Dr. Miroslav Černík, is an Academically oriented manager with more than 30 years of experience in remediation technologies, water treatment, applications of nanomaterials and management of national and international R&D projects. He has broad international experience, a PhD from ETH Zurich, Switzerland, work on many international projects, and significant publication activity in the field. He also has broad experience in industrial practice in the environmental industry, having worked for over 20 years in industrial practice in various positions. He is currently the director of CXI of Technical University of Liberec (TUL). He has over 200 publications in Web of Science with over 7,000 citations, an H index of 40.
Dr. Jun Young Cheong is currently a reader at the James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom, since May 2024. He was previously a group leader at University of Bayreuth, serving both Department of Chemistry and Bavarian Center for Battery Technology. Prior to joining University of Bayreuth, he was a staff engineer at Samsung SDI, specializing on electrode processing. He received his BS degree, MS degree, and PhD degree in materials science and engineering from KAIST in Korea (2014/2016/2020, respectively). His current research topic includes the synthesis of functional materials, energy storage and conversion, and in situ characterizations. Dr. Jun Young has published more than 100 articles and holds numerous patents and patent applications.
Dr. John D. Atkinson is the Stevens Chair in Engineering Sustainability and an Associate Professor in Environmental Engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he has been recognized as an Early Career Teacher of the Year, Experiential Learning Faculty Fellow, TEDx Speaker, and Best Undergraduate Mentor. John’s work is driven by an overarching desire to more sustainably produce and consume. He works within the broad field of waste management, using life cycle analysis to investigate plastic and tire recycling, waste disposal, transportation footprints, and energy recovery. He targets real-world problems that impact everyday life, aiming to make engineering more thoughtful and accessible. John emboldens lifestyle changes that promote personal and corporate sustainability, encouraging audiences to expand their comfort zones, holistically solve problems, and embrace creativity.
He obtained a Ph. D. 1989, from the University of Osnabrück Germany. In 2009 and in 2023, he obtained the titles of Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Pará, Belém, Brazil, and from the Yokohama National University, Japan. In 2018, he was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Civil Merit of the Kingdom of Spain. From 2017 to 2021, he served as UNESCO’s Director of the Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences and Secretary of the Programme on Man and the Biosphere (MAB), and, at the same time the Secretary of the UNESCO Global Geoparks Programme (UGGP). As of 2021, he is a Senior Research Associate at the UNESCO Chair on Biodiversity Safeguard for Sustainable Development, Life Sciences Department, University of Coimbra, Portugal. In March 2022, he became a Professor at the Yokohama National University, Division of Natural Environment and Information, Faculty of Environment and Information Sciences, Japan. In November 2024, he published together with Prof. Hiroyuki Matsuda, Dr, Benno Böer, and Dr. Ron Loughland the Springer Nature Book on ‘Blue Carbon Mangrove Ecosystems: A Concept-Based Approach’, within the Springer Series of ‘Blue Carbon Ecosystems for Sustainable Development’.
Dr. Martin Zimmer was trained in terrestrial ecology at Cologne University. After a short postdoc in evolutionary ecology (Düsseldorf University), he turned his attention towards coastal ecology (Kiel University). After another short interval (2010-2014: Terrestrial Animal Ecology) at Salzburg University, led him to Bremen University and the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT). He leads the working group of Mangrove Ecology and the Program Area Ecosystem Co-Design. His research focuses on how biodiversity in coastal vegetated ecosystems drives ecosystem processes and ecosystem services, such as coastal protection and blue carbon-storage. Martin Zimmer aims at providing scientific knowledge for sustainable management towards Nature-based Solutions for the resilience of tropical coastal socio-ecological systems.
Dr. Prateek Dongare is a trained chemist and materials scientist with a specialization in catalysis and solar energy research. He began his editorial career at Nature Publishing in 2018 as an Associate Editor at Communications Chemistry, before moving to Nature Communications in 2019, he held roles as Team Manager and later Chief Editor in 2023. During his time at Nature Communications, Prateek led a team focused on energy materials, championing key areas such as catalysis, electrochemical energy storage, and energy harvesting. He played a central role in expanding the journal’s scope, editorial team, and impact within these fields. In addition to team leadership, he handled a broad portfolio of submissions, including research on photo- and electrocatalysis, materials for solar fuels, and next-generation battery technologies. Over the years, he has managed thousands of manuscripts spanning chemistry and energy-related disciplines. In December 2023, Prateek transitioned into a strategic leadership role, establishing and heading the Research Cross-Journal Editorial Team at Nature Portfolio. In this position, he continues to oversee submissions for several Nature journals and contributes to cross-journal editorial strategy and talent development. Prateek holds a PhD in Chemistry from Memorial University, Canada, and completed postdoctoral research at Uppsala University in Sweden and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. He remains actively engaged in the scientific community, regularly participating in international conferences, delivering talks and workshops, and advising researchers on publishing in selective journals, research dissemination strategies, and navigating the editorial process. He is currently based in Nature Portfolio’s Heidelberg office in Germany.
Dr. Charu Lata is Principal Scientist and Head of the Traditional Knowledge Division at CSIR-National Institute of Science Communication and Policy Research (CSIR-NIScPR), New Delhi. Dr Lata is the Coordinator of the national initiative SVASTIK on “Communicating India’s Scientifically Validated Traditional Knowledge to the Society”. She is also the Editor of Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge and Associate Professor at Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR). Dr Lata pursued a Doctor of Philosophy from the prestigious National Institute of Plant Genome Research and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi where she worked extensively on the genetics and genomics of foxtail millet. Later, she joined ICAR-NIPB (erstwhile NRCPB), New Delhi as INSPIRE Faculty Fellow, and then as a Scientist at CSIR-NBRI, Lucknow from where she moved to CSIR-NIScPR, New Delhi in 2019. She reoriented her research focus in the field of science communication and policy research in traditional knowledge at CSIR-NIScPR.
Dr. Lata is a recipient of some of the prestigious national and international awards including Young Scientist awards by INSA (2014) and NASI (2012). She also received INSPIRE Faculty Award 2011, Jawaharlal Nehru Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research 2013, SERB Women Excellence Award 2014, Indo-Australia EMCR Fellowship 2017, and SERB Early Career Research Award 2018. She is an Associate of the Indian Academy of Sciences (IASc) [2019-2022], Member of the National Academy of Sciences India (NASI) since 2015, and Founding Member of the Indian National Young Academy of Science (INYAS) [2015-2020]. Dr Lata is a Fellow of the International Society for Environmental Botanists 2021. She has been consecutively listed as world’s top 2% scientists in Plant Sciences by Stanford University, USA. She has authored more than 75 original articles in various peer reviewed high impact SCI Journals and books with >5700 citations, h-index 33, and i-10 index 42.