Keynote Speaker I

Prof. Alan Lau
Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
(Fellow of EAS&EASA, H-Index 67)

Biodata: In 1987, Dr Lau joined the Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company Ltd (HAECO) where he was employed as a craft apprentice in the aircraft maintenance division for 4 years. He received his Bachelor and Master degrees of Engineering in Aerospace Engineering from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University, Australia) in 1996 and 1997, respectively. Within that period, he also worked for General Aviation Maintenance Pty Ltd, Australia, as an Engineer Trainee, and for the Corporative Research Centre for Advanced Composite Structures (CRC-ACS) Australia, as a Research Assistant designing a repair scheme for composite performs. He received his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2001. Thereafter, he was appointed Assistant Professor in 2002 and promoted to Associate Professor and Full Professor in 2005 and 2010, respectively. In 2013, he was appointed as Associate Dean (Industrial Relations) of the Faculty of Engineering and Alex Wong/Gigi Wong Endowed Professor in Product Design Engineering.

Based on his outstanding research performance in the fields of advanced composites, FRP for infrastructure applications, smart structures and nano-materials, he has received numerous awards (for both research and teaching) including: The Best Paper Awards on Materials (1998), The Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fellowship Award (2000), Young Scientist Award (2002), Young Engineer of the Year Award (2004), Faculty Outstanding Award for Research and Scholarly Activities (2005), Award for Outstanding Research in Nanocomposites for Space Applications, USA (2006), Chemical Physics Letters, Most Cited Paper 2003- 2007 Award, President Award in Teaching 2008, Award for Innovative Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Technology at the 20th International Conference on College Teaching and Learning, USA (2009). He is also the Winner of the Ernest L. Boyer International Award for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Technology, in the same Conference (the first scholar outside the United States to receive this honour) and the Most Cited Paper Awards in Composites Part B: Engineering (issued by Elsevier Science). In 2011, Dr. Lau received the Outstanding International Researcher Award and the Outstanding International Research Leader Award from the International Association of Multidisciplinary Research (IAMR). This marks the first time that anyone has received both the awards making his achievement quite exceptional. In 2013, he was also awarded The University Grant Committee (UGC) Award for Teaching Excellence.

Due to his significant contribution to the field of science and engineering, he was elected as a Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences in 2007, with the citation “For profound contributions to materials science and fundamental developments in the field of composite materials”, and was the first scholar in Hong Kong to receive this honor. In 2016, he was also elected as a Fellow of European Academy of Sciences and Arts. Three of his articles published in Composites Part B: Engineering; Composites Science and Technology; and Chemical Physics Letters were ranked in the TOP 1% MOST CITED ARTICLES within their field in 2006 and 2007, according to Essential Science IndicatorsSM. Six of his papers have been ranked among the top 25 hottest articles in Composites Part B: Engineering, issued by ScienceDirect, Elsevier (two of them were ranked No. 1 in 2007). Since 2002, Dr Lau has edited 7 books and published over 260 scientific and engineering articles and his publications have been cited over 21,000 with the h-index of 69. He was named Australia Research Theme Leader in Composite Materials in 2019. Dr. Lau has also actively participated in many consultancy works with the industry. The scope of his works have mainly focused on failure analyses on different engineering systems.

Prof. Serge Zhuiykov
Ghent University Global Campus, South Korea

Biodata: Prof. Serge Zhuiykov: PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2015 – present, Professor, Ghent University Global Campus
2004 – 2015, CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering Division, Melbourne
 2004 – 2006,Senior Lecturer (part time). Industrial Science Department, Swinburne University of Technology,
Melbourne, VIC. 3122, Australia
2002 – 2004, Manager, SSL, Australian Government Analytical Laboratories,177 Salmon Str., Port Melbourne, VIC. 3207, Australia
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
2009 – present,Member of the American Nano Society (ANS);Member of the American Nano Society (ANS);
2006 – present,Member of the Electrochemical Society (ECS);
2002 – present,Member of the Fire Protection Association of Australia (FPAA);
1995 – present,Member of the Australasian Ceramic Society (ACS);
1994 – present, Member of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS);

Prof. Alfred A.Christy
University of Agder, Norway

Biodata: Prof. Alfred A.Christy obtained his primary and secondary education from St. Patrick"s College Jaffna. He entered the then University of Ceylon (Peradeniya) and obtained a Bachelor degree in Chemistry (B.Sc., University of Peradeniya, 1976). The first position held by Professor Christy was as a Demonstrator/Assistant Lecturer in Chemistry at the University of Jaffna in Sri Lanka (1976-1977). He then moved to Nigeria, where he worked first as a teacher and then as senior master in Chemistry at a local college (1977 - 1983) in Ondo State, Nigeria. He then moved to Bergen, Norway. In Bergen, he commenced furthering his education at the University of Bergen, while acting as a teaching assistant (1983-1987) and then as lecturer at the Department of Chemistry (1987-1991). He was awarded a master degree in Physical Chemistry in 1987 and Dr. Scient. Degree in 1990. He then worked first as a research Scientist (1991-1992) and later as a laboratory manager/research scientist in the FT-IR laboratory he built up at the department (1992-1998). He assumed a professorship in Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, University of Agder in 1998.

Professor Christy has accumulated an impressive list of scientific achievements during his career. He has published over 100 papers in scientific journals and presented more than 90 lectures at conferences, institutions of higher learning and industrial establishments around the world. Professor Christy has authored several book chapters and reports. He co-authored a book entitled "Modern Fourier transform Infrared Spectroscopy" (A. A. Christy, Elsevier-2001). He has also been a co-editor of a second book "NIR spectroscopy in Food Science and Technology" (Wiley, 2006). The breadth and depth of this work is well seen in the fact that Professor Christy has acted as a referee for some 25 different International Journals across a wide spread of disciplines related to chemistry. 

Professor Christy's international standing earned him respect in his discipline and this fact is clearly reinforced by his appointment in the "Research Proposal Reviewer" for the National Science Foundation-Division of Earth Sciences, Instrumentation and facilities Program, USA. Furthermore, Professor Christy has been included in the "Marquis who's who in the world" and several other directories from 1991onwards. He has also received several awards such as "Man of the Year 1994", "20th Century Achievement Award (1995)" and several other honours such "Five hundred leaders of influence in the world". Prof. Christy chaired the “First Scandinavian Conference on Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy” in 1994. Since then he has been in the steering committees of several international conferences in Chemistry and material science.

Prof. Christy has also been involved in International education as a Consultant & Co-ordinator for students in Norway, training Science teachers in Uganda on behalf of U.N.; serving in the scientific Committees for evaluating PhD theses from Universities in Pakistan and as an adviser and visiting professor at the University of Petroleum (Beijing) and Thammasat University in Thailand to name a few.

Speakers in 2024 to be announced soon......