Speakers (Keynote/Invited)

Keynote Speakers

Professor Claus-Dieter Ohl has started his education into bubbles in Göttingen with the late Professor Werner Lauterborn. In 1999 he joined as a postdoc with Professor Andrea Prosperetti at Johns Hopkins University followed by Professor Detlef Lohse at the University of Twente. In 2005 he become VIDI fellow in Twente and started the research group “Jetting into cells”. In 2007 Prof. Ohl become Assistant Professor and in 2012 Associate Professor at the Nanyang Technological University. His research interest includes high-speed fluid mechanics, acoustics, nanobubbles, nucleation phenomena, boiling, and medical applications of cavitation. Since 2017 he joined as full Professor the Otto-von-Guericke University in Magdeburg where research into large empty bubbles started many centuries ago.

Koichi Terasaka was born in 1961 in Akashi, Japan. In 1991 he received his Doctor of Engineering degree from the Keio University Graduate School of Engineering. Since 2008, he has been a full Professor in the Chemical Engineering Laboratory, Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University. He was a Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany in 1995, the Hamburg University of Technology, Germany in 2016, and a Mercator Fellow of DFG since 2017. In 2017, he served as a Visiting Professor at Dalhousie University in Canada. His original professionality was bubble column design, but since 2001 he has been engaged in research on Fine Bubbles and Ultra-fine Bubbles, elucidating the principles of fine bubble generation, conducting practical research, and developing evaluation technology. He founded the Fine Bubble Industries Association (FBIA) in 2011 and the Union of Fine Bubble Scientists and Engineers (FBU) in 2015. He serves as an ISO/TC281 committee member since 2013. In 2018, he established the International Fine Bubble Consortium with three universities in Japan, Germany, and Canada.

Dr. Exner is the Henry Willson Payne Professor and Vice Chair for Basic Research in the Department of Radiology, and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio.  She also holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Physics at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her group’s research is at the interface of nanomedicine and biomedical ultrasound and focuses on development of novel platform technologies for molecular imaging and image-guided drug delivery. Under this umbrella her lab has pioneered the development of long-circulating ultrasound responsive targeted nanobubbles for biomedical applications. The nanobubbles are a versatile platform with potential use as cancer cell specific agents for early disease diagnosis, as companion diagnostics for prediction of tumor heterogeneity and vascular permeability  and as cell specific cavitation agents for ultrasound-mediated therapy. She is also an expert in long acting, intratumoral drug delivery formulations. Her research has been continuously funded by the NIH for over 19 years. Dr. Exner is an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and Distinguished Investigator of the Academy of Radiology Research. At CWRU, Dr. Exner is also the Director of the Case Center for Imaging Research, Associate Director of the Case Medical Scientist Training Program, and a co-leader of the Comprehensive Cancer Center Cancer Imaging Program.

Wen Zhang is a professor of NJIT’s Newark College of Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering with a second appointment in the Department of Chemical and Material Engineering. Wen is a licensed Professional Engineer (P.E.) registered in the States of New Jersey and Delaware. He is an American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (AAEES) Board Certified Environmental Engineer (BCEE). He has a broad spectrum of research interests and footprints in colloidal science and interfaces, nanomaterial synthesis and characterization, catalytic processes and engineering that translate to vibrant scientific research and technology transfer activities. The laboratory conducts extensive research into the interfacial processes (e.g., adsorption, reactions, aggregation and dissolution) of various materials, such as nanomaterials, microplastics, microbes, and bubbles. Additionally, they explore reactive membrane filtration systems for resource recovery, desalination and contaminant removal.

Graduated from University of Science and Technology of China in 1986, got Master degree on Nuclear Physics in Shanghai Institute of Nuclear Research (SINR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 1989 and PhD on Biophysics in Fudan University in 1999. A senior scientist in Advanced Research Institute (SARI) and Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP), CAS from 1999-2023. Now a professor in the College of Sciences in Shanghai University. Research area focused on advanced imaging technologies (such as scanning probe microscopy (SPM) and synchrotron) and their applications in physics and biology. Recent interests including nanobubbles and human brain imaging.

Invited Speakers

Prof. Samir Kumar Khanal is a Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) and an Affiliate faculty at Korea University. He began his tenure-track position at UHM in 2008. Prior to UHM, he served as a Post-doctoral Research Associate and Research Assistant Professor at Iowa State University. He holds a BS in Civil Engineering from Malaviya National Institute of Technology, an MS in Environmental Engineering from the Asian Institute of Technology, and a PhD in Environmental Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Prof. Khanal is renowned for his work in anaerobic digestion, nanobubble technology, aquaponics, and waste-to-resources. He has supervised numerous students and post-docs and has 159 refereed publications, 17 book chapters, and 11 books to his name. His research has earned him multiple awards, including the University of Hawaii’s Board of Regents Medal for Excellence in Research and the Elsevier Impactful Research Award. Prof. Khanal is also an editor-in-chief of Bioresource Technology and is ranked among the top environmental scientists globally.

Niall English is an inventor and professor in Chemical Engineering at UCD. He is a specialist on electric-field effects on materials, gases and liquids, including in inventions and technology commercialisation. He has recently been awarded an ERC-Advanced Grant on nanobubble lifetime and population engineering to further water treatment and carbon capture, as well as two EIC-Accelerator grants in both of his spin-outs.