Scientific Program

Dr. Hyuk Chang holds a Ph.D. in Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Utah (1990) and worked in Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a research associate prior to joining Samsung (1992). He served as the Director of Material Research Center at SAIT (Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology), a corporate research center of Samsung Electronics. In 2011, he was appointed ‘Samsung Fellow’ (the most honorable in Samsung’s researchers and engineers) in recognition of his technology leadership in Samsung and industries as well. From 2017, he moved to Samsung SDI as R&D Center Director, solely focusing on battery materials research connecting Mobile & EV Cell Business Units. And now (2020~), he is the Director of Samsung SDI Battery Business. With his educational background of electrochemistry and nanophase materials, he had been working in electrochemical energy conversion and storage materials research and developed functional materials of fuel cell and rechargeable battery. He has over 120 technical publications and 30 US patents.

Daniel Mandler, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel is an electrochemist who has been active in a variety of fields spanning from analytical to physical electrochemistry. He is currently the incumbent of the Archie and Marjorie Sherman chair at the Institute of Chemistry. Daniel completed his B.Sc. and Ph.D. in chemistry at the Hebrew University in 1983 and 1988, respectively. He then spent two years as a post-doc with Allen J. Bard at the University of Texas in Austin and returned to the Hebrew University as a lecturer and since 2003 he is a full Professor at the Institute of Chemistry of the Hebrew University. His main interests are wide and include: electrochemical deposition of nanomaterials, sol-gel electrochemistry, self-assembled monolayers for electroanalytical applications, nanoparticles imprinted polymers, electrochemical coatings of medical implants and forensic science. He has published more than 250 paper and supervised over 60 MSc and PhD students. He served as the head of the Chemistry School and the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Exact Sciences and has been very active in combining science, art and education. In 2013, he became an International Society of Electrochemistry Fellow and served as the Chair of Division 1 (Analytical Electrochemistry) during 2017-8.

Kathy Ayers is Vice President of R&D for Nel Hydrogen US, with responsibility for developing and executing Nel’s technology strategy in membrane-based water electrolysis. She earned her Ph.D. in chemistry at Caltech and spent 10 years in the battery industry before moving to Nel. Her group’s research spans polymer membranes, catalysts, porous transport materials, and device design. Dr. Ayers is widely recognized in the hydrogen field for her ability to link fundamental science with industrial and manufacturing perspective. She manages a broad portfolio of internally and externally funded research projects, across a range of collaborators in academia, industry, and National Labs. She has served on multiple scientific advisory boards for Energy Frontier Research Centers and similar consortia, as well as two Federal level advisory committees for the US Department of Energy (DOE). Dr. Ayers received an R&D Award in 2012 from the Production Team at Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office at DOE, and an American Chemical Society Women Chemists Committee 2014 Rising Stars Award. She also received a Fuel Cell Seminar Program Award in 2015 and was made a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society in 2020.

Lo Gorton is an analytical chemist, who has contributed to (bio)analytical chemistry and bioelectrochemisgry. Lo Gorton completed his M.A. in chemistry in 1972 and his PhD in analytical chemistry in 1981 at Lund University. Between 1997 and 2016 he was chair professor in analytical chemistry at Lund University. He is currently professor emeritus at Lund University. He studied immobilization of enzymes on various supports, combining immobilized enzyme reactors with various flow and detection systems. His main contributions are within bioelectrochemistry, especially with direct electron transfer reactions between redox enzymes and electrodes, in particular various peroxidases and cellobiose and fructose dehydrogenase. Since 2004 he has also studied electrochemical communication between viable microbial cells/thylakoid membranes and electrodes. He is an author/coauthor more than 500 papers and has given more than 220 invited talks. He has served as member of several advisory/editorial boards and he is currently in the editorial board or Member of the Editorial Board of Bioelectrochemistry and Current Opinion in Electrochemistry and Member of the Advisory Board of ChemElectroChem. In 2012 he became “Fellow of the International Society of Electrochemistry”, and was awarded The International DropSens Award, in 2013 the Katzumi Niki prize in Bioelectrochemistry of Division 2 Bioelectrochemical of the International Society of Electrochemistry, and in 2017 the EuCheMS DAC award in analytical chemistry.

Christian Amatore, 69, was educated at Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), the leading French center for higher education and research. After his Habilitation in University Paris Diderot under Prof Saveant’s guidance he moved to the University of Indiana at Bloomington before returning to France and be appointed as a CNRS and ENS Professor in ENS, where pursued his career while holding the former position of Louis Pasteur. He is presently Emeritus Professor of CNRS and ENS and Distinguished Professor in the University of Xiamen, China. He is Member of the French Academy of Sciences, Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Member of the Academia Europaea, Member of The Third World Academy of Sciences, Foreign Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, Honorary Fellow of The Royal Society of Chemistry and of the Chinese Chemical Society, Honorary Member of the Israeli Chemical Society, Distinguished Scientist of the French Chemical Society and Fellow of ISE and ECS. He served as vice-President and President of ISE and was one of the twenty members of the French High Council of Science and Technology, which advised the Presidents of the French Republic. He has been Knighted by the French Republic in the Orders of Merits and of Legion d’Honneur and as Officer in the Order of Academic Palms.

Hector Abruña, Emile M.Chamot Professor of Chemistry, is Director of the Energy Materials Center at Cornell (emc2). He completed his graduate studies with Royce W. Murray and Thomas J. Meyer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1980 and was a postdoctoral research associate with Allen J. Bard at the University of Texas at Austin. After a brief stay at the University of Puerto Rico, he moved to Cornell in 1983. He was Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology from 2004-2008.
Abruña has been the recipient of numerous awards including a Presidential Young Investigator Award, Sloan Fellowship, J. S. Guggenheim Fellowship, and J. W. Fulbright Senior Fellow. He is the recipient of the Electro- chemistry Award for the American Chemical Society (2008), and the C.N. Reilley Award in Electrochemistry for 2007. He was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007, and Fellow of the International Society of Electrochemistry in 2008. He received the D. C. Grahame Award from the Electrochemical Society for 2009, the Faraday Medal of the Royal Society for 2011, and the Brian Conway Prize from the International Society of Electrochemistry for 2013. In 2013, he was made Fellow of the Electrochemical Society. Abruña is the co-author of over 440 publica- tions and has given over 575 invited lectures world-wide. Out of the 50 students that, to date, have obtained a Ph.D. under his direction, 14 have gone on to faculty positions.