She completed her PhD from the Ecole Polytechnique, France in 2005, under the supervision of Prof. Pascal Le Floch and received the Best Thesis award of the Ecole Polytechnique that year. She was a post-doctoral fellow at Yale University in 2006 under the guidance of Prof. Robert H. Crabtree, funded by a Lavoisier fellowship from the European Union.  

She serves as a topic editor for ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. She became a member (2020) and president (2024-26) of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada, which is the junior body of the equivalent to a Canadian Academy of Science. Between 2007 and 2017, she held a Canada Research Chair in Green Chemistry. In 2019 she received a Fessenden Professorship awarded by the faculty of science at McGill University towards the commercial development of the clean transformation of crustacean shells into chitosan. In 2021 she received the Canadian Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Award for Green Chemistry. She was also a university-funded visiting professor at the University of Tokyo from January to June 2024. In 2024, she chaired the Gordon Research Conference in Green Chemistry.  

With her group, she focuses on sustainable solutions for nanoparticles and biopolymer synthesis as well as catalyzed reactions, with an interest in waste biomass valorization, earth abundant starting materials and high atom economy. She is also an expert and global teacher of green and sustainable chemistry, which she has taught in Mexico, Ukraine, Indonesia and Japan and is a passionate public speaker on issues of women in science, green chemistry and languages of research.  

He then worked at Boreskov Institute of Catalysis prior to moving to the University of Bath where he was employed as a research officer, which allowed him to complete his PhD in the area of multiphase membrane catalysis. In 1997 he worked as a junior scientist at the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Bath, and from 2000 until 2009 he acted as a research officer there. From 2009 until 2013 he was appointed as lecturer at the School of Engineering, University of Warwick. In 2013 he became Professor of Sustainable Reaction Engineering at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge. 

She studied chemistry at the University of Paderborn, where she also earned her Ph.D. in 2005 for research on oxygen activation mediated by copper complexes. Following a postdoctoral stay at Stanford University with Prof. T.D.P. Stack, she completed her habilitation at the TU Dortmund and held a professorship in coordination chemistry at LMU Munich before joining RWTH Aachen in 2015. 

Prof. Herres-Pawlis works in the fields of bioinorganic chemistry and polymerisation catalysis, particularly known for her work on sustainable polymerization and depolymerization processes and research data management. She serves in several national research initiatives, including as Co-Speaker of NFDI4Chem and of the GDCh Section on Sustainable Chemistry. She is also Speaker of the RWTH Aachen Strategy Board. Her achievements have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Innovation Prize of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Arnold-Sommerfeld Award of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and the Chemistry Europe Fellowship (2021/22). 

He co-authored the seminal book Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice with Paul Anastas in 1998, which introduced the foundational 12 Principles of Green Chemistry.

Dr. Warner completed his undergraduate studies at UMASS Boston and earned his PhD in chemistry from Princeton University. Over the course of his career, he has worked equally across industry, academia, and entrepreneurship.

In industry, he spent nearly a decade as an industrial chemist at Polaroid, where he was awarded over 360 patents. His contributions to the field were recognized with the prestigious Perkin Medal in 2014.

In academia, he served as a tenured full professor of chemistry and plastics engineering at the University of Massachusetts for more than 12 years. There, he established the world’s first PhD program in green chemistry. He has authored over 120 scientific publications and received the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Mentoring in 2004, presented by President George W. Bush. In 2022, he was awarded the August Wilhelm von Hofmann Medal by the German Chemical Society. Dr. Warner currently holds six academic appointments around the world, including at Monash University (Australia), Technical University of Berlin (Germany), Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), Somaiya University (India), University of Birmingham (UK), and Rochester Institute of Technology (USA).

As an inventor and entrepreneur, his innovations are at the heart of nine diverse companies spanning fields such as photovoltaics, neurochemistry, construction materials, water harvesting, and cosmetics. In 2016, he was named a Lemelson Invention Ambassador by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Lemelson Foundation.

Dr. Warner has been widely recognized for his visionary leadership in green chemistry. He was named one of “25 Visionaries Changing the World” by Utne Reader and cited as one of the most influential people in the chemical industry by ICI–Sciences. In Berlin, the “John Warner Center for Startups in Green Chemistry” was named in his honor.

She started her independent career in 2013 at the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, University of Groningen. Since 2019 she leads the sustainable catalysis unit at the University of Graz. Her research program addresses key scientific questions to enable the transition to a bio-based, circular economy. This involves catalyst and method development, alternative solvents and the development of biorefinery concepts, focusing on lignocellulosic biomass. Focus is devoted to the development of efficient catalytic pathways to access pharmaceutically active compounds, surfactants, fuels, as well as recyclable polymers and materials from renewable resources. Her group has made pioneering contributions to emerging biorefinery concepts, especially in the area of ‘lignin-first’ chemistry. Her work has been recognized by prestigious grants and prizes, including the Styria Innovation Award (2022), the ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering Lectureship Award (2020), the Netherlands Catalysis and Chemistry Conference Award (2019), and she is recipient of three ERC Grants and member of the Cluster of Excellence ‘Circular Bioengineering’.  

She serves as president of the division Green and Sustainable Chemistry of the European Chemical Society, chair of the editorial board of ChemSusChem, as well as international advisory board member of the journals ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, Chem Catalysis and Green Chemistry.  

After postdoctoral research experience in Brazil and the USA, in 2004, she joined the Institute of Chemistry at the University of São Paulo (USP) and became a Full Professor in 2016. Her research interests in the field of chemistry and catalysis include novel approaches for the synthesis of supported metal nanoparticles with controlled size, morphology and surface properties, catalyst recovery and recycling, new reactivity patterns at metal-ligands interfaces, bimetallic and hybrid catalysts, and the concepts of green chemistry for selective transformations. The main catalytic processes currently under study are selective hydrogenations and oxidations, biomass conversion into chemicals, and CO2 capture and conversion. She currently serves as Coordinator of the CCU Program at the Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Innovation (RCGI), sponsored by FAPESP/SHELL/USP (São Paulo, Brazil). Prof. Rossi is a permanent member of the Brazilian Academy of Science, effective since January 2021. She is an Editorial Advisory Board Member at ACS Catalysis (ACS) and Catalysis Science and Technology (RSC), and an International Advisory Board at Angewandte Chemie. She is a member of the Brazilian Chemical Society (SBQ), Brazilian Catalysis Society (SBCAT), and American Chemical Society (ACS). She is the author or co-author of about 150 papers published in indexed peer-reviewed scientific journals which received 7000 citations and an H=47. Prof. Rossi has been awarded the King Carl XVI Gustafs professorship in environmental science (Konung Carl XVI Gustafs professur i miljövetenskap) for 2023/24.

He focuses on environmental footprinting, product carbon footprints (PCF), life cycle assessments (LCA), and circular economy (CE) projects.

He currently co-leads the GreenSpeed project, driving sustainable innovation. 

Previously, he was Senior Manager for Circular Economy at Merck, managing CE initiatives and greenhouse gas emission projects. Before Merck, Benjamin worked at BASF for nearly five years, heading the Process Development Lab with a focus on renewables, bio-based chemicals, and sustainability. He also managed pilot plant operations and engineering projects. 

Benjamin began his career as a research scientist at Südzucker and TU Darmstadt, specializing in biomass conversion to bio-based chemicals. He earned his Master of Science in Chemistry from Technische Universität Darmstadt in 2013 and completed his PhD with expertise in sustainable chemical processes. 

His work focuses on nanocatalysis to combat climate change. He earned his PhD in 2005 and completed postdoctoral research in France and the USA before founding his independent group at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in 2009. He joined Tata Institute in 2013. 

His research centers on designing novel nanomaterials with tunable properties for sustainable catalysis, including the development of the innovative “Black Gold.” Prof. Polshettiwar has been recognized with prestigious awards such as the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the IUPAC-CHEMRAWN VII Prize, and the Falling Walls Award. 

After postdoctoral research at the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS), she joined ICCAS and was promoted to full professor in 2008. Her research focuses on green and sustainable chemistry, particularly the catalytic transformation of renewable and recyclable carbon resources, including CO₂, biomass, and spent plastics. 

She has authored around 400 peer-reviewed publications and holds 30 patents. A Fellow of both the Chinese Chemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry (since 2019), Professor Liu has received numerous prestigious awards in China, such as the China National Fund for Distinguished Young Scientists, the Second Class Prize of the National Natural Science Award, and the National Invention Prize. In 2025, she was honored with the IUPAC Award for Distinguished Women in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering.