Sierin Lim is an Associate Professor of Bioengineering at the School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU). Her research group focuses on the design and engineering of hybrid nano/microscale devices from biological parts for applications in health and the environment. Specifically, her Bioengineered and Applied Nanomaterials Lab (BeANs Lab) uses protein cages as the building blocks and a platform for formulation and delivery of active molecules to the skin. Her lab also explores the utility of protein cages to enhance contrast in imaging atherosclerotic plaques. In her Molecular & Cellular Bioengineering Lab (MCBe Lab), she leads a program in engineering PETase to up-cycle plastic waste to oil, cellulose, and cannabinoids using cyanobacteria, cellulose bacteria, and yeast.
She is currently serving as the Associate Dean of Global Partnerships at the NTU Graduate College. She earned her B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).

Rahul Singh is an expert at connecting the three Is – idea, insight, and individual who sums up his life as ABC – author, banker, and community builder. He advises companies & start-ups on their ESG journey towards Sustainable Development Goals and has pushed for inclusion of Conscious Capitalism & ESG in university curriculums. He has authored several books on purpose including “You know the glory, not the story”, “Engineering to Ikigai”, and “An atheist gets the Gita”. His book on corporate purpose “ESG: Putting purpose back in Money” is scheduled for release in late 2023.
Having an illustrious career in banking, he is the Assistant Director of Global Marketing & Strategy at Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Principal of Corporate Advisory Group at Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Udaipur, and Academic Council Member of Jaipuria Institute of Management.

Hu Xiao obtained his BEng degree from the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University in Beijing in 1985. He went on to receive his MSc and PhD degrees from the Materials Science Centre, University of Manchester in the United Kingdom in 1998 and 1990 respectively. He worked as a SERC (UK) postdoctoral associate at Manchester University from December 1990, before joining Nanyang Technological University in April 1992 as a founding faculty member of the Materials Science & Engineering program. He co-founded the Polymer Laboratory in the School of Materials Science & Engineering and served as Director of Graduate Programs in the School and as its inaugural Head of Division of Materials Technology. He is now a full professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering.

Adam Switzer holds concurrent positions as Professor of Coastal Science at the Asian School of the Environment; Assistant Dean (Development) at the College of Science; Director of CIFAL Singapore and Principal Investigator at the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS). He is a broadly trained coastal geoscientist and the overarching driver of his research is to apply interdisciplinary geoscience to solve contemporary coastal problems at local, regional and international scales.
His main research areas investigate catastrophic marine inundation events (tsunami or large storms), sea level changes, the evolution of coral reefs and tropical coastal systems. After obtaining a BSc and PhD in Geosciences from the University of Wollongong, Australia he accepted an Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong fellowship to study at The University of Hong Kong where he held positions as Post-Doctoral Fellow and Research Assistant Professor.

Lerwen Liu is an Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship (Practice) at NTU Entrepreneurship Academy (NTUpreneur). She teaches various entrepreneurship programs focusing on sustainability and circular economy, empowering students with mindset, knowledge, and skills. She has over 25 years of global business development experience supporting research commercialization, impact, and nurturing start-ups. She is a resource person and technical consultant for the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). She specializes in business development and education in emerging technologies, circular economy, and sustainability. She focuses on strategic development, assessment, and support of emerging technologies, including nanotechnology and Artificial Intelligence, with applications in all sectors. She is the founding director of STEAM Platform, focusing on youth empowerment with convergent STEM knowledge, strategic communication skills, entrepreneurship for SDGs2030, Circular Economy, and Industry 4.0. Dr. Liu obtained a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of New South Wales (NSW), Australia.

Xiaobo Su is a professor of urban and regional development in the Department of Geography, University of Oregon. He has explored China’s great transformation from a planned economy to a market economy, from an inward-looking economy to an outward-looking global power after 1978. To understand the transformation, he examines issues of regulation, commodification, and displacement in the process of urban and regional development, and addresses what has happened on the ground, that is, in individuals’ everyday life and their reactions to China’s transformation. He has published 45 peer-reviewed articles and some appeared in top-ranking journals such as the Annals of American Association of Geographers, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Political Geography, and Review of International Political Economy.

Grzegorz Lisak obtained his M.Sc. (Chem. Eng.) in physical chemistry in 2007 from Poznań University of Technology, Poland. He obtained his D.Sc. (Tech.) in analytical chemistry in 2012 from Åbo Akademi University, Finland.
Between 2013 and 2015 he has been a research fellow at University of Wollongong, Australia and Malmö University, Sweden. Since 2016 he is Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Between 2017 and 2018 he was appointed as deputy director of Residues and Resources Reclamation Center at Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute, Singapore. Since 2018 he is a director of Residues and Resources Reclamation Center at Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute, Singapore. Since 2018 he is principal investigator and manager of the Waste to Energy Research Facility at NTU, near full scale high temperature gasification technology established to conduct R&D work in waste to energy and waste to resources.
Since 2019 he is an associated editor of Chemosphere (IF= 7.086), Elsevier.

Kara Lavender Law is a Research Professor of Oceanography at Sea Education Association (SEA; Woods Hole, MA). For more than 15 years she has researched plastic debris in the ocean, initially focusing on the physical processes that carry, transport and transform plastics in the marine environment, with more recent work focused “upstream” on the generation, pathways and treatment of plastic waste, ultimately aiming to prevent plastic leakage to the environment. Dr. Law has co-chaired working groups on plastic marine debris at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), and served on the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Committee that published the 2022 report, Reckoning with the U.S. Role in Global Ocean Plastics Waste. Dr. Law received her Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography/University of California, San Diego in physical oceanography, and a B.S. in mathematics from Duke University.

David Lallement is an Assistant Professor at NTU Asian School of the Environment. His research focuses on understanding and quantifying the evolution of extreme risk in today’s growing cities. He uses hazard modeling, engineering analysis, predictive modeling and spatial statistics for application in large-scale natural disaster risk analysis. The transdisciplinary and policy-oriented nature of his work has led him to build collaborations with the World Bank, Google, the Red Cross, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, the Natural Capitals Project and others.
David holds a PhD from Stanford University, a master’s degree from UC Berkeley (2010) and bachelor’s degree from MIT (2007). David co-founded the Stanford Urban Resilience Initiative and the Co-Risk Labs consultancy group.

David is also active in post-disaster response and recovery, which forms the basis for his research on post-disaster assessment and community resilience. He worked for two years in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake and has been involved with the response and recovery following the Christchurch earthquake and recent earthquake in Nepal.

Matthew Dearth is Associate Professor of Finance (Practice) at Nanyang Business School where he holds appointments as Co-Director of the Centre for Sustainable Finance Innovation and Assistant Dean (Undergraduate). Previously, his 30+ year career in finance included leadership roles at Silvercrest Asset Management (Singapore), Marshall Wace, Goldman Sachs, and Booz Allen & Hamilton. An awarded instructor of undergraduate and graduate courses on sustainable finance and impact investing, Dr. Dearth’s second book, “Sustainable Finance for Returns and Impact”, will be available in Q1 2026. Dr. Dearth holds a PhD (General Management) from Singapore Management University, an MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and Operations Research from Princeton University.

Jae Hyuk Rhee is a Professor at School of Business Administration, Korea University, Seoul, Korea. Dr. Lee serves as the head of Sustainability management research group, corporate management research institute at Korea University since 2019 and the Director of Korea University Social Enterprise Center. Dr. Lee’s main research areas cover Global management, Management strategy and Sustainability including ESG, CSR and SDG. He has received many honors including 5th Stone Tower Research Award in 2020 at Korea University, Korea University Seok-Top Lecture Award, KUBS Teaching Award, Korea University Graduate School of Business Management Research Course Excellence Lecture Award, and many more. Dr. Lee is the founding member and member of the Institute for Sustainable Economic and Social Development, and he has served as a member for many government institutes including National Pension Fund Trustee Responsibility Specialized Committee, Special Committee for Win-Win Cooperation Division, Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Corporate Governance Committee of the Korea Corporate Governance Service and Social Welfare Community Chest of Korea, Sharing Culture Research Center.

Bin Cao is currently a Research Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering at Korea University (KU). He received his B.S. degree in 2016 and his Ph.D. in 2022 from Jiangsu University, China, where he subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher until 2024. His research focuses on advancing sustainable chemical processes in two primary areas: (1) developing biochar based carbocatalysts for the catalytic pyrolysis of biomass to produce bio-oils and chemicals, and (2) conducting systematic life cycle assessments of bio refining technologies. Dr. Cao has authored 58 SCI-indexed articles, achieving an H-index of 25 (Web of Science). He joined the Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis Early Career Advisory Board in June 2025. He also serves as a peer reviewer for more than 10 international journals in the fields of energy and environmental sciences. He got the Jiangsu Funding Program for Excellent Postdoctoral Talent (2023) and the Research Faculty Support Project at Korea University (2025). He currently leads a research project funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China that focus on sustainable biomass catalytic conversion technologies.

Kory Russel’s primary research focuses are on planning, designing, and implementing sustainable water and sanitation (WASH) services in low- and middle-income countries. He has conducted extensive research on the topics of non-networked water supply and sanitation in Mozambique and Haiti. He specifically studies the caloric energy women expend when fetching water, with a focus on 1) water, energy, and resource recovery from waste streams; 2) sustainable delivery of water services in rural and urban settings; 3) development and analysis of entrepreneurial-based sanitation service delivery models and 4) informal urbanization. He helped to co-found and currently lead the “re.source” sanitation research initiative, originally funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Re.source is focused on exploring extremely low-cost, resource recovery and sanitation solutions. (Integrated Mobile Sanitation Solutions in Peri-urban Settings: Haiti, re.source).

Christian Offermanns is Global Public Affairs Manager for Asia & Pacific at The Ocean Cleanup, where he develops partnerships with governments, multilateral agencies, and donors to scale river and ocean plastic interception projects across Southeast Asia and the Pacific. His work focuses on integrating innovative cleanup technologies into sustainable development strategies, acquiring grants for projects, and building connections with governments in the region.
Previously, Christian worked with ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, supporting international city networks on climate change and sustainable development. He also gained experience with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), where he contributed to global sustainability standards in supply chains.
In Thailand, Christian served in the Parliament of Thailand with the Committee on National Security, Border Affairs, National Strategy, and National Reform.
Christian holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in law from the University of Bonn, studied at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona during his Erasmus year, and earned an LL.M. in International Law from Thammasat University in Bangkok. He is currently pursuing a PhD in International Law at the University of Sydney, researching frameworks for global economic migration governance.

Jason Plamondon spent over 2 decades within the energy sector, managing sustainability strategy and initiatives globally, across the environmental, social, and governance space, including renewable energy projects. After nearly 23 years with Shell, Jason stepped into the data technology industry and has taken on the role of Regional Sustainability Manager for Equinix. Jason has a passion for ESG integration and a belief that meaningful participation of all interested stakeholders is the means to a sustainable future.

Joe Palazzo is a carbon footprinting practitioner in Google’s consumer hardware division. Prior to becoming a sustainability professional, Joe pursued a career in semiconductor process engineering with Globalfoundries and Cree. His work on chemical-intensive processes sparked an interest in sustainability and a transition to full time work in the field via the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Under the direction of Professor Roland Geyer at UCSB, Joe earned a PhD that centered around the development of advanced life cycle assessment (LCA) and carbon footprinting methodologies. He was recruited out of his doctorate to work at the intersection of his two fields, developing consumer electronics carbon footprinting tools, methods, and industry consortia at Apple and Google. Joe also holds M.S. and B.S. degrees in Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, and has performed and recorded music in professional environments as a percussionist.

Michelle Low serves as Principal at IATA Consulting, where she leads the safety and sustainability practice for Asia. Drawing on her extensive expertise in these domains, she supports airlines, regulators, and air navigation service providers in achieving safer and more sustainable operations. Before joining IATA, Michelle held the role of Principal for Global Regulatory & International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Strategy at The Boeing Company. There, she led the development and execution of ICAO regional strategies across Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. Her impactful contributions earned her the 2023 Product Development Team of the Year award and a secondment to Boeing Charleston. Earlier in her career, Michelle held several roles at the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, gaining broad exposure in sustainability, air traffic management, and safety risk management, including a two-year secondment to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. Throughout her career, Michelle has worked closely with ICAO, serving as a working group chair, technical expert, and senior instructor. She holds a Master of Philosophy in Technology Policy from University of Cambridge and Bachelor of Engineering in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College London. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University with a specialization in aviation safety.

Adrianna Rojas, Senior Director of APRU Programs, has over 25 years of experience in international higher education. She is a professional specialising in intercultural communication, global strategy and corporate diplomacy. Her experience spans the education sector, private sector, consultancy, and international organisations. Before this position, she was the Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Centre for Human Dignity and National Director of Asia Pacific Relations at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico. Adriana previously led areas of long-life learning and international liaison offices in Boston and at Yale University, USA. For more than 15 years, she has actively participated in international forums and consortia that link and develop strategic and international programs between Asia and Latin America, including UAF, RIMAC, APAIE, the Asia Pacific Six Universities Consortium, and ONE.

She has been a guest researcher and speaker in America and Asia. Adriana has a master’s in Asian studies. She has pursued further training at UK and Japan. She has received fellowships from the Tokyo Foundation, the Japan Foundation, and El Colegio de Mexico. Currently, Adriana serves as the Senior Director of APRU Programs.

Shari Lorang (Teaching Assistant) is a PhD Candidate at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. As part of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Programme, her research explores the intersection of plastic waste, policy development, and the circular economy in Small Island Developing States (SIDS). She holds a bachelor’s in architectural and construction engineering from Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and master’s in environmental science and engineering from Tongji University (China). Previously, she was a research assistant at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University.