Paolo Mele is currently Professor at SIT Research laboratories, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan.. He obtained a Master degree in Chemistry and Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences at Genova University (Italy). In 2003 he moved to ISTEC-SRL in Tokyo to study melt-textured ceramic superconductors. Then he worked as postdoc at Kyoto University (JSPS fellowship) from 2004 to 2007, at Kyushu Institute of Technology (JST fellowship) from 2007 to 2011, at Hiroshima University (as lecturer) from 2011 to 2014 and at Muroran Institute of Technology (as associate professor) from 2015 to 2018 before reaching his current position. His research interests include materials for energy and sustainable development (superconductors and thermoelectrics); fabrication and characterization of thin films of oxides, ceramics and metals; study of the effect of nanostructuration on the physical properties; thermal transport; and vortex matter. He is the author of more than 100 papers in international scientific journals and four book chapters, and has two patents and has contributed to hundreds of communications at international conferences. He edited five books for Springer, including this one.Dario Narducci obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Milan. From 1988 to 1990 he was Post-Doctoral Fellow at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. In 1990 he re-joined the University of Milan as an Assistant Professor, moving in 1997 to the University of Milano Bicocca, where he became Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry in 2000. His research interests have focused on the physical chemistry of silicon and on the transport properties of disordered materials. Since 2008 Narducci has developed an intense research activity on thermoelectricity for microharvesting. Since 2010 he is the Chief Technical Officer of a start-up developing silicon-based thermoelectric generators. He is currently involved in the ERC NanoThermMA project and is coordinating a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship in collaboration with the MIT to develop hybrid photovoltaic-thermoelectric generators. He is currently the president of the Italian Thermoelectric Society and served as the treasurer of the European Thermoelectric Society. Author of more than one hundred publications, Narducci also wrote books on nanotechnology and on hybrid thermoelectric-photovoltaic solar harvesters, and filed fifteen patents as well.Michihiro Ohta received his Ph.D from the Kyushu Institute of Technology in 2002. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) and the Muroran Institute of Technology before joining the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in 2006. He has been a senior researcher at AIST since 2013. He was a visiting scholar at Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University from 2011 to 2012. He is a board member of the Thermoelectrics Society of Japan. Ohta is also a technical advisor at the startup company, Mottainai Energy, founded in 2016. His research focuses on the exploration of sulfides and nanostructured materials for thermoelectrics.Kanishka Biswas obtained his MS and Ph.D degree from the Solid State Structural Chemistry Unit, Indian Institute of Science (2009) under supervision of Prof. C. N. R. Rao and did postdoctoral research with Prof. Mercouri G. Kanatzidis at the Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University (2009–2012). He is an Associate Professor in the New Chemistry Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore. He is pursuing research in solid state chemistry, thermoelectrics, topological materials, 2D materials, perovskite halides and water purification. He has published 95 research papers, 1 book and 5 book chapters. He is a Young Affiliate of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and an Associate of Indian Academy of Science (IASc), Bangalore, India. He is also recipient of Young Scientist Medal-2016 from Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Delhi, India and Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award-2015 from The National Academy of Sciences (NASI), Allahabad, India. He is recipient of IUMRS-MRS Singapore Young Researcher Merit Awards in 2016. He is recipient of Materials Research Society of India Medal in 2017. He has also received Young Scientist Wiley Award from IUMRS 2017 in Kyoto, Japan. He is selected as Emerging Investigator by Journal of Materials Chemistry C (2017) and Chem. Commun (2018), Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). Professor J.R. Morante is, since 1985, full professor of the Faculty of Physics of the University of Barcelona. Since 2009 he has been the director of the advanced materials for energy area of the Energy Research Institute of Catalonia, IREC, and since the end of 2015 he has been appointed as director of this institute. Previously he has been Vice Dean and dean of the Faculty of Physics of the University of Barcelona, director of the Department of Electronics of this university, head of studies in Electronic Engineering and co-coordinator of the interuniversity master between the University of Barcelona and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia of the master on Engineering in Energy. His activities have been centered in electronic materials and devices; the assessment of their related technologies and produc^ 50), organized various international technological scientific conferences in the field of sensors / microsystems and "nano-energy" and has been distinguished with the medal Narcís Monturiol of the Generalitat de Catalunya. He has also served as vice president of the European Materials Society and is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics.Dr. Shrikant Saini is a researcher at deprtment of Mechanical engineering at Kyushu Inst. Tech, Kitakyushu, Japan. He obtained his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Jeju National University, South Korea in2011. He has worked in various institutes as a researcher such as the Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, India; Jeju National University, South Korea; Hiroshima University, Japan; University of Utah, USA, and Muroran Institute of Technology, Japan. Dr. Saini has to date published more than 30 peer reviewed research articles in international journals and 2 US patents (applied). His current research interest is energy harvesting/conversion materials specially thermoelectric and superconducting materialsTamio Endo holds Ph.D. (Kyoto University, Japan) and MsD (Gifu University, Japan) degrees. He is Emeritus Professor at Mie University (Japan), Gifu University Special Researcher (Japan), Honorary Professor of Southwest Jiaotong University (China), Visiting Researcher at University of California- San Diego 1995 (USA). He is currently Special Adviser of Japan Advanced Chemicals in Atsugi, Japan. His research interests include oxide thin films, heterostructures, plasma effects and bonding of polymer films. He has been part of many international academic projects such as Japan-India Cooperative Science Program. He has been organizer and plenary speaker of many of international conferences and has given many foreign university guest talks and a Representative of Team Harmonized Oxides.
