After graduating from Ecole Polytechnique, Dr Jean-François MINSTER obtained a Doctorat d’Etat from the University of Paris and was a post-doctoral fellow at MIT. He first studied the formation of the solar system and the geochemical evolution of the Earth mantle at Institut de Physique du Globe in Paris. In particular, he proposed refined datation of meteorite formation and participated in the emergence of the concept of chemical geodynamics, as developed by Professor Claude Allègre.

From 1981 on, he got involved in oceanography. He notably studied trace metal oceanic cycles, the ocean carbon cycle, the ocean absorption of anthropogenic carbon dioxide, and most particularly ocean currents as measured by satellite altimetry. He participated to the development and the exploitation of altimetry satellites Topex Poseidon and Jason, which led to operational oceanography. He created and led the space geophysical and oceanographic laboratory in Toulouse from 1985 to 1996.

Then he successively became Director of the National Institute of Universe Sciences from 1996 to 2000; CEO and Chairman of the Board of Ifremer, the French Institute of the Sea, from 2000 to 2005; and general Science Director of CNRS in 2005. He is presently Senior Vice President, Scientific Development of the oil company Total.

Professor Jackie Y. Ying received her degrees in Chemical Engineering from The Cooper Union (B.E., 1987) and Princeton University (Ph.D., 2001). She then pursued research in nanocrystalline materials with Prof. Herbert Gleiter at the Institute for New Materials, Saarbrücken, Germany. She has been on the Chemical Engineering faculty at MIT since 1992, and was promoted to Professor in 2001. She is currently the Executive Director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), Singapore. IBN is a national research institute, which has grown to over 190 research staff and students under her leadership.

Prof. Ying has authored over 220 articles on nanostructured materials for applications ranging from the synthesis of fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the efficient use of energy, the control of environmental pollution, the targeted delivery of drugs and proteins, to the generation of biomimetic implants and tissue scaffolds.

Prof. Ying's research awards, include the American Ceramic Society Ross C. Purdy Award for the most valuable contribution to the ceramic technical literature, David and Lucile Packard Fellowship, Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, Royal Academy of Engineering ICI Faculty Fellowship, American Chemical Society Faculty Fellowship Award in Solid-State Chemistry, Technology Review Inaugural TR100 Young Innovator Award, American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Allan P. Colburn Award for excellence in publications, World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and Chemical Engineering Science Peter V. Danckwerts Lectureship. She was elected a member of the German National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina in 2005, and named as one of the "One Hundred Engineers of the Modern Era" by AIChE in its Centennial Celebration. Prof. Ying is the Editor-in-Chief of Nano Today, and has served on the editorial boards of 23 journals. She has over 110 patents issued or pending, and has served on the Advisory Boards of 6 start-up companies and 1 venture capital fund.

W. Mark Saltzman’s research interests include drug delivery to the brain, materials for vaccine delivery, and tissue engineering; he has published over 150 research papers, 3 books, 2 edited books, and 10 patents in these fields. He graduated with distinction from Iowa State University, in 1981with a B.S. in chemical engineering and pursued this graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned an M.S. in chemical engineering in 1984 and a Ph.D. in medical engineering in 1987. He joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins University in 1987 as assistant professor of chemical engineering and was promoted to professor in 1995. In 1996, he became professor of chemical engineering at Cornell University and, in 2001, he was named the first holder of the BP Amoco/H. Laurance Fuller Chair in Chemical Engineering.

In 2002, he moved to Yale University as the Goizueta Foundation Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, in July of 2002 and, in 2003, he became the first chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Saltzman’s many honors and awards include: Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar Award (1990); Allan C. Davis Medal as Maryland's Outstanding Young Engineer (1995); the Controlled Release Society Young Investigator Award (1996); fellow of the American Institute of Biological and Medical Engineers (1997); Professional Progress in Engineering Award from Iowa State University (2000); Britton Chance Distinguished Lecturer in Engineering and Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (2000); and Distinguished Lecturer of the Biomedical Engineering Society (2004).

Professor David George Wood spent much of his career at the University of Melbourne where he was Head of the Chemical Engineering Department and in latter years Dean of the Faculty of Engineering.

His major research interests have been in the field of mineral processing having developed a new process for “cleaning” coal and spent pot-lining for Aluminium smelters. He has also had a major interest in developments in chemical engineering education.

Professor Wood has made a major contribution in establishing the IChemE in Australia in its current form. He has served as an international member of the Asian Pacific Chemical Engineering Confederation. In 2001 he was the Chair of the very successful 6th World Congress of Chemical Engineering in Melbourne. At this Congress the World Chemical Engineering Council (WCEC) was established and today Professor Wood is the Chair of the Executive of the WCEC.

Professor Wood has given plenary lectures on Chemical Engineering Education in many countries. He is now working with nine chemical engineering departments in China to assist with modernisation of the undergraduate programs for IChemE accreditation. He has recently been appointed as an Honorary Professor at Tianjin University in North East China.

H. Scott Fogler is President of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers for 2009. He received his B.S. from the University of Illinois and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Colorado. He is the Ame and Catherine Vennema professor of chemical engineering and the Arthur F. Thurnau professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He is also the author of the Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering, which is the dominant book in this area worldwide, and co-author with Steven LeBlanc of the book Strategies for Creative Problem Solving.

Scott and his students are well known for their work on the application of chemical reaction engineering principles to the petroleum industry They have published over 200 research articles, in an areas such as acidization of petroleum wells, gellation kinetics wax deposition in subsea pipelines and asphaltene flocculation and deposition kinetics. In 1996 he was recipient of the Warren K. Lewis award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers for contributions to chemical engineering education. He is the recipient of ten named lectureships.

Rudi Heydenrich is a member of the Sasol Technology executive team. In this capacity he assumes responsibility for Research and Development, Fuels Research, Technology Management and Portfolio Management for the Sasol Group. Rudi is a qualified Chemical Engineer, holding a masters degree in chemical engineering. He started his career with the South African Atomic Energy Corporation but has been with Sasol now for more than twenty years. During this period he has been intimately involved with the full suite of technologies used by Sasol, in particular Sasol's Fischer Tropsch technologies. He headed the Sasol effort to develop the integrated GTL flow sheet and worked very closely with the team that commercialized this technology at Oryx in Qatar.

Sasol's technology portfolio today covers the span of GTL & CTL technologies but also the field of chemicals where Sasol has developed proprietary technologies in a few selected areas. The team recently successfully received international approval for the use of fully synthetic jet fuels on a commercial basis.

Rudi also sits on a number of the Sasol divisional boards.

Ernest J. Moniz is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, Director of the Energy Initiative, and Director of the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has served on the faculty since 1973. Dr. Moniz served as Under Secretary of the Department of Energy from 1997 until January 2001 and, from 1995 to 1997, as Associate Director for Science in the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President. At MIT, Dr. Moniz served as Head of the Department of Physics and as Director of the Bates Linear Accelerator Center. His principal research contributions have been in theoretical nuclear physics and in energy technology and policy studies. He serves on President Obama’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology (PCAST).

Dr. Moniz received a Bachelor of Science degree summa cum laude in physics from Boston College, a doctorate in theoretical physics from Stanford University, and honorary doctorates from the University of Athens, the University of Erlangen-Nurenburg, and Michigan State University. He was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Saclay, France and at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Moniz is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Humboldt Foundation, and the American Physical Society and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He received the 1998 Seymour Cray HPCC Industry Recognition Award for vision and leadership in advancing scientific simulation and, in 2008, the Grand Cross of the Order of Makarios III for contributions to development of research, technology, and education in Cyprus and the wider region.