Ahmed Esmail Shalan is Juan de la Cierva Fellow at BCMaterials, Basque Center for Materials, Applications, and Nanostructures, Leioa, Spain. He obtained his BSc (2008) and MSc (2012) in Materials Science from Ain Shams University, Egypt and his PhD (2017) from Hokkaido University, Japan. He is a Researcher at Central Metallurgical Research & Development Institute (CMRDI), Egypt (now, on leave). He obtained several awards and prizes like attending 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting 2019, Egyptian Academy Prize (2018, 2020), Japanese government PhD scholarship (MEXT, 2013-2017), and fellowships like DAAD fellowship (i-MEET-FAU), Germany (2013). His work reflects his interest in physical chemistry and materials science for energy, environmental and optoelectronic devices applications. Professor Makhlouf is the Vice President of Advanced Material Research, Stanley Black & Decker, Inc., USA. Before joining Stanley Black & Decker, he was the President of EMC3 - USA, VP of IM2C - USA, Full Professor of Materials Science at Central Metallurgical Research and Development Institute - Egypt, and Full Professor of Manufacturing and Industrial Engineering at the University of Texas - USA. Makhlouf has been included in Stanford University’s List of World’s Top 2% of Scientists, USA, 2020 & 2021. He is also the recipient of numerous national and international prizes and awards including the Humboldt Research Award for Experienced Scientists, at Max Planck Institute, Germany; Fulbright Scholar, NSF, Dept. of Energy Fellowships, USA. Shoman Award in Engineering Science; and the State Prize of Egypt in Advanced Science and Technology, and more.Senentxu Lanceros‐MéndezProf. S. Lanceros-Méndez graduated in physics at the University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Spain. He obtained his PhD from the Institute of Physics of the Julius-Maximilians-Universitat Wurzburg, Germany. He was a Research Scholar at Montana StateUniversity, USA, Visiting Scientist at Pennsylvania State University, USA, and University of Potsdam, among others. Since 2016, he is Ikerbasque Professor at the BCMaterials, Basque Center for Materials, Applications and Nanostructures, Derio, Spain. He is an Associate Professor at the Physics Department of the University of Minho, Portugal (on leave), where he belongs to the Center of Physics. From 2012 to 2014, he was also an Associate Researcher at the INL - International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory. His work is focused on the area of smart materials for sensors and actuators, energy and biomedical applications. In addition, he has served as both a Senior Editor and board member of many international journals, as well as reviewer for different scientific publishers.
