7ᵗʰ International Conference on Rare Earth Materials
3–6 November 2026, Palermo, Sicily, Italy
Speakers
Opening invited lecture
Antonella Maggio (University of Palermo, Italy)
Hidden Elements: Untangling the History, Science, and Serendipity Behind the Discovery of the Rare Earths
About
Antonella Maggio has been a chemist since 1996. She is currently an Associate Professor at the STEBICEF Department of the University of Palermo. Her research activity focuses on the chemistry of natural substances, and she is also involved in the history and didactics of chemistry.
• In addition to other appointments, she has been a lecturer (since 2017) for the course History of Chemistry (6 ECTS) in the Bachelor’s Degree Programme in Chemistry, and since 2018 she has taught the module Foundational Concepts of Chemistry and Their Didactic Transposition (3 ECTS) in the Master’s Degree Programme in Chemistry. She is co-author of around 120 scientific publications in international journals.
• She is a member of the Board of PhD Supervisors for the PhD programme in Molecular and Biomolecular Sciences and of the Board of PhD Supervisors for the National PhD programme Technologies and Methods for University Education.
• She is a member of the Executive Board and Director of Teacher Training Pathways at the University of Palermo for the teaching qualification classes A31, A34, and A50.
• She is co-author of the volumes Stanislao Cannizzaro. Scienziato e politico all’alba dell’Unità d’Italia e Appunti di un Corso di Storia della Chimica. She is also co-author, for Rizzoli Education, of chemistry textbooks for upper secondary schools. She serves as the University of Palermo’s coordinator for the PLS–Chemistry project and for several projects within the PNRR–Orientation framework.
• She is a member of the Italian Chemical Society (SCI) and, from 2010 to 2013, served as an elected member of the Executive Council of the Italian Chemical Society – Sicily Section. Since 2020, she has been the delegate of the President of the SCI Division of Organic Chemistry to the Interdivisional Group for the Dissemination of Chemical Culture, of which she is also a member.
• Since 2022, she has been a member of the Executive Board of the National Group for the Foundations and History of Chemistry.
• Since 2018, she has been part of the Mentor Programme for Teaching at the University of Palermo, established in 2013 and officially launched in 2016 by the University Quality Assurance Office.
• She has organised several events aimed at the public dissemination of chemistry.
Keynote invited lectures
Lorenzo Di Bari (University of Pisa, Italy)
Circular Dichroism and Circularly Polarized Luminescence of Chiral Lanthanide Compounds
About
Lorenzo Di Bari received his BSc and PhD in Chemistry from the University of Pisa and the Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa). As graduate student and postdoc, he worked with G. Bodenhausen (Lausanne, CH), J. Kowalewski and M.H. Levitt (Stockholm, SE), on NMR tools for conformational analysis of organic compounds. Back to Pisa in 1992, he started to work on Electronic Circular Dichroism, with P. Salvadori. In 1995, he was tenured at Pisa University, where he was appointed associate and full professor of Organic Chemistry. Since 2000 he’s been member of the Editorial Board of the Journal Chirality, since 2009 he is in the International Scientific Committee of the International Conference on Chiroptical Spectroscopies and since 2018 of the “Chirality”(formerly ISCD) symposia. He has co-authored over 200 papers and review articles in international journals, and several book chapters.
He is mainly interested in the stereochemistry of complex systems, like flexible molecules existing as conformational manifolds, supramolecular systems, fluxional coordination compounds, self-assembling systems. His most recent activity focuses on chiral molecules and materials for organic optoelectronic devices and on the stereochemistry of natural and synthetic oligonucleotides.
In the last 10 years, he supervised MSc (> 20) and PhD (12) theses and most of his former group members are now developing their independent academic careers worldwide.
Thomas Jüstel (FH Münster University of Applied Sciences, Germany)
Pr3+ – The Hidden Champion of the PToE
About
Prof. Dr. Thomas Jüstel was born in Witten, Germany in 1968. He studied chemistry and biology at the Ruhr-University of Bochum from 1987 to 1992. He received his Ph.D. in coordination chemistry in 1995 in the group of Prof. Dr. Karl Wieghardt. Then, he was hired by the Philips Research Laboratories Aachen in autumn 1995 as a Research Scientist, where he started to work on luminescent materials. Some years later he became a Senior Scientist and then he was promoted to a Principal Scientist in 2003. In spring 2004 he became a professor for Inorganic Chemistry and Material Sciences at the FH Münster University of Applied Sciences. His research group “Tailored Optical Materials” deals with photochemistry, nanoscale and µ-scale luminescent materials for LEDs, UV radiation sources and x-ray detectors. Since summer 2013 he is the dean of the department “Chemical Engineering”. His work has been published in about 300 peer-reviewed publications, several book chapters, and led to more than 200 patent families on luminescent compositions and their application in fluorescent lamps, plasma displays, x-ray detectors, and LEDs.
Andrea Melchior (University of Udine, Italy)
About
Andrea Melchior is Professor of Chemical Foundations of Technologies in the Department of Engineering at the University of Udine. After the Msc in Chemistry (University of Trieste), he completed his PhD in Chemical Technologies at the University of Udine in 2004. He held research appointments at the University of Udine, Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique (CEA, Grenoble, France), the University of Seville (Spain), and at the LBNL (Berkeley, CA, USA). He currently leads the Thermodynamics and Modelling (TherMo) research group at the University of Udine. His research focuses on the thermodynamic and structural characterization of metal ions and coordination compounds in solution, integrating experimental thermodynamic techniques with spectroscopic methods and theoretical calculations. His work addresses several topics in transition metals and rare earths solution chemistry, with particular emphasis on speciation, solvation, adsorption, and separation processes relevant to sustainable metal recovery, as well as the development of coordination compounds for chemical sensing applications. Prof. Melchior has participated in and coordinated numerous research projects funded by national and European programs.
Mauro Perfetti (University of Florence, Italy)
Functional magnetic molecular materials
About
Mauro Perfetti received his PhD in Chemical Sciences from the University of Florence in 2016 under the supervision of Prof. Roberta Sessoli. He then moved to Stuttgart (supervisor Joris van Slageren) and Copenhagen (supervisor Jesper Bendix) where he progressed through tenure-track positions. Since 2023 he is an Associate Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Florence, Department of Chemistry “Ugo Schiff”. His research focuses on molecular magnetism, with particular emphasis on metal-containing molecules and the design of magnetic anisotropy and electronic structure in functional molecular materials. He is interested in both magnetometric and spectroscopic characterization and modelling of f-elements (lanthanides and actinides).
Prof. Perfetti has been awarded several prestigious international recognitions, including an ERC Starting Grant in 2022 and multiple prizes for scientific excellence (e.g. Kahn prize, Ciprian Prize, Di Braccio prize). He has been invited to deliver numerous keynote and invited lectures at international conferences and universities worldwide and has held visiting positions at leading research institutions in Europe, the United States, and Asia.
He is the author of > 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications, which have appeared in highly prestigious international journals, and he actively collaborates with research groups across five continents. Group website: https://mperfettigroup.it/.
Invited Speakers
Flavia Artizzu (University of Eastern Piedmont "A. Avogadro", Italy)
Lanthanide-mediated photophysical dynamics in antenna ligands for white light emission and molecular photoswitching
About
Prof. Flavia Artizzu completed her doctoral studies in Chemistry (2008) and then in Physics (2015) at the University of Cagliari (Italy), where she worked for several years as a postdoctoral researcher. In 2017-2021 she joined the “Luminescent Lanthanide Lab” group at the Department of Chemistry of Ghent University (Belgium) as a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow. In September 2021, she became Assistant Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the Department of Sustainable Development and Ecological Transition of the University of Estaern Piedmont “A. Avogadro” (UPO) in Vercelli (Italy) and Associate Professor in 2024. She is the head of the “LumiMol Lab” research group whose research interests are oriented towards the design and synthesis of luminescent molecular and nanomaterials for next-generation hi-tech applications, including quantum photonics, photonic computing, telecommunication technology, white light emission, optical thermometry, with a circular economy and green chemistry approach. She is Principal Investigator of several national and International research projects, including the ARTEMIS project on molecular quantum light sources granted by the European Innovation Council. Also, Prof. Artizzu serves as Editor of Materials Research Bulletin journal published by Elsevier.
Maria Rosa Beccia (Université Côte d'Azur, Nice, France)
Europium Speciation and Bioaccumulation in Ascophyllum nodosum: Mechanistic Insights into Lanthanide Behavior in Marine Systems
About
Maria Rosa Beccia is Associate Professor at the Université Côte d’Azur (France) and head of the Human and Environmental Radiochemistry research team at the Institut de Chimie de Nice. She received her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Pisa (Italy) in 2012, in collaboration with the University of Burgos (Spain), and completed postdoctoral research at CEA Cadarache and Aix-Marseille Université, focusing on bioinorganic and coordination chemistry.
Her research investigates the behavior and impact of toxic and radioactive metals, including actinides and lanthanides, in environmental and biological systems, with particular emphasis on marine organisms. She studies metal speciation, thermodynamic and structural properties of metal complexes, and the molecular mechanisms of metal uptake using a combination of spectroscopic techniques (XAS, UV-vis, fluorescence), radiometric analyses, and modeling approaches.
Maria Rosa Beccia is Principal Investigator of several national and international projects and actively contributes to the international scientific community as a conference organizer and reviewer for leading journals.
She supervises PhD, MSc, and Bachelor students and participates in outreach activities aimed at both raising awareness about the environmental behavior of metals and promoting the visibility of women in science.
Kevin Bernot (Institut des Sciences Chimiques de Rennes (ISCR), France)
Responsible use of rare earth elements throughout their life cycle, the 2025 CNRS expertise
About
Prof. Kevin Bernot was born in St-Malo, France in 1980. He received his PhD from both the University of Florence (Italy) and National Institute for Applied Science (INSA Rennes) in 2007, under the supervision of Prof Andrea Caneschi and Prof Olivier Guillou. After a post-doctoral stay at the University of Florence in 2008 under the supervision of Prof Roberta Sessoli, he became Assistant Professor in 2009 at INSA Rennes and then Professor in 2021. He is part of the Institut des Sciences Chimiques de Rennes (ISCR), and head of the INSA-CSM team.
His research activities focus on lanthanides coordination chemistry for the design of molecules, material and devices with luminescent and/or magnetic properties. In particular, he developed molecule-based luminescent material and surfaces, lanthanide-based single-chain magnets as well as lanthanide-based supramolecular nanotubes with optical and magnetic properties.
He is laureate of various prizes (“best European PhD thesis on Molecular Magnetism” (2008); “Junior Award 2020 from the Coordination Chemistry Division” of the French Chemical Society; “Distinguished Junior Member” of the French Chemical Society (SCF); 2020-2024 Junior Member of « Institut Universitaire de France, IUF » (2017-2022)). He was an expert in the CNRS national expertise about the “responsible use of rare earth elements throughout their life cycle” published in 2025.
Szymon Chorąży (Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland)
Lanthanide Polycyanidometallate Coordination Compounds: From Luminescent Molecular Nanomagnets to Extended Multifunctionality
About
Szymon Chorazy is an associate professor at the Faculty of Chemistry, Jagiellonian University (JU). He received the PhD of chemical sciences in 2014 after finishing PhD studies at the Faculty of Chemistry JU, realized within the International PhD Studies Program supported by the EU through the Foundation for Polish Science. His PhD project, supervised by Prof. Barbara Sieklucka, was related to the design, synthesis, and investigation of molecule-based magnets based on octacyanidometallate ions. Within the PhD studies, Szymon Chorazy spent 14 months in the group of Prof. Shin-ichi Ohkoshi in Department of Chemistry, School of Science, The University of Tokyo (Japan). After receiving the PhD, for two years, he was a project assistant professor in the group of Prof. Ohkoshi. Since 2016 he was a research assistant at the Faculty of Chemistry JU, working in the group of Prof. Sieklucka. Since 2021, he leads the Multifunctional Luminescent Materials Group. In 2019 he received the habilitation in chemical sciences. Szymon Chorazy realized his research work within the grants, including Iuventus Plus grant of the Ministry of Science and Higher Educations as well as multiple grants of the Polish National Science Centre. In 2022 he starts to realize the LUMIFIELD research grant financed by the European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant).
Current research topics of Szymon Chorazy concern the construction of multifunctional luminescent materials linking light emission phenomena with magnetic and electrical properties, chirality, and sensitivity to physical and chemical stimuli. The research output of Szymon Chorazy includes more than 100 articles published in renowned journals from the JCR list, cited around 3700 times. Szymon Chorazy received Scholarship for outstanding young scientists awarded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland, Scholarship for talented young researchers within the START 2014 and START 2015 programs awarded by the Foundation of Polish Science, Starting Career Talk Grant award of the 7th European Conference on Molecular Magnetism for 10 most promising young researchers in the area of molecular magnetism, and Wlodzimierz Kolos award of the 3rd Department of Polish Academy of Sciences in the field of chemistry for scientists under 40. For more information please visit the website of his research group: http://multilumimater.pl/
Przemysław Dereń (Institute of Low Temperature and Structure Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wrocław, Poland)
About
Professor Przemysław Dereń is a physicist specializing in luminescent materials and light-matter interactions. A full professor at the Institute for Low Temperature and Structure Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Wrocław, he heads the Department of Optical Spectroscopy. His current research focuses on materials that convert visible light to UV-C and on advanced phosphors for lighting, lasers, and UV sources. With extensive international experience, including long-standing collaborations in France, he has given numerous plenary and invited lectures worldwide. Professor Dereń has a strong background in project management, complemented by experience supervising doctoral, postdoctoral, and master’s students. He promotes photonics research through international conferences and interdisciplinary collaborations.
Mikhail G. Brik (University of Tartu, Estonia)
A2XY6 compounds: structure, properties, optical applications
About
Mikhail G. Brik, Professor, Dr. hab., earned his PhD from Kuban State University, Krasnodar, Russia and his habilitation degree from Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. He has more than 25 years of international experience, working in different universities and research centers in Eritrea, Israel, Japan, Estonia, China, Serbia, Poland, Romania, Czech Republic.
Currently he is a Professor at Tartu University, Estonia; Jan Długosz University, Poland; Vinča Institute for Nuclear Sciences, Serbia; Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China.
Research interests of Prof. Brik are focused on first-principles and semi-empirical calculations of various properties of optical materials doped with transition metal and rare-earth ions; he has active collaboration with many academic and industrial research groups in Europe, Asia, USA.
Prof. Brik is the Special Issue Editor of Optical Materials (Elsevier), Foreign Member of Latvian Academy of Sciences, Honorary Member of Academy of Romanian Scientists. He is a recipient of the Dragomir Hurmuzescu Award of Romanian Academy in 2006, Estonian State Prize in the field of Exact Sciences in 2013, Chinese Government Friendship Award in 2022 and Luminescence and Display Materials Division Centennial Outstanding Achievement Award of Electrochemical Society in 2024.
According to Google Scholar, he has more than 19000 citations with h-index=69.
Gianni Gallello (Valencia University, Spain)
The Standardization of REE Patterns to Interpret Anthropogenic Features in Archaeological Contexts
About
My main line of research is archaeometry, focused not only on the characterization, provenance, taphonomy, and conservation of different archaeological materials through the analysis of their chemical elements, but above all on the development of specific and innovative sampling and analytical strategies to address concrete archaeological problems. In particular, over the last 12 years I have developed archaeological applications for the study of chemical elements present in ancient remains, especially through the use of rare earth elements (REEs).
This innovative and multidisciplinary perspective enables new approaches to specific archaeological problems, such as distinguishing between natural and anthropogenic stratigraphic units, or understanding the human factor in the formation and development of these strata. These approaches have been applied, for example, to the prehistoric sites of Cueva de la Cocina (Valencia, Spain) and Konso (Ethiopia). Within this absolutely novel line of research, I am recognized as one of the leading specialists worldwide.
I have also led research on the provenance determination of raw materials and on the characterization of taphonomic and diagenetic processes in bone remains. In addition, I work on the development of non-destructive analytical methods, having pioneered the use of mobile phones as tools for the characterization of archaeological materials through the statistical treatment of colorimetric data. With these objectives, I founded ArchaeChemis(https://www.uv.es/archaechemis ) in 2014. This is a multidisciplinary research unit supported by the Departments of Prehistory, Archaeology and Ancient History, the Institute of Material Science and the Department of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Valencia (UV). The group includes faculty members and researchers from both departments, as well as undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students. In this context, I am currently supervising 5PhD students, in addition two doctoral theses defended in 2022 and 2024.
My scientific publications focus on the development of innovative methodological approaches for the study of different archaeological materials, designing sampling strategies and applying chemical element analysis and multivariate statistics to heterogeneous and diachronic archaeological assemblages. To date, I have published around 100 scientific papers. I serve as a reviewer and expert evaluator on the EVALUA platform of the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) and SÉNECA of the Region of Murcia, and I also act as an evaluator for the research assessment agencies of Poland and Kazakhstan. Additionally, I am an Associate Editor of the Elsevier journal HELIYON (Q1, multidisciplinary).
Throughout my career, I have been awarded prestigious international postdoctoral fellowships, including a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship with the project MATRIX (MATRIX-H2020-MSCA-IF-2015-704709), carried out at the University of York. I was also appointed Distinguished Researcher Beatriz Galindo at the University of Valencia (BEAGAL18/00110). I am currently employed as an Associate Professor at the University of Valencia.
I am the Principal Investigator of the project EvolMED (PID2021-127731NB-C21) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN), and I am a member of the research teams of several national and international projects as head of the archaeometryline. These include the European Commission–funded project ChemiNova (HORIZON-CL2-2023-HERITAGE-01-01), the NEONETS project (Prometeo/2021/007) funded by the Generalitat Valenciana, and HOLOGRAM (ANR-AAPG2022) funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR).
I have also been the lead author of scientific publications with high social impact, such as the study on the Pompeii plaster casts (Alapont et al., 2023), the investigation into the poisoning of the Italian humanist Pico della Mirandola (Gallello et al., 2018), and the assessment of the state of conservation of Persepolis (Gallello et al., 2016), all of which received coverage in national and international press and television.
I have also employed communication strategies to attract international attention and highlight the importance of advances in archaeometric methods (@archaechemis).
Henning A. Höppe (Universität Augsburg, Germany)
On Electronegativities of the Rare-Earth Elements Based on Relative Valence Electron Binding Energies
About
Prof. Dr. Henning Höppe was born in Nürnberg, Germany, in 1972. After
his studies of chemistry at Bayreuth University he joined the group of
Wolfgang Schnick at LMU for his Ph.D. on luminescent nitridosilicates
based on divalent europium, finished in 2003. Following a post-doc at
the Unversity of Oxford (UK) with Malcolm Green, he started his own
research group at the University of Freiburg (Germany) working on weaker
coordinating host structures, mainly for rare-earth elements. 2010 he
became a professor for solid-state chemistry and materials science at
Augsburg University (Germany). In 2024, he published an introductory
textbook on rare-earth elements.
Gabriele Lando (University of Messina, Italy)
About
Prof. Gabriele Lando obtained his PhD in Chemistry in 2010 from the University of Messina (Italy), where he subsequently carried out several years of postdoctoral research. He became Assistant Professor in 2018 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2021; he currently holds this position in Analytical Chemistry and Chemometrics at the University of Messina.
His research activity is strongly focused on the coordination chemistry and acid–base behavior of metal cations, with particular emphasis on lanthanides, and on their interactions with organic ligands of biological relevance, especially for imaging-related applications.
He is the Principal Investigator of the WASTEZILLA project, which aims at the sustainable recovery of rare earth elements—specifically Nd(III), Dy(III), and Gd(III)—from agro-food waste biomasses, such as bergamot pomace, within a circular economy framework.
In recent years, Prof. Lando has also expanded his research interests toward the design and synthesis of nanosized materials for the selective recognition and sensing of lanthanide ions.
Jiang Li (Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, SICCAS, Shanghai, China)
About
Dr. Jiang Li is a professor of Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SICCAS). Now he the associate editors of the Journal of Advanced Ceramics, Journal of Inorganic Materials, and Journal of the American Ceramic Society. Prof. Li’s research focuses on laser ceramics, scintillation ceramics, magneto-optical ceramics, ceramic phosphors, and other optical transparent ceramics. He has been selected for four consecutive years as the global top 2% scientists “Lifetime Scientific Impact Rankings” list (2024 edition) released by Stanford University. He was invited to give keynote or invited reports in the academic conferences for more than 80 times. He is the coordinator in more than 25 domestic and 8 international collaborative projects so far in the field of transparent and opto-functional ceramics. He published 463 original papers (9456 Citations, 46 H-index) in refereed journals, 3 co-authored textbooks and 2 co-authored book chapters.
Přemysl Lubal (Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic)
About
Přemysl Lubal is professor of analytical chemistry in Department of Chemistry at Masaryk University since 2018. After MSc in 1993, he defended his Ph.D. (1996) at the same University while he carried out his research at ETH Zuerich in Switzerland and ECPM Strasbourg in France. in framework of his Ph.D. study. He spent the sabbatical leave at Chemical Centre of Lund University (Sweden) for 4 months in 2004. For short stays, he lectured and did his research also in Poland (AMU Poznan), Portugal (ICQB Oeiras), France (Burgund University Dijon, CBM Orleáns), Spain (Barcelona University) and Sweden (Uppsala University). His research in Laboratory of Analytical Coordination and Supramolecular Chemistry is focused on physico-chemical study of thermodynamic and kinetic properties of macrocyclic ligands and their metal complexes, namely transition metals and lanthanides, as well as other supramolecular systems for their application in (bio)analytical and medicinal chemistry. Another important research direction is the development of chemosensors and sensor arrays for detection by optical and electroanalytical methods or the synthesis and application of nanoparticles for use in (bio)analytical chemistry. These interdisciplinary research projects at the interface of analytical, coordination, physical chemistry as well as biochemistry are carried out in collaboration with research groups in the Czech Republic and abroad. For the last 20 years, he has been involved in EU COST Action, e.g. EUFEN, NECTAR, LUCES, etc. He is author over 70 papers and 3 book chapters.
Eleonora Macedi (University of Urbino, Italy)
Rare Earth Elements: from binding to sensing and recovery
About
Eleonora Macedi is Associate Professor at the Department of Pure and Applied Sciences of University of Urbino. She received her Ph.D. in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of Urbino in 2009 and completed postdoctoral research at Universities of Florence and Salerno. She also spent eight months as visiting Ph.D. student in Prof. Peter M. May’s lab at the School of Chemical and Mathematical Sciences of Murdoch University, Perth, Australia and six months as a Marie Curie fellow in Prof. Leonard J. Barbour’s
Supramolecular Chemistry Lab at Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science of University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Her research interests are focused on coordination chemistry and supramolecular systems, both from a solution and a solid-state point-of-view. Mainly, she deals with the design, synthesis and study of macrocyclic or open-chain polyamine-based receptors able to recognize and selectively signal via colorimetric and/or fluorescence response the presence of guests such as metal cations, anions and species
of biological interest in solution, by using a combination of spectroscopic techniques (UV-Vis, fluorescence, NMR, XRD), potentiometric measurements and DFT calculations. The development of molecular and metal-containing systems featuring diagnostic and therapeutic activities also represents an important part of her research activity.
Riccardo Marin (Ca' Foscari University, Venice, Italy)
Luminescence sensing of biological parameters with lanthanide ions
About
Riccardo Marin obtained his Ph.D. in chemistry from University Ca’ Foscari (Italy) and Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (Canada) with Prof. Patrizia Canton and Prof. Fiorenzo Vetrone. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Ottawa with Prof. Eva Hemmer and Prof. Muralee Murugesu, he moved as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow first and then Ramón y Cajal fellow to the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in the group of Prof. Daniel Jaque (nanoBIG). In 2025, he has been Associate Professor at University Ca’ Foscari of Venice, before moving back to the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, where he leads the Intelligent Optical Nanomaterials (IONs) Lab – https://ionsgroup.wixsite.com/ionslab. His research interests include optical (nano)materials for sensing and biomedical applications, and coordination compounds with optomagnetic properties. Since 2025, he is the PI of an ERC Starting Grant for the development of multiparametric luminescent sensors for the study of cells.
Alexander Omelyanchik (University of Genova, Italy)
About
Alexander Omelyanchik is a research fellow at the nM2-Lab (www.nm2lab.com), University of Genova, Italy. He defended his PhD thesis, entitled “Magnetic Anisotropy of Oxide Nanoarchitectures,” at Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2022. His research focuses on nanostructured magnetic materials, including nanoparticles, thin films, and multiferroic polymer composites. His main expertise is advanced magnetic characterization of materials using VSM, PPMS, and SQUID magnetometry. He is also involved in the Rendering-3D project (www.renderingproject.it), which develops recycling strategies for end-of-life NdFeB permanent magnets using novel treatment technologies. His current h-index is 19, with more than 1,100 citations (Scopus).
Robert Pal (Durham University, United Kingdom)
Recent advancements in CPL instrumentation and bright CPL emitting molecular engineering
About
Research Impact:
I am a physical chemist, working at the interface of organic chemistry and biophysics. My research portfolio is centred around spectroscopy and bio-imaging. It is uniquely diverse and embraces organic and organo-metallic chemistry, physical-chemistry and bio-physics. In recent years, I have focused my research interests on innovation in the development of bespoke optical instrumentation, notably for high resolution, affordable microscopy and in portable optical spectroscopy for emission and circular polarised luminescence (CPL). I strive to capitalise on my research interest on my long-time interest and pioneering work in Circularly Polarised Luminescence spectro- and microscopy (Nature Commun. 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2025). I am proud to have generated and continuously generating measurable scientific impact.
Publications (ORCID iD 0000-0002-0641-4218):
Over 7000 citations for over >120 peer reviewed publications (8 Nature family publications) with a rapidly growing h-index of 45. Strong IP driven research has resulted in 9 patents being granted to date (USA and Europe) with two applications pending.
Indicators of esteem
I have an excellent academic track record (both funding over and publication) and successful multiple company directorships with over £1M combined turnover of 2 highly successful spin-out companies. My spin-out Company FScan Ltd. has been an impact case for REF2014 (Durham Chemistry ranked No.1 impact). This company have been subsequently licensed out with its 7 patents. The spin-out company PB Spectroscopy has made laboratory spectroscopy equipment for the higher education sector. Several of our small footprint spectroscopic equipment and its accompanying learning exercises are already used with great success at the chemistry departments of 12 UK universities. These companies combined have generated significant research and funding income that has resulted in numerous business awards, funding and clinical trials. All this requires a carefully mitigated complex and multi-angle approach to leadership.
Snežana Papović (University of Novi Sad, Serbia)
About
Dr. Snežana Papović is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad. Her research focus includes the improved electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries, thermochemical characterization of materials and the application of newly synthetised aditives based on ionic liquids.
Snežana is currently the principal investigator (PI) of international bilateral scientific project with the Italy (2025-2028), PI of national project PROMIS2023, funded by Science Fund of Republic of Serbia (2024-2026), participant of EU Horizont FREECOVER project (2025-2028), was PI of international project with Peoples Republic of China (2021-2024).
Author and coauthor of 84 papers, H index 19, 1143 citations (by Scopus).
She received a few national and international scientific awards, such as L’Oreal UNESCO for Woman in Science (2021) Fellowship, medal for dedication and success in science (2023), first award for the best young scientist (2019).
Stergios Piligkos (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
About
He received his Licence de Chimie, Maîtrise de Chimie and Diplôme d’Études Approfondies de Chimie Inorganique from Université Pierre et Marie Curie, PARIS VI. He completed his PhD in 2004 at the University of Manchester under the supervision of Professor Eric J. L. Mcinnes.
His research focuses on the study of the electronic structure of molecular magnetic materials, with emphasis to static and dynamic magnetic properties. His research group performs the synthesis and characterisation of transition metal and lanthanoid coordination complexes, the study of their properties by thermodynamic and spectroscopic techniques and the modeling of these by parametric quantum mechanical models.
Group website: https://chem.ku.dk/research_
Andrei Racu (National Institute of Research and Development for Electrochemistry and Condensed Matter, INCEMC, Timisoara, Romania)
Structure–optical properties correlations in lanthanide-doped host materials: perspectives for data-driven predictions
About
Dr. A. V. Racu is a scientific researcher at the National Institute of Research and Development for Electrochemistry and Condensed Matter (INCEMC), Timisoara, Romania. His research focuses on the development and spectroscopic investigation of rare-earth-doped optical materials. He obtained his PhD in Materials Physics from the West University of Timisoara, Romania, in 2023.
Prior to and alongside his current position at INCEMC, he worked at the Institute of Applied Physics of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova and at the West University of Timisoara. In 2022, he was awarded the IUCr Young Scientist Award at the 7th European Conference on Crystal Growth (Paris, France). In 2023, he contributed to the successful obtaining of a significant NRRP project focused on rare-earth-doped host materials with UVC up-conversion emission. In recent years, he has delivered invited talks at international conferences in Chongqing, China, and Prague, the Czech Republic.
His research interests include rare-earth-doped optical materials as luminescent probes for investigating local symmetry and structure–property relationships. Particular attention is devoted to the analysis of Stark energy levels, spectroscopic correlations, and emerging machine-learning-based models for predicting optical properties.
Ramūnas Skaudžius (University of Vilnius, Lithuania)
Development of multifunctional wood–ceramic composites: structural integration and property enhancement via GdPO₄·H₂O:Eu³⁺ nanoparticles.
About
Professor at the Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Vilnius University (Lithuania) and Director of the Center for Physical Sciences and Technology -the largest, state-owned scientific research center in the Baltic carrying out a unique fundamental research and technological development of laser technologies, optoelectronics, nuclear physics, organic chemistry, bio and nanotechnologies, electrochemical material science, functional materials, electronics.
Expert in inorganic and sol-gel chemistries. Developing and applying inorganic synthesis methods (solid state, hydrothermal, combustion, molten-assisted, etc.). Characterization of inorganic compounds (XRD, Neutron diffraction, Rietveld analysis, TEM, SEM, IR, TGA, DTA, XRF, luminescence properties, magnetic properties, etc.). Interest area of lanthanide-doped compounds with recent expansion into LED, LD, and optical imaging applications. Dopant environments in bulk, and on the nanoscale investigation.
Lingdong Sun (State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, Peking University, China)
Boost Multiphoton Emission of Rare Earth Doped Nanoparticles
About
Lingdong Sun received her PhD degree in Condensed Matter Physics from Changchun Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Physics. Following a postdoctoral fellowship, she joined the faculty at Peking University, and was promoted to associate
professor and professor. She worked as a visiting professor at Keio University and Kyoto University.
Her current research focuses on the synthetic chemistry and photophysics of rare earth materials, semiconductors, and metal nanomaterials. She has published over 200 papers in journals such as Science, Nature Photonics, and JACS, with more than 10,000
citations, and has been recognized as a highly cited author.
Jumpei Ueda (Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) Ishikawa, Japan)
About
For more information about his research group, please visit: https://uedalab.com/.
Leonid Vasylechko (Lviv Polytechnic National University, Ukraine)
Europium sulphides EuS2 and Eu3S4: in-depth study of crystal structures and thermal behaviour
About
Leonid O. Vasylechko, Doctor of Sciences, Principal Research Fellow, Professor at Semiconductor Electronic Department of Lviv Polytechnic National University, Ukraine. In 1999–2017 ˗ invited scientist at Max-Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Dresden, Germany (2-3 months scholarship per years). Active member of the International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDD) since 2006.
L. Vasylechko received his PhD degree in Inorganic chemistry from Ivan Franko Lviv State University in 1991 defending his thesis on “Phase Equilibria and Crystal Structures of Compounds in the RE-Ni-Ga Systems”. In 2005 he defended his doctoral thesis (habilitation) on “Crystal chemistry and phase transitions in complex oxides of rare earth elements with perovskite structure”.
Co-author of 225+ per-reviewed articles and the book chapter 242 “Perovskite-Type Aluminates and Gallates” in the Handbook on the Physics and Chemistry of Rare Earths published by Elsevier in 2009.
His research interests cover the fields of solid state chemistry and materials science, focusing on the crystal chemistry of complex oxide compounds of RE, transition and p-elements with different types of structures and their solid solutions; Temperature- and compositional-induced phase transitions, thermal expansion and composition-structure-properties relationship in complex metal oxides and intermetallic systems.
L. Vasylechko has large experience in the synthesis and systematic study of structural and thermal behaviour of diverse mixed oxide systems with special attention to the influence of the chemical pressure on the structural and functional properties of the materials. He has great experience in the in situ low- and high-temperature structural investigations of mixed oxide and intermetallic systems using high-resolution synchrotron powder diffraction at the European synchrotron radiation sources HASYLAB/DESY, ESRF and ALBA. L. Vasylechko has well established cooperation with the International Centre of Diffraction Data for the preparation of high-quality standard diffraction data of new prospective functional materials. Since 2001, diffraction data and structural parameters for over 1,100 new crystalline materials have been published in PDF databases. In 2019 he was awarded with a special ICDD Distinguished Grantee Award “For demonstrated excellence in the characterization of solid-state materials and the development of high-quality reference data for the Powder Diffraction File”.
Eugeniusz Zych (University of Wrocław, Poland)
About
Professor Eugeniusz Zych received his PhD from the University of Wroclaw in 1994 and completed a postdoctoral internship at the Department of Chemistry, Boston University (1994–1997). He has led nearly twenty nationally funded projects as well as several supported by the EU, NATO, and Philips. He has promotor over a dozen PhD students and numerous graduate students. His research focuses on energy-storing luminescent materials, scintillators, dosimeters, phosphors for LED lighting and horticulture, luminescent temperature sensors, and multifunctional nanomaterials for biological and medical applications. He has authored over 200 scientific publications. Since 2009, he has headed the Luminescent Materials Group. He served as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry (2005–2012) and Vice-Rector for Research at the University of Wroclaw (2020–2022). Prof. Zych received the Minister of Science and Higher Education Award in 2017 and the Golden Cross of Merit from the President of Poland in 2023. In 2023, he was elected Chair of the Luminescence and Display Materials Division of the Electrochemical Society for the 2023–2025 term.