Speakers

Professor Marcela Bilek has expertise in fundamental science and practical applications of materials physics and engineering, plasma processing, and biointerfaces. Honours include Physical Scientist of the Year; ARC Federation Fellowship; Australian Academy of Science Pawsey Medal; Australian Innovation Challenge Award; ARC Future Fellowship; the international Plasma Surface Engineering Leading Scientist Award and ARC Laureate Fellowship; as well as election to the Fellowships of the American Physical Society (APS), the IEEE; AVS and the Australian Academy of Science. She is passionate about evidence-based policies for tackling societal and environmental problems that leverage science and technology and was recognised as Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to physics and biomedical engineering.

Professor Justin Cooper-White is a global leader in using engineering to solve problems in biology. In addition to holding the position of Head of School and Professor of Bioengineering in the School of Chemical Engineering, he is Affiliate Professor in the Australian institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), Director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility-Queensland Node, Research Director of the Herston Biofabrication Institute, and co-Director of the Australian Organoid Facility at UQ. Professor Cooper-White is a past President of both the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering and the Australian Society of Rheology and held the position of CSIRO Office of the Chief Executive (OCE) Science Leader (2013-2018). He has previously held a Visiting Professor Fellowships at ETH Zurich (2007) and Politecnico di Milano (2012-2013). Professor Cooper-White is the Australian representative and Past President of the Asian Biomaterials Federation; an elected Fellow of (and past Australian representative on) the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering (IUSBE); an elected Fellow of the International Fellows of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (FTERM); and an elected Fellow and past Vice President of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences (QAAS).

Fiorenzo G. Omenetto is the Frank C. Doble Professor of Engineering, and a Special Advisor to the Provost. He is a Professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department and also holds appointments in the Department of Physics and the Department of Electrical Engineering. His research interests are in the convergence of technology, biologically inspired materials, and the natural sciences with an emphasis on new transformative approaches for sustainable materials for high-technology applications. He has proposed and pioneered the use of silk as a material platform for advanced technology with uses in photonics, optoelectronics, and nanotechnology applications, is co-inventor on several disclosures on the subject. He has co-founded three companies. Prof. Omenetto was formerly a J. Robert Oppenheimer Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratories, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Tällberg Foundation Fellow, and is a Fellow of Optica (formerly Optical Society of America), the National Academy of Inventors, and of the American Physical Society. His research has been featured extensively in the press with coverage in the most important media outlets worldwide.

Ronit Satchi-Fainaro is a full Professor at Tel Aviv University, where she is head of the Cancer Research & Nanomedicine Laboratory, Director of the Cancer Biology Research Center, and Director of the TAU Kahn 3D BioPrinting Initiative. She received her B.Pharm. from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and her Ph.D. from the UCL, followed by a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard University and Children’s Hospital Boston. She has published 155 manuscripts and is an inventor on 80 patents. She founded three spin-off companies, initiated 2 clinical trials, and is actively engaged in translational research with several industry partners and in science outreach.

Mark H. Schoenfisch is the Peter A. Ornstein Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also serves as Chief Scientific Officer at Vast Therapeutics, a company he co-founded in 2016. Prof. Schoenfisch received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Arizona in 1997. From 1998-1999, he was a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan. He joined the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill as an Assistant Professor in January of 2000. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2005, Full Professor in 2008, and Distinguished Professor in 2018. He has authored >150 research articles related to nitric oxide storage and release since beginning his independent research program in 2000.