Invited Speaker

Vineet S. Sikarwar is a scientist at the Department of Plasma Chemical Technologies, Institute of Plasma Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and a researcher in the Department of Power Engineering at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague, Czech Republic. His work spans experimental and theoretical studies in thermal plasma–assisted waste valorization, methane pyrolysis for clean hydrogen production, and the development of value-added carbon materials. Before moving to the Czech Republic, he conducted research on conventional gasification and biofuel synthesis at the School of Environment, Tsinghua University, China. Dr. Sikarwar’s broader scientific interests include integrating CCUS with thermal plasma systems, biofuel synthesis, climate and sustainability studies, and solar desalination technologies. He has authored more than sixty-five publications indexed in Scopus, with over 4,400 citations and an h-index of 25. He serves as a regular reviewer for leading journals across major publishers, including ACS, RSC, Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and MDPI. A recipient of several distinguished fellowships and scholarships, he began his professional journey as a project engineer in a major heat-exchanger manufacturing company in India.

Dr. Masoud Shahrokhi is a computational condensed matter physicist and materials scientist currently leading a research group in catalysis and photocatalysis at the University of Ostrava, Czech Republic. He earned his Ph.D. in Condensed Matter Physics in 2014 and has since held several competitive postdoctoral and research associate positions across Europe. His previous appointments include Paris-Est University (France), the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ, Spain), the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (ENS Lyon, France), IFP Energies Nouvelles in Lyon (IFPEN, France), and the Institut Charles Gerhardt Montpellier (ICGM, France). These positions allowed him to build a strong interdisciplinary profile bridging quantum materials theory, computational chemistry, and catalytic science. Dr. Shahrokhi’s research focuses on advanced quantum-mechanical simulations—DFT, ab initio molecular dynamics, and many-body perturbation theory (GW/BSE)—to understand electronic, optical, catalytic, and interfacial properties of low-dimensional and bulk materials. He has contributed significantly to heterogeneous catalysis and photocatalysis, particularly in elucidating charge transfer mechanisms, excited-state processes, surface reactivity, and band alignment at catalytic interfaces. He has published around 75 peer-reviewed papers in major international journals, including Nature Communications,AngewandteChemie,Journal of Materials Chemistry A, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, and ChemCatChem. Dr. Shahrokhi has been listed among the top 2% of scientists by Elsevier/Stanford for four consecutive years (2021–2025) and has received several competitive grants, including the prestigious Marie Curie COFUND Fellowship. He also serves as a reviewer for numerous leading journals in condensed matter physics and materials science.

Marek Wiśniewski completed his PhD from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland, and postdoctoral fellow from Claude Barnard University in Lyon, France. He is a member of the Department of Materials Chemistry, Adsorption and Catalysis, and Institute of Advanced Studies. He has published over 115 papers in reputed journals. He is interested in the synthesis of novel nanostructures and studies of their unusual properties, including catalysis. His research focuses on the synthesis and characterization of novel nanostructured materials and the investigation of their unique physicochemical properties, particularly in the fields of adsorption and catalysis. His expertise encompasses surface chemistry and surface physics, reaction mechanism studies in plasma-assisted and catalytically enhanced plasma environments, and the development of innovative nanostructured adsorbents and catalysts. Dr. Wiśniewski is also actively engaged in advanced spectroscopic studies of surface chemistry transformations during adsorption and catalytic processes, utilizing state-of-the-art techniques such as in-situ Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy.