Special Guests

We are delighted to mention that Simona Salerno will be the last special guest of 14th EYEC!✨

Simona Salerno is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Membrane Technology “Enrico Drioli”, National Research Council of Italy, in the strategic area of Chemistry and Materials for Health and Life Sciences. 

She has aquired a PhD in Cellular Biochemistry and Pharmacological Activity in Oncology (2006) and Honours Degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology (2001), from the University of Calabria. She gained international research experience at the Biotechologisch Biomedizinisches Zentrum (University of Leipzig), the Instituto de Física (University of São Paulo), the Institute of Biocybernetic and Biomedical Engineering (Polish Academy of Sciences) and the Departamento de Ingeniería Química (Universidad de Salamanca). 

Her expertise lies in membrane science and engineering applied to tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, bioartificial organs, drug loading and delivery, drug testing. She was awarded as Early-Stage Researcher by the European Membrane Society (2014). She is actively involved in several European, national and international research projects and collaborative agreements with companies, also serving as scientific responsible and WP leader. She serves as a member of several international scientific federation and committees, as an evaluator for funding institutions,  and as Associate and Guest Editor for scientific journals. She has supervised more than 30 master’s degree, PhD and trainees’ students, and is the author of more than 180 scientific publication in international journals, books, encyclopaedia and conference proceedings. 🎓

We are delighted to introduce Irena Žižović as a special guest of the 14th European Young Engineers Conference!✨

Irena Žižović is a professor of chemical engineering at the Faculty of Chemistry, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology. She received the title of full professor from the University of Belgrade in 2016 and from the Council of the Scientific Excellence of the Republic of Poland in 2023. 

Irena Žižović has over 30 years of experience in designing processes involving supercritical carbon dioxide such as extraction, impregnation, polymer foaming, heterogeneous reactions  in supercritical phase, and aerogel production. In the last ten years, her focus has been designing advanced materials, such as those with strong antibacterial or antibiofilm properties, aerogels for different applications, active food packaging, polymeric systems for drug delivery, and novel composite materials for gas separations. 

Irena Žižović is the co-author of more than 100 scientific studies, with over 2500 citations and an h-index of 30. She has been the PI of 9 national and international projects and holds 4 patents in the field. Irena Žižović has been an active member of the Working Party for High-Pressure Technologies of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering since 2014. 🧪

We are honored to welcome Alina Rwei as the special guest of the 14th edition of EYEC!✨

Dr. Alina Rwei is an assistant professor at TU Delft, the Netherlands. She received her undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with her undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. degree in Materials Science and Engineering.

Her Ph.D. training was conducted under the supervision of Professor Robert Langer at MIT and Professor Daniel Kohane at Harvard Medical School. She then proceeded to a postdoctoral position in Professor John Rogers’ lab at Northwestern University. 

As a principal investigator at TU Delft, she works in the interdisciplinary fields of precision medicine and chemical engineering, with a focus on ultrasound triggerable nanomedicine and aptamer-based biosensing. 💊