Giullia Loretta Batali graduated from the Faculty of Hydrotechnics within UTCB in 1990, specializing in Hydrotechnical Constructions. She became PhD in Technical Sciences in 1997 at INSA Lyon France, with the highest honor (très honorable avec les félicitations du jury) with a thesis related to “The use of bentonite geocomposites in waste repositories”. Dr. Batali is a Professor in the Department of Geotechnics and Foundations, PhD supervisor and Director of the Council of University Doctoral Studies in UTCB. Also, she is the President of the Romanian Society of Geotechnics and Foundations. She managed 4 research grants as director (2 international and 2 national), and assume other projects won through the competition. Also, she participated as a team member in 7 international projects and 14 national projects. Prof. Batali has published 9 specialized books and over 100 articles published in specialized journals, volumes of congresses, international and national conferences.

Main research directions: Environmental geotechnics (waste depots, geosynthetics, natural and anthropogenic hazards), Support and foundation structures, Unsaturated soils.

She has a rich technical activity for the development of geotechnical studies, geotechnical investigations, design and geotechnical consulting, verification and expertise, as well as the development of technical regulations in the field. In recent years, she has had a rich activity within CEN for the revision of Eurocode 7, being a member of a Project Team mandated by CEN and leading a working group in the same framework.

Areas of expertise: geotechnics, foundations, support works, land improvement works, environmental geotechnics, geosynthetics, waste.

Valeriu V. Cotea, PhD in Oenology and Viticulture, is full professor of Oenology and has over 35 years of experience in adult and VET education, as well as experience in managing and co-ordinating transnational projects in the field of scientific research.

He holds a Bachelor of Science (Horticulture) with a major in Grape and Winemaking (University of Agronomy, Iasi, RO) and PhD in Oenology and Viticulture from the same university. He is, at the moment, the scientific secretary of the Oenology Commission of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (O.I.V.), and the Romanian representative to this organisation. He was project coordinator of over 20 projects implemented locally and nationally by Iasi University of Life Sciences and was/is a team member of over 60 national and international educational and research projects. This includes putting together funding applications to obtain financial support for the work, providing support and training for the colleagues working in the group and sharing findings with the wider scientific and non-scientific community. He leads a team of young researchers, PhDs and PhD students, all involved in different areas of vine technologies, wine making processes and analyses. The competences of the team encircle oenology and other special winemaking technologies, Viticulture and modern technologies aimed at analysing vine ecology, merceology and vine and wine legislation. The activity of his team is reflected in an impressive number of scientific materials, articles and manuals, but also in a high number of professional awards and prizes.

Although his competences incline more towards the wine-making domain, he is in deep contact with all the Romanian vine growing and wine making producers. Prof. Cotea has more than 35 years of experience working in the wine and grape industry, teaching and conducting research. He has taught face to face, hybrid, online and extension classes at University of Agriculture, Athens, Greece, Geisenheim University, Germany. He is member of the editing committee for several scientific journals, such as Oeno One, Mitteilungen Klosterneuburg etc.

Born on May 28 1956. Professor of Polymer Chemistry, Supramolecular Chemistry and Molecular Modelling at «Gheorghe Asachi» Technical University of Iasi, «Cristofor Simionescu» Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Protection, Department of Natural and Synthetic Polymers.

Publications: 179 (149 in Thomson ISI ranked journals); Books and book chapters 7; Patents 6 (2 French Patents); Conferences and communications 300; Citations 1700; Hirsch Index 21.

Research fields: Molecular motors; Biomaterials – smart polymers as support for cell cultures; Supramolecular chemistry (liquid crystals, nanostructured azo-polymers); Molecular modeling and polymers properties simulation; Living radical polymerization (ATRP, SET-LRP); Polymer characterization methods (ATG, DSC, NMR, UV/VIS and fluorescence spectroscopy, optical microscopy, surface properties).

External stages: 2001-2002, CNRS Senior Researcher, Université Paris 13, Laboratoire de recherches sur les macromolécules, Paris, France; 2005-2006 CNRS Senior Researcher, Université Paris 7, Faculté de Médicine Saint-Louis, Laboratoire de Biomécanique et biomatériaux ostéo-articulaire et Université Paris 13, Laboratoire des biomatériaux et polymères de spécialité; 1995, 1996,1997 Invited Professor, Université du Littoral, Laboratoire de Dynamique et Structure des Matériaux Moléculaires, Dunkerque, France; 2001, Invited Professor, Centre of Molecular and Macromolecular Studies of the Polish Academy of Science, Lodz, Poland; 2002 and 2002 Invited Professor, Université Paris 13, Laboratoire de recherches sur les macromolécules, Paris, France.

International collaborations: Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique (France); Université Paris 6 Pierre et Marie Curie (France); Université d Angers (France); Université Paris Nord (France); Université Paris 7 (France); Connecticut University (USA); Centre of Molecular and Macromolecular Studies of the Polish Academy of Science, Lodz (Poland); Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Australia).

Member: Royal Society of Chemistry; American Chemical Society; International Liquid Crystal Society; ALFRED KASTLER Foundation; Romanian Society of Rheology.

Florin Doru Huțu (senior member, IEEE; senior member, URSI) was born in Iași, Romania, in 1979. He received the engineer degree in electronics and telecommunications and the master’s degree in the field of digital radio-communications from the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology, “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iași, in 2003 and 2004, respectively. In 2007, he received the Ph.D. degree in automatic control from the University of Poitiers, France. After two years  as postdoctoral fellow at XLIM Laboratory, in September 2010, he became an Associate Professor at INSA Lyon, France. He joined the INSA Lyon’s Electrical Engineering Department and the INRIA’s Socrate Team of CITI Laboratory. At the Electrical Engineering department, he is currently in charge of the “Wired communications and transmission lines” and of the “Radio front-end architectures” lectures and he is also involved in the teaching activities dedicated to the radio-frequency circuits design and to the antenna technologies. He is a former member of the International  Exchange Office of the Electrical Engineering department of INSA Lyon, in charge of incoming exchange students. He was involved in the development of the Cognitive Radio Platform, part of the Future Internet-of-Things equipment of excellence funded by the French Government. Currently is involved in several national and international research projects mostly dedicated to the study of novel radio front-end architectures and he is in charge of an experimentation facility of CITI laboratory dedicated to the characterization of the radio front ends. He is the author of more than 80 national and international scientific articles. His research interests include energy efficient radio communications (wake-up radio, energy harvesting and wireless power transfer) and RFID technologies. He is also involved in the design of software defined radio architectures for the IoT.

Dr.V.Sampath obtained his B.E.(Hons.) Degree from the Regional Engineering College at Trichy (affiliated to the then University of Madras), and his M.E. and Ph.D. Degrees from the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore. His fields of interests are: shape memory alloys, smart materials and composite materials and structure-property correlation in materials.

Dr.V.Sampath published a large number of papers in reputed and refereed international journals. He was awarded the Vidya Bharati Award by the Indian Institute of Metals for being one among the four students of B.E. programme for securing the highest marks in India.

His name finds a regular place in Who’s Who in Science and Engg. published from the USA.

He has been awarded the Bharat Vikas Award in recognition of his contributions to the field of materials research.

Prof. Alexandru Sover from Ansbach University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, graduate in Mechanical Engineering at North University of Baia Mare, Romania. He obtained a PhD degree in Mechanical and Plastic Engineering at Clausthal University of Technology, Germany. After several years as a research associate at the Institute for Polymer Materials and Plastics Engineering of TU Clausthal and University of Applied Sciences Zwickau, Institute for Manufacturing Technology, he was the Head of the Steinbeis Innovation Centre for Applied Material, Production and Process Technology in Zwickau, Germany. After his PhD he spent several years in industry working as a head of R&D department for different plastic manufacturing companies. Currently, he is a professor of Hybrid and Smart Materials at Faculty of Engineering of Ansbach University of Applied Sciences. His area of interest and teaching covers smart materials, plastics’ processing and testing technologies, recycling technologies, laser processing and advanced manufacturing technologies. He attended many international conferences around the word and issued several national and international publications. He coordinated and finished different research projects founded by the Germany government and the European Union. Presently he works in different projects for the industry and advises different companies in the field of materials’ processing and testing technologies.