Yury Gogotsi is a Distinguished University Professor and the Charles T. and Ruth M. Bach Endowed Chair in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He also serves as Director of the A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute. He received his MS (1984) and PhD (1986) from Kyiv Polytechnic and a DSc degree from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (1995). Together with his students and colleagues, he has made principal contributions to the development of materials for electrochemical capacitors and other energy storage devices, discovered MXenes, demonstrated the tuning of structure and porosity of carbide-derived carbons, and developed new processes for the synthesis, surface modification, and purification of nanotubes and nanodiamonds.
Yury Gogotsi also published the first microscopic observation of water inside carbon nanotubes, discovered polygonal nanotubes (graphite polyhedral crystals), and shaped the field of high-pressure surface science. He is recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher in Materials Science and Chemistry and a Citations Laureate in Physics by Clarivate. He has received numerous awards for his research, including the Blaise Pascal Medal from the European Academy of Sciences, the Ceramic Prize from the World Academy of Ceramics, the Materials Research Society (MRS) Medal, the American Chemical Society (ACS) Award in the Chemistry of Materials, etc. He has been elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the World Academy of Ceramics, the European Academy of Sciences, Academia Europaea, and many professional societies. He holds honorary doctorates from several European Universities.
For full CV, publications, and current research activities, visit https://research.coe.drexel.edu/mse/nanomaterials/
Ekaterina Pomerantseva is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University. She received a B.S. degree in Materials Science in 2000 and an M.S. degree in Chemistry and Materials Science in 2003 from Lomonosov Moscow State University, an M.S. degree in Biochemistry in 2005 from McGill University, and a Ph.D. degree in Solid-State Chemistry in 2007 from Lomonosov Moscow State University. Prior to joining Drexel, she held postdoctoral appointments at the Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland, College Park (2010–2013) and in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Waterloo (2009–2010). She has co-authored over 90 peer-reviewed journal publications. She received the prestigious NSF CAREER Award (2018) and was named a Scialog Fellow (2017), a Stein Fellow (2019) and a MESC+ Faculty Fellow (2022). She has also served as an Associate Editor of Materials Today Chemistry.
Professor Pomerantseva’s research integrates materials chemistry and electrochemistry to address critical challenges in sustainable energy storage and water treatment. She leads the Material Electrochemistry Group, which designs nanostructured materials with precisely controlled crystal structures, compositions, and architectures to enable selective ion transport, rapid charge transfer, and long-term electrochemical stability. Her work has established fundamental structure–property relationships in electrochemically active nanoscale materials, advancing battery and capacitive deionization technologies as well as electrochromic and biomedical devices. By bridging molecular-level synthesis with device-level performance, her research provides design principles for electrochemically driven systems capable of selective ion removal, critical mineral recovery, and high-rate energy storage. These contributions support the development of scalable technologies for clean water and next-generation energy systems, positioning her work at the interface of fundamental materials discovery and real-world implementation.
Lucia Gemma Delogu is head of the ImmuneNanolab at the University of Padua and Visiting Professor at New York University AD. Delogu previously worked at the University of Southern California and as visiting Professor and Marie S. Curie Fellow at the Technical University of Dresden, Germany.
Delogu’s research focuses on using systems immunology approaches to study bi-dimensional nanomaterials and MXenes in particular for their interactions with immune cells towards biomedical applications. Beyond various National Italian Grants, she has been the scientific coordinator of two interdisciplinary European projects on nanomedicine and nanosafety (G-IMMUNOMICS, CARBOIMMAP). Her work as the corresponding author has appeared in major academic journals, including Nature Communications, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nano Today, ACS Nano, and Small. Cumulatively, her work contributes to immunology, nanotechnology, material science, and space biology.
Dr. Laura Fusco received her B.Sc. in Medical Biotechnologies from the University of Milan studying the effects of nanoparticles on human health. After receiving her M.Sc. in Medical Biotechnologies and Molecular Medicine “Summa cum laude”, in 2018 she earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Trieste (Italy), with a project on the toxicological effects of graphene at the skin level, supported by the EU H2020 Programme Graphene Flagship.
Dr. Fusco integrated her research at the Karolinska Institutet (Sweden) and has worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the framework of two H2020 projects and as a Seconded Scientist at Sidra Medicine (Qatar), exploring the immune interactions of carbon nanomaterials. In 2020, Dr. Fusco served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Padua (Italy), working on a project on nanomaterials for wound healing during space flights funded by the European Space Agency, ESA. She received several awards, including a Marie Curie Global Individual Fellowship (MSCA-IF) and was selected to attend the 71st Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, in 2022. She is currently a Marie Curie Global Fellow at Drexel University and the University of Padua, in the framework of the SEE project focused on MXene skin and immune interactions for biomedical applications.
Faisal is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Khalifa University. His research focuses on novel membranes and devices for water treatment and energy applications, including desalination, wastewater treatment, seawater and brine mining, valuable minerals recovery, ammonia, hydrogen, batteries and waste-to-wealth.
Faisal is also the Deputy Director of the Centre of Membrane and Advanced Water Technology (CMAT) at Khalifa University and serves as an Editorial Board Member in the Desalination Journal published by Elsevier. Additionally, he sits on the Advisory Board for XPRIZE Water Scarcity, part of the Mohamed Bin Zayed Water Initiative. This $119 million, five-year global competition aims to enhance access to clean water by creating reliable, sustainable, and affordable seawater desalination systems.
A frequent contributor to academic journals, Faisal was also a visiting assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States from 2016 to 2018. He received his PhD in Interdisciplinary Engineering with a focus on water technologies from the joint program at the Masdar Institute and MIT. He obtained his Master of Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London for his research on the use of ionic liquids in the determination of surface energies, which led him to receive the Lonza Award and an Associateship of the City and Guilds of London Institute Award in chemical engineering at Imperial College London.
He is a graduate of both the Executive Leaders and Innovative Leaders programs of the UAE Government Leaders Program at the Prime Minister’s Office in Dubai. Additionally, he is an alumnus of the Young Future Energy Leaders Program at the Masdar Institute and a Water Expert in the National Experts Program managed by the Emirates Foundation under the Abu Dhabi Government. Finally, Faisal is the recipient of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Water Award in 2025.
Yash Athreya is a PhD student at the A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute, Drexel University, where he conducts experimental research on MXene-based materials for Hybrid Capacitive Deionization and electrochemical applications, including ion transport and selective separation. His work spans synthesis, characterization, and emerging electrode designs. Prior to his doctoral studies, Yash completed his Master of Science in Nanomaterials at Drexel and holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering from RV College of Engineering in Bangalore, India. He is active in academic outreach, having presented at international MXene conference and supported educational initiatives like the Drexel MXene Course.
Dr. Faisal Shahzad is a materials scientist and Senior Research Scientist at Khalifa University, where he plays a leading role in developing the RIC2D laboratories, fostering strong local and international collaborations, and advancing new research directions for MXenes across diverse applications. With over 15 years of combined academic and industrial experience, he previously served as a faculty member at the Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS), where he contributed to launching the BS program in Metallurgy and Materials Engineering and established state-of-the-art teaching and research laboratories. Internationally recognized as one of the early pioneers of MXene-based technologies for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding and water remediation, he founded the Functional Hybrid Materials Laboratory, opening new avenues in EMI shielding, hybrid materials, and nanomaterials research. His collaborative work with Prof. Yury Gogotsi’s group on MXene-based EMI shielding, including a landmark first-author publication in Science cited more than 5,000 times, has helped establish MXenes as a leading platform material for high-performance shielding and advanced functional systems.
Dr. Shahzad’s broader research spans energy storage and catalysis, water purification, biosensing, and functional coatings, with a growing emphasis on green synthesis, AI-guided materials design, micro-printing technologies, and the translation of 2D materials into commercially viable solutions. His work has been published in leading journals, including Science, Advanced Materials, Advanced Science, Materials Science and Engineering R: Reports, and Progress in Materials Science. He is also the editor and co-author of a book titled Two-Dimensional Materials for Electromagnetic Shielding. In the current project, Dr. Shahzad serves in an advisory capacity across multiple work packages, with particular emphasis on the large-scale synthesis and commercialization of MXene technologies in the UAE and internationally.