy and environmental catalysis. He has published over 160 SCI-indexed papers in leading journals such as Chem. Rev., Chem. Soc. Rev., Nat. Nanotech., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Adv. Mater., and Natl. Sci. Rev., and holds more than 60 Chinese invention patents.

Chang Liu received her BS and MS in chemical engineering from Tsinghua University. She joined SINOPEC Shanghai Research Institute of Petrochemical Technology since 2015, during which she received her PhD in physical chemistry from Fudan University. She is now working as an associate research fellow. Her research interests focus on the design and synthesis of multi-functional catalytic materials, and the application of coupling catalysis strategy in C1 utilization and production of olefins and aromatics.

To be updated

Zihao Rei Gao obtained his PhD degree (cum laude) in Applied Chemistry from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (UAM), where he conducted his research at the Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM-CSIC) under the supervision of Prof. Miguel A. Camblor from 2018 to 2022. Since Feb 2023, he has been a post-doctoral research fellow collaborating with Prof. Michael Tsapatsis at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). He will join the Universite de Montreal (UdeM) in Sept 2026 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry.

Throughout his career, Rei has focused on zeolite synthesis, particularly on the development of stable extra-large pore zeolites to overcome pore-size limitations, which is a longstanding challenge in zeolite science for more than 80 years. He has led the discovery and development of the ZEO, HPM, and NUD series of novel extra-large pore zeolites and has also contributed to the ECNU and IDM zeolite series, resulting in a total of 12 new zeolite structures over the past decade. Rei played a central role in the development of the 1D-to-3D zeolite structure transformation strategy, first demonstrated in the topotactic condensation of ZEO-3 and later extended to the interchain expansion approach in ZEO-5. This work was praised as “click chemistry in zeolites” for its conceptual elegance and synthesis versatility. To date, he has authored publications including one Nature paper, two Science papers, and five Angewandte Chemie papers as first author, co-first author, or corresponding author. He maintains close collaborations with leading zeolite research groups across Europe and Asia.