Professor Xin Xu received his doctoral degree in theoretical chemistry from Xiamen University, China, in 1991. After a postdoctoral stay at Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Academia Sinica, he was appointed as an associated professor in 1993 and was promoted to a full professor in 1995 in the Department of Chemistry, Xiamen University, where he became the Lu-Jia-Xi Chair professor in 2006. He moved to Fudan University in Shanghai as a distinguished chair professor in 2010. Xin Xu was awarded the Ten-Outstanding Young Chemists of 1995, issued by Chinese Chemical Society. He received reward fundings from Fok Ying Tung Foundation (Hong Kong) in 1998, from State Education Commission for Outstanding Young Professors in Chinese University in 2000, and from National Natural Science Foundation for Outstanding Young Scientists in 2006. He was appointed as a Ming-Jiang Scholar of Fujian province in 2006, and a Chang-Jiang Chair professor in 2012. He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers, and have received >17000 citations with an H-index of 60. He has been invited to give over 200 lectures. He serves on the editorial board of several international journals, including as an Associate Editor for JACS Au published by the American Chemical Society. His main research area is Density Functional Theory (DFT) and its applications including in CO₂ conversion and utilization.

Prof. Xiwang Zhang is the Endowed Dow Chair in Sustainable Engineering Innovation at The University of Queensland (UQ) and the Director of UQ Dow Centre. Before joining UQ in January of 2022, he was a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Monash University, the Founding Director of ARC Industry Transformation Research Hub for Energy-efficient Separation, and the Deputy Director of Monash Centre for Membrane Innovation. His research focuses on membrane technology and advanced catalysis for energy-efficient separation, water and wastewater treatment, resource recovery, green chemical synthesis and renewable energy generation. Prof. Zhang has over 15 years of R&D experiences in both academia and industry with demonstrated achievements in technology development and translation. Prof. Zhang was the recipient of the prestigious ARC Australian Research Fellowship, Future Fellowship (Level 3) and Monash Larkins Fellowship