Prof. William H. Green received his Ph.D. in experimental physical chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1988, and is presently the Hottel Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. He was the Editor of the International Journal of Chemical Kinetics from 2008-2013, and received the American Chemical Society’s Glenn Prize in Fuel Chemistry in 2013. Green’s research interests are in the areas of chemical kinetics, molecular simulation and free radical reactions. His research group focuses on the central problem of reactive chemical engineering: quantitatively predicting the time evolution of chemical mixtures.

Prof. Andreas Dreizler is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. He chairs the institute Reactive Flows and Diagnostics. His current research focusses on fundamentals of turbulent combustion processes using advanced laser diagnostics. He published more than 150 articles in peer reviewed journals. He was chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Laser Diagnostics in Combustion in 2011 and presented a plenary talk at the 35th International Symposium on Combustion. In 2014 he received the prestigious Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Price.

Prof. Moshe Matalon received his Ph.D in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Cornell University in 1978. After two years on the faculty of the Aerodynamics Laboratories of the Polytechnic Institute of New York, he joined the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University, where he was Professor of Engineering Sciences & Applied Mathematics and of Mechanical Engineering. In 2007 he joined the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, as the College of Engineering Caterpillar Distinguished Professor. His research interests are in combustion theory and theoretical fluid mechanics, where he made contributions to a wide range of topics including the structure, dynamics and stability of premixed and diffusion laminar and turbulent flames, combustion instabilities and combustion of heterogeneous fuels. Matalon is Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), Fellow of the Institute of Physics (IOP) and Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). He is the recipient of the AIAA Pendray Aerospace Literature Award (2010) and of the AIAA Fluid Dynamics award (2016). He serves as Editor-In-Chief of Combustion Theory and Modelling and he is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

Dr. Stephen J. Klippenstein received his Ph. D. in chemistry from California Institute of Technology in 1988. After one year of postdoctoral research at the University of Colorado, Boulder, he was on the faculty of the Department of Chemistry at Case Western Reserve University from 1989 to 2000, and was a member of the professional research staff of the Combustion Research Facility at Sandia National Laboratories from 2000 to 2005. He then moved to Argonne National Laboratory, where he is currently a Distinguished Fellow in the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division. His research interests are in theoretical gas-phase chemical kinetics, with emphasis on the modeling of reactions of importance in combustion chemistry.

Prof. Tianfeng Lu is an Associate Professor at University of Connecticut. Dr. Lu received his B.S. (1994) and M.S. (1997) in Engineering Mechanics from Tsinghua University and Ph.D. (2004) in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University, where he has been a research associate from 2004 and a research staff from 2005. His primary research interests include computational fluid dynamics with detailed chemistry as well as reduction of large chemical kinetic mechanisms for computationally efficient simulation of complex multidimensional, turbulent reacting flows and other engineering systems.

Prof. Yiguang Ju is the Robert Porter Patterson Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Director of the Sustainable Energy Program at Princeton University. Professor Ju’s research interests include energy, combustion, and propulsion in the areas of near limit combustion, microscale combustion, plasma assisted propulsion, alternative fuels, chemical kinetics, multiscale modeling, and functional nano-materials. Previously, Professor Ju was the Changjiang Professor and Director of the Thermophysics Institute at Tsinghua University. He has received a number of awards including the Distinguished Paper Award from the International Symposium on Combustion (2011, 2015), the NASA Director’s Certificate of Appreciation award (2011), and the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2011). He has published more than 180 refereed journal articles. He is the chair elect of the Eastern State Section of Combustion Institute (International), an ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) Fellow, and an associate editor for AIAA Journal, Proceedings of Combustion Institute, and Frontiers in Energy. He earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Tohoku University in 1994.

Dr. George (“Geo”) A. Richards received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Purdue University in 1987, and is presently a Focus Area Leader in the Office of Research and Development of the National Energy Technology Laboratory.
Dr. Richards has more than twenty eight years of experience in energy systems research, including all types of energy conversion devices. He has lead research groups investigating stationary turbines, gasification, carbon dioxide capture, combustion, heat transfer, plasmas, fuel cells, fuel processing, sensors and controls, and geothermal energy. In addition to conducting his own research, Dr. Richards’ responsibilities include developing and executing cooperative research agreements with private industry and academia, and evaluating proposed concepts related to energy conversion. He also serves as a research advisor for both graduate and post-graduate investigators visiting from academic institutions, and has been adjunct faculty member at West Virginia University and the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Richards was awarded the ASME Percy Nichols Award for Notable Achievements in the Field of Solid Fuels (2008), was recognized by the NASA/DOD/DOE Propulsion and Power System Alliance with the Chairman’s award (2006), and was named Purdue University Outstanding Mechanical Engineer (2010). He currently serves as an associate editor for AIAA Journal of Propulsion and Power.