Keynote Speaker 1
Prof. Ir. Ts. Dr. Suraya Abdul Rashid is a professor at the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia. She received her bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Nottingham University, United Kingdom in 2000. She then pursued her PhD in Chemical Engineering focusing on Nanotechnology from Imperial College London, United Kingdom in 2004. She is a Chartered Engineer under the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), a Professional Engineer under the Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM), and a nanotechnologist under the Malaysia Board of Technologist (MBOT). She currently serves as the Deputy Director at the Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ION2), Universiti Putra Malaysia.
Prof. Suraya’s research interests revolve around carbon nanomaterials synthesis and processing for various applications. She has published over 150 articles in citation indexed journals, and has a current H-index of 34. She has graduated 8 PhD students and 10 Masters students as main supervisor, and more than 30 others as co-supervisor. To date she has received research grants as project leader amounting to around MYR2 million.
She has been recognized with numerous national and international awards for her carbon quantum dots (CQD) research, such as Gold Medal in PECIPTA 2019, Tech Planter Malaysia and Asia in 2021, Emerging Innovator award for Malaysia Commercialization Year 2022, and the most recent was a Gold Medal and Special Innovation Award at the iENA Tradeshow in Nuremberg, Germany, 2023.
Prof. Suraya is also the founder of a start-up company, Qarbotech Sdn. Bhd., where she serves as Chief Scientist. Qarbotech is currently commercializing her research product, which is a patent-backed photosynthesis enhancer for the agriculture and horticulture industry. Qarbotech recently received venture capital funding from 500 Global, and commercialization grants from Temasek Foundation and Khazanah Nasional’s Dana Impak, amounting to USD800,000. Other frontier technologies using CQD, ranging from renewable energy to medical devices are currently being developed with local and foreign partners.
Keynote Speaker 2
Dr Mahdi Bodaghi is Senior Lecturer (BSc, MSc, PhD, PGCAP, FHEA, CEng, MIMechE) in the Department of Engineering at Nottingham Trent University. He is also the founder and director of the 4D Materials & Printing Lab that hosts a broad portfolio of projects focusing on the multi-physics multi-scale behaviours of smart materials, resilient metamaterials, robotic materials, sustainable biocomposites, and 3D/4D printing technologies. His vast experience and niche research on advanced materials, modelling and manufacturing have led him to co-found the 4D Printing Society and to co-edit the book series—Smart Materials in Additive Manufacturing. His research has been disseminated through over 245 scientific papers in prestigious journals as well as the presentation of his work at major international conferences (Google Scholar: Citations: 6060, h-index: 45). Mahdi has also served as Chairman, Keynote and Scientific Committee Member for 20 International Conferences, as Guest Editor for 10 Journals, as Editorial Board Member for 12 scientific Journals, and as Reviewer for over 150 Journals (over 1000 reviews verified by WoS). Mahdi’s research awards include the Best Doctoral Thesis Award; 2016 CUHK Postdoctoral Fellowship; the Annual Best Paper Award in Mechanics and Material Systems presented by ASME in 2017; 2018 Horizon Fellowship Award; 2021 IJPEM-GT Contribution Award recognized by the Korea Society for Precision Engineering; top 1% of reviewers in the cross-field ranked by WoS; top 2% of the most influential researchers in the world in 2020-2023 by Elsevier and Stanford University.