Jordi Fraxedas (Tarragona,1962), PhD in Physics (1990) from the University of Stuttgart (Germany), is a CSIC Scientific Researcher at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) in Barcelona (Catalonia). His thesis work was performed at the Max Planck Institut für Festkörperforschung (Stuttgart) and at BESSY (Berlin, Germany), under the supervision of Prof. M. Cardona, and worked at ESRF (Grenoble, France), CERN (Geneva, Switzerland), Materials Science Institute of Barcelona (ICMAB) and at CNRS (Angers, France). His research activity is focused on interfacial phenomena and surface science using synchrotron radiation-based spectroscopies and scanning probe microscopies. He has co-authored 160 peer-reviewed scientific articles (>4000 citations, H=32) and published the books Molecular Organic Materials: From Molecules to Crystalline Solids (Cambridge University Press, 2006), Water at Interfaces: A Molecular Approach (Taylor&Francis/CRC, 2014) and Molecular Materials: Preparation, Characterization and Applications (Taylor&Francis/CRC 2017). ORCID: 0000-0002-2821-4831

Keynote talk title: Lowering the activation temperature of Ti-Zr-V non-evaporable getter films by removing surface carbon contamination

Professor Marcela Bilek holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, a BSc from the University of Sydney and an MBA from the Rochester Institute of Technology, USA. Prior to her present appointment as Professor of Applied Physics at the University of Sydney (since 2000), she worked as a visiting Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, USA, held a visiting Professorship at the Technische Universitat Hamburg-Harburg in Germany and a Research Fellowship at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, UK.

Professor Bilek heads the Applied and Plasma Physics Research Group. Research projects in these areas are a stimulating mix of fundamental physics and practical applications, in areas which include materials physics, plasma deposition and processing, thin film materials, vacuum glazing, renewable and sustainable energy and cross-disciplinary research in the areas of biointerfaces and medicine.

Marcela has received a number of honours for her work including the Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year in 2002, an ARC Federation Fellowship and an MIT TR100 Young Innovator award in 2003, the Australian Academy of Science Pawsey Medal in 2004 an Australian Innovation Challenge Award in 2011 and an ARC Future Fellowship in 2012. In 2013 she was elected to the Fellowship of the American Physical Society (APS) "for outstanding contributions to the physics of plasma processing, resulting in plasma sources, processes and materials with applications to industries ranging from information technology to biomedicine". In 2015 she was elected to the Fellowship of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) "for contributions to the science and application of plasma processes for materials modification and synthesis".

Giuseppe Carbone received the MSc Mechanical Engineering Degree on February 1998 and in February 2002 the Ph. D. degree in Advanced Production Systems at Politecnico di Bari (Italy). He is currently Full Professor of Applied Mechanics, Head of the Department of Mechanics Mathematics and Management at Politecnico di Bari (Italy), and President of the Italian Tribology Association. In 2010 he founded the Tribology Lab at Polytechnic University of Bari. He has been Visiting Scientist at the Juelich Research Center (Germany) and at the Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands), Academic Visitor at the Imperial College London, and Visiting Scholar at University of North Texas. He is Research Associate at the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies of the National Council of Research - Italy. His scientific interests focus mainly on tribology, contact mechanics, viscoelastic materials, adhesion, biomimetics, mechanical transmissions, mechanical vibrations, system dynamics, soft robotics grips, swarm intelligence and complex systems. His research has been funded from National and European programmes and private companies with more than 8 million €. He is founding member of PoliMech s.r.l. a Spinoff company of Polytechnic University of Bari. He serves as Associate Editor of Chaos Solitons and Fractals, and of the Journal Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering (Tribology Section). He is member of the Editorial Board of (i) Tribology International, (ii) Biomimetics, (iii) ISRN Tribology. He also served as Guest Editor of Tribology International, Biomimetics, Coatings, Lubricants, and Applied Science. His H-index is 40 (source: Scopus). He authored about 300 publications, of which about 165 in archive journals indexed in Scopus.

Holger Kersten is a Professor at the Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics at University of Kiel, Germany since 2006. Prior Professor Kersten was the head of the plasma processes group at the Leibniz Institute for Plasma Science and Technology (INP Greifswald) in Greifswald, Germany. The focus of his research includes basic studies on the interaction of plasmas with surfaces, complex plasmas and their applications in plasma technology. In 1999, he received the Greifswald Plasma Physics Prize in recognition of his research. Professor Kersten was furthermore the president of the German Society for Plasma Technology from 2009 to 2013. He is currently an Editor-in-Chief of the European Physical Journal Techniques and Instrumentation (EPJTI) and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at Kiel University.

Talk Title: Plasma cleaning and treatment of art objects

Prof. Rony Snyders is a Full Professor at the University of Mons (UMONS), Belgium, where he leads the Plasma–Surface Interaction Chemistry (ChIPS) group. He obtained his PhD in Science from UMONS in 2004, followed by postdoctoral research at École Polytechnique de Montréal (Canada) and RWTH Aachen University (Germany). Since 2007, he has been head of ChIPS and also serves as Scientific Director at Materia Nova R&D, fostering collaboration between academia and industry. His research focuses on low-pressure plasmas and their applications in thin film growth, plasma polymerization, surface modification, and plasma-assisted catalysis. Prof. Snyders has published more than 250 peer-reviewed papers, accumulating over 8,000 citations with an h-index around 48, and has supervised over 20 doctoral theses. He has played key leadership roles, including serving as President of the Belgian Vacuum Society (2018–2021) and as a member of the Rectoral Board at UMONS for the European University initiative EUNICE. Recognized internationally, he has been a Guest Professor at Tianjin University (China) since 2017 and regularly contributes to European collaborative projects on plasma processing and advanced materials. His career bridges plasma science and surface engineering, advancing both fundamental understanding and technological innovation in plasma-based materials research.

Dirk Hegemann heads the Plasma & Coating group at Empa, the Swiss federal research institute for materials science and technology. He studied physics and received his PhD in materials science from TU Darmstadt, Germany, in 1999. After a research stay at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology in Stuttgart, Germany, he moved to Empa in St.Gallen, Switzerland, in 2003. Dirk Hegemann specialized in physical and chemical plasma deposition and etching processes as well as plasma-chemical gas phase processes. He published more than 140 peer-reviewed papers (H-index: 50) and is ranked among the Top Scientists in the field of Materials Science in Switzerland. His team focuses on the plasma functionalization of flexible polymeric materials and their implementation in industry as well as environmental aspects of plasma technology. Dirk Hegemann is a member of the board of the Swissvacuum Society and the International Plasma Chemistry Society (IPCS), and he serves as Editor-in-Chief for the journal Plasma Processes and Polymers,

Keynote Talk title:  Environmental Aspects of Plasma-chemical Processes