Peter Desmond，Hamad Bin Khalifa University

He is assistant professor in Hamad bin Khalifa University, and part-time Chair of Urban Water Management and Institute of Environmental Engineering in RWTH Aachen University. He obtained his Phd degree from ETH Zurich under the supervision of Professor Eberhard Morgenroth.His research interests is Biofilm and membrane based water reuse and resource recovery

Fouling Control and Simultaneous Micropollutant Removal

Shuo Zhang is currently a PhD candidate at Delft University of Technology. He has been awarded the Lamminga Scholarship in the Netherlands and a full scholarship from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. His research focuses on coupling ceramic membranes with advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) to achieve efficient removal of organic micropollutants in water. His main work includes the development of catalytic membranes with ultra-low catalyst loading, investigation of the synergistic removal of membrane foulants and micropollutants, and the assessment of catalytic stability and engineering applicability. His research interests span membrane technology, cost-effective catalytic processes, and integrated water treatment systems, with a dedication to advancing practical and scalable water purification solutions.

A Research Professor of Water Chemistry (Desalination & Membranes Technology) in Desert Research Center, Cairo, Egypt. He has led multiple collaborative projects with institutions in the USA, UK, and China, developing innovative solutions such as solar-powered desalination units and hybrid membrane systems. He serves on Egypt’s Supreme Council of Water and Irrigation and the National Committee of Advanced Materials. His research interests, including: Desalination, Membrane Separation Technologies, Ultrafiltration, Reverse Osmosis, Forward Osmosis Membranes & Membrane Distillation, capacitive deionization membranes, and Environmental Chemistry.

Environments

Dr. Khaled Mahmoud is Senior Scientist in Water Chemistry and Nanotechnology at the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI). Prior joining QEERI, he worked as Research Officer in Biosensors and Nanobiotechnology at the Biotechnology Research Institute/National Research Council (CNRC), Montreal, Canada. He was the Director of Science & Technology at Bio Vision Technology Inc., Montreal, and an Assistant Professor at Faculty of Engineering, Port Said University. He obtained his PhD in Materials Science from University of Saskatchewan, Canada (2007) and MSc in Analytical Chemistry from Suez Canal University, Egypt (2003). He is specialized in the synthesis and surface functionalization of 2D- carbon nanomaterials including MXene, graphenes, cellulose nanocrystals, and metal oxides.

desalination membranes

Dr. Qirong Ke is currently a researcher in the Micromégas nano-fluidique team at École Normale Supérieure (ENS Paris), where he focuses on translating advanced membrane and nanofluidic technologies into industrial applications. From 2023 to 2024, he worked as an Innovation Scientist at Pentair’s Suzhou R&D Center, contributing to the scale-up and optimization of filtration technologies. Between 2020 and 2022, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Duisburg–Essen, where he focused on membrane surface modification and process upscaling for commercial deployment. His main research interests include membrane surface functionalization, process optimization, and the upscaling of membrane technologies.

and Future Perspectives

Pulak Sarkar is a postdoctoral fellow in environmental engineering working under guidance of Prof. Chuyang Tang at The University of Hong Kong. He received his BSc and MSc degrees from the University of Kalyani, and his PhD degree in chemical science from the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research under the supervision of Dr Santanu Karan in 2022. His research interests focus on the development of high-performance ultrathin reverse osmosis and nanofiltration membranes for ionic and molecular separations. He has developed ultrathin, highly selective polyamide nanofilms, achieving selectivity that sets as global upper-bound of the permeance-selectivity trade-off.

Xin You, currently environmental exposure assessment expert at Bayer AG Crop Science and editorial board member of the SETAC journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. In 2022, he obtained his PhD with highest honors from University of Leipzig and was awarded the UFZ doctoral award by Helmholz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany. He then worked at SCC GmbH (part of Ramboll) in Germany as an environmental fate expert for the registration of plant protection products in the EU before switching to Bayer AG. During his post-graduate studies, he was supported by the EU Erasmus+ for exchange at BOKU university in Vienna and acquired a DAAD stipend for 6-month research stay at University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. His current focus is environmental fate and exposure assessment of agrochemicals in regulatory science. 

fractionation to identify aryl hydrocarbon receptor agonists in sediments

Haotian Wang is an assistant professor at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences (RCEES), Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher (Humboldt fellow) at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research–UFZ in Germany. He received his bachelor's and doctoral degrees from Beijing Normal University in China, and previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at RCEES. His research primarily focuses on nontargeted analysis, toxicokinetic modeling, and risk assessment of bioactive compounds. He leads a National Natural Science Foundation of China for Youth project and has been awarded the China National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents in 2022. He has published 12 SCI papers as either the corresponding or first author in journals such as Environ. Sci. Technol. and Trac-Trends Anal. Chem.

Gangan Wang, postdoc at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ). In 2017 and 2020, Gangan Wang obtained her Bachelor's and Master's degree. During her Master's, she visited Kanazawa University, Japan, as a visiting scholar. Her research interests are mainly on the fate of antibiotic resistance in the water environment, single-cell level visualization of antibiotic resistance genes and in-situ treatment of PFAS in groundwater.

Parsley is currently studying at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Her main research focus is on the transformation processes and biological effects of emerging environmental pollutants, with a particular emphasis on the environmental behavior and ecological risks of microplastics and micro-polluted organic substances. She has published 16 academic papers so far, among which 3 were published as the first author in international authoritative journals such as Environmental Science & Technology. The total citation count of her papers is 660, and her h-index is 11. She has also received honors such as the National Scholarship for Overseas Study and the Academic Scholarship of Chongqing University.

Dr. Huajun Yu is a Research Fellow at the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, University College London (UCL). His research focuses on land-use and its impacts on biodiversity, spanning methodological modeling, systemic assessment, and optimization strategies.He has secured funding as Principal Investigator for multiple competitive projects, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Young Scientists Program (Category C) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation. As a core member, he has contributed to major national initiatives such as China's National Key R&D Program and NSFC International Cooperation Projects. With over 20 publications in leading journals including Nature, Nature Climate Change, Nexus (Cell Press), Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Journal of Cleaner Production, and Journal of Environmental Management.