Keynote Speakers

Paolo Civiero

Paolo Civiero

Vice Coordinator, Roma Tre University, Italy

Presentation Title: Innovative approaches upscaling Positive Clean Energy Districts

Paolo Civiero is Senior Assistant professor (Tenure track position) at the Department of Architecture of Roma Tre University, and vice coordinator of the Laboratory LFT&T (Technical Physics and Technology of building). His expertise is focused on technology and design applied to construction, sustainability and energy efficiency, with a multidisciplinary vision on new construction and rehabilitation projects at the building and district scale towards PEDs. He led the expert team of the Scalable Cities study on ‘Enabling and upscaling Positive Clean Energy Districts’. He is the member of numerous international research projects and initiatives (e.g. COST Actions, EERA JP Smart Cities, IEA EBC Annex 83, EIT Climate KIC) and P.I. of the research project PEDRERA-Positive Energy District Renovation at IREC in Barcelona. He currently covers the role of WG vice leader in the COST Action “PED EU NET”, and P.I. in several projects as MakingPEDs, and POSEIDON (DUT-2022 call), WeGenerate (Horizon Europe Built4People), and C.Lever (Scalable Cities call), and as coordinator of the sub task 1.1 focused on production, distribution and storage Electricity within the RomeTechnopole project.
Xudong Zhao

Xudong Zhao

Director, University of Hull, UK

Presentation Title: Advanced Solar Energy Research and Applications

Xudong Zhao is the Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering, UK. He is distinguished for his academic leadership and pioneering work in renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency and building services to address global challenges in carbon neutrality and climate change. His work has led to important innovations in dew point cooling, solar PV/thermal, heat pipes and heat pumps, as evidenced by several international innovation awards, and a wide range of applications globally. He is a motivated academic who is extremely well cited, with a high profile in his specialist area, and is characterised by an ability to develop new scientific thinking, demonstrate at laboratory level and translate into an industrial scale.
Rosaria Volpe

Rosaria Volpe

Assistant Professor, University of Catania, Italy

Presentation Title: Renewable energy communities and positive energy districts: modelling and monitoring aspects

Rosaria Volpe obtained her Ph.D. degree in Systems, Energy, Informatics and Telecommunication Engineering in 2018. She is Assistant Professor (Tenure-track) at the University of Catania. Her research activities include renewable energy communities design, modelling and operation, positive energy districts, energy management and control, renewable energy systems, energy efficiency and flexibility, simulations of energy systems, computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer. She serves as Principal Investigator of several projects on the topic of Renewable Energy Communities and Positive Energy Districts. She is an awardee of a Starting Grant on the topic of energetic and exergetic modelling or energy communities. Visiting Researcher at the University of the Basque Country in 2020 and at the Tokyo University in 2023. She is Leader of one of the Subtasks of the International Energy Agency, Energy in Building and Communities, IEA EBC Annex 83 "Positive Energy Districts". She teaches Applied Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer at the University of Catania. She is member of the Editorial Board of several Journals.
Da Yan

Da Yan

Professor, Tsinghua University, China

Presentation Title: High-Resolution Urban Building Energy Models: current progress and challenges

Da Yan is the Fellow of International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA). He serves as the Section Editor of International journal Energy and Buildings, Chair of China HVAC Society’s Building Simulation Committee, Chair of International Building Performance Simulation Association China Affiliation (IBPSA-China), Editorial Board Member of International Journal of Building Performance Simulation and Buildings. Professor Yan has devoted his work to the development of building performance simulation, research on quantitative description of occupant behavior, and low-carbon energy-saving technology in buildings. Prof. Yan has led more than 20 projects and published over 240 journal articles, including more than 120 SCI papers, H-index 37. Besides, he has published more than ten books and reports, and acquired over ten patents and software copyrights. In 2008, he was awarded the Second Prize of National Science Progress Award.
Dujuan Yang

Dujuan Yang

Assistant Professor, TU/e, Netherlands

Presentation Title: : Supporting Energy Transition in Climate-neutral Cities Through Semantic Digital Twins and Digital Cousins

Dujuan Yang is an assistant professor of Information Systems in the Built Environment department at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e),Netherlands. Her research focuses on addressing urban development challenges by supporting sustainable and evidence-based decision-making processes. Dedicated to embracing emerging technologies in smart cities, Dr. Yang specializes in data-driven approaches for urban interventions including semantic digital twins and semantic information modeling. She works to bridge the gap between decision-makers' evolving needs and the availability of urban data, empowering stakeholders with relevant and timely information. Her expertise spans digital twin cities, sustainable cities, and urban digitalization, with a goal of optimizing urban resources. Dr. Yang's recent work explores innovative solutions for urban resilience, energy transition, and sustainability, emphasizing the role of semantic models and simulations in enhancing the interoperability and integration of urban data. She actively participates in multiple EU and locally funded projects aimed at developing sustainable buildings and cities and facilitating transitions to sustainable energy solutions. In addition, Dr. Yang serves as a guest editor for reputable journals and is a sought-after ad hoc reviewer for conferences and publications related to building, energy, environmental management, transportation, and sustainable urban development.
Liangzhu (Leon) Wang

Liangzhu (Leon) Wang

Department of Building, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Concordia University, Canada

Presentation Title: AI for Urban Microclimate Engineering

Liangzhu Leon Wang is a Professor at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, and Associate Director at Centre for Zero Energy Building Studies (CZEBS), formerly Centre for Building Studies, established in 1976 as the Canadian very first program of Building Engineering (a.k.a. Building Service/Architectural Engineering). He studies Resilient, Healthy, and Sustainable Urban Microclimate and Built Environment and has rich research experience in Building Fire Safety and Building Science. He published over 240 papers in urban microclimate, climate resilience, urban building energy modeling (UBEM), and building simulations and made substantial impacts on building standards, codes, guidelines, and international building performance simulation communities. His impact on public knowledge transfer and engagement with municipalities made him the International Research Communicator of the Year in 2021 and a Fellow of the International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA) and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). He led over $8 Million CAD funding with ~1/3 from industries and coordinated large-scale research projects, such as the recently awarded Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) project ($123 Million CAD) “Electrifying Society: Towards Decarbonized Resilient Communities” 2023-2030 – Theme 1: Smart, Sustainable and Healthy Built Environment - led by CZEBS, and many large infrastructure/research projects. He is an Associate Editor and Special Issue Editor of Journal of Energy and Buildings, and editorial board members of Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, and Journal of Building Simulation.
Jonn Are Myhren

Jonn Are Myhren

Associate Professor, Dalarna University

Presentation Title: Energy and resource-efficient construction for a sustainable future

Jonn Are Myhren is the group leader for research in building technology and urban planning. The research is usually applied and done in close collaboration with the industry in the region. The research areas include sustainable construction and urban development, energy-efficient renovation, life cycle analysis, industrial wood construction, and healthy indoor climate. An example is the project “Dalarnas villa” - our own research villa - where various sustainable solutions are tested.
Yupeng (Jack) Wu

Yupeng (Jack) Wu

Professor in Building Physics, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, UK

Presentation Title: Advanced façade for indoor comfort and building energy reduction

Yupeng (Jack) Wu is a Chair in Building Physics at the Department of Architecture and Built Environment, the University of Nottingham, UK. Jack has been working on building energy simulation and integration of renewable energy systems into buildings and built environment over the past 20 years. He has supervised over 20 PhD students and managed over 10 postdoctoral researchers. Jack has secured and led funded research projects with a total value in excess of £10m, exploring energy efficient technologies, solar energy, and advanced solar building facades. Currently Jack is leading a £1.6m EPSRC research project ‘Advanced building façade design for optimal delivery of end use energy demand’. In addition to his research, Jack serves as subject Editor in Low Energy Architecture and Buildings for the journal of 'Renewable Energy'. He is a full member of the EPSRC peer reviewer college and is also reviewer for European, Canadian and US funding agencies.
Professor Rongling Li

Rongling Li

Associate Professor, Digital Building Technologies, Technical University of Denmark - DTU

Presentation Title: Enabling demand side flexibility for low-carbon smart energy systems

Rongling Li is an associate professor at DTU Civil and Mechanical Engineering. She has been working on smart energy systems and smart cities projects, including EU SEEDS, EU RETIME, STAR*track, BIPED, BEGONIA, IFD CITIES, EUDP EnergyLab Nordhavn, EUDP IEA EBC Annex 67 and Annex 82, IFD SEM4Cites, EU Combiotes, and EU ARV. Her focus in the projects is on building energy flexibility, including thermal and electrical flexibility, using modeling and data-driven approaches. She is the principal investigator of the large project SEEDS "Cost-effective and replicable Renewable Energy Sources integrated electrified heating and cooling systems for improved energy efficiency and demand response." She is the operating agent of the IEA EBC Annex 82, an international collaboration running from 2020 to 2025 on "energy flexible buildings towards resilient low-carbon energy systems." She is also a board member of the Horizon Europe R and I partnership Built4People, contributing to defining the built environment's research topics in Horizon Europe.
Zhongming Shi

Zhongming Shi

Product Lead of CEA, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Presentation Title: Coming soon...

Zhongming Shi is the Product Lead of the City Energy Analyst (CEA), an urban building energy simulation platform and one of the first open-source computational tool initiatives for the design of low-carbon and highly efficient cities. He owns CEA's strategic direction of increasing education, professional practices, and business outreach. He is also teaching a studio-based course named “Integrate-design Project” at ETH Zurich. The course addresses urban design issues informed by building energy performance. Zhongming completed his PhD at the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore. Then, he worked as the project coordinator at the Cities Knowledge Graph Project at the Singapore-ETH Centre. Meanwhile, he was the lead principal investigator for the project of building-integrated agriculture in collaboration with the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore.
Qianwen Xu.png

Qianwen Xu

Associate Professor in Department of Electric Power and Energy Systems, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden.

Presentation Title: Optimal Planning for Microgrid based Smart Buildings Considering Climate Change

Qianwen Xu, Associate Professor in Department of Electric Power and Energy Systems, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. Presentation title: Coming soon Short Bio: Qianwen Xu is the director of Intelligent Sustainable Grid (ISG) Lab @ KTH, and co-director of Dig-it Lab (Vinnova competence center). Her research interests include advanced control, optimization and artificial intelligence application of sustainable power systems, microgrids and power converter systems. She has published over 50 technical papers, with 15 first-authored journal papers in top IEEE Transactions. She is Vice Chair in IEEE Power and Energy Society & Power Electronics Society, Sweden, and Vice Chair of IEEE Power Electronics Society Technical Committee (TC) 12- Energy Access and Off-Grid Systems. She is an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, IEEE Transactions on Transportation Electrification and IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics.
Professor Jinyue (Jerry) Yan

Professor Jinyue (Jerry) Yan

Chair Professor of Energy and Buildings, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China

Presentation Title: Coming soon...

Jinyue (Jerry) Yan obtained his PhD from Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden in 1991. He was Chair Professor and Head of Energy Department at Luleå University of Technology, Chair Professor at the Mälardalen University and KTH, and Director of the Future Energy Profile. He is now a Chair Professor of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is an active member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. Professor Yan’s research interests include energy systems, renewable energy, and climate change mitigation. He has published over 400 papers in scholarly journals including Science, Nature Energy, and Nature Climate Change and is a highly cited researcher, with over 10 patents. He has received several awards including the Global Human Settlements Award, the EU Energy Islands’ Award, and Top100 Research2Business (Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences). In addition to his role as founding editor-in-chief of Nexus, he is the advisory editor-in-chief of Applied Energy, the founding editor of Advances in Applied Energy, and the founder of several international and inter-disciplinary research and development platforms and events.
Yiqun Pan

Yiqun Pan

Adjunct faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University and visiting professor at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Presentation Title: Optimizing for Carbon Neutrality: Research Across Design, Retrofit, and Operations

Prof. Yiqun Pan is an expert in building performance simulation, energy efficiency, and sustainable building design with over 25 years of experience. She currently serves as an Adjunct Faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics and as a Visiting Professor at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Previously, Dr. Pan was a Full Professor at Tongji University's School of Mechanical Engineering for 16 years. Her research focuses on applying advanced techniques like big data analysis and machine learning to improve building performance and occupant well-being. Dr. Pan has led numerous research projects funded by prestigious organizations, including the China National Science Foundation and the U.S. Energy Foundation. Dr. Pan's work bridges academic research and practical applications, contributing significantly to the advancement of sustainable building technologies and carbon reduction strategies in the built environment
Gang Tan

Gang Tan

Chair Professor at Zhejiang University, China

Presentation Title: Multi-scale simulation promotes the development of new materials for building applications

Dr. Gang Tan is the Qiushi Chair Professor at Zhejiang University and Founding Director of the Smart Materials for Architecture Research Laboratory (SMARL) at the university's Yangtze River Delta Innovation Center. A recipient of China's National Distinguished Scholar Award and Zhejiang Province's Leading Talent Award, he holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Tsinghua University and a PhD from MIT (2005). His professional career spans academic and industry expertise, including roles in energy consulting for the design and implementation of national-scale energy efficiency programs. Prior to his current position, he served as a tenured professor at the University of Wyoming. Dr. Tan's research focuses on smart building materials development, energy conservation systems optimization, and renewable energy integration. His national and local agencies funded research program has yielded publications in high-impact journals including Science, Joule, and Nature Communications. He has been ranked in Stanford University's World's Top 2% Scientists list since 2023. He also serves as Associate Editor for Building Simulation – An International Journal.
Shuqin Chen

Shuqin Chen

Vice-director of Building Technology Institute, Zhejiang University

Presentation Title:Optimization design and operation of low-carbon energy systems: methods, data and case studies

Dr. Shuqin Chen is the Vice-director of Building Technology Institute, Zhejiang University. She has presided over 17 national and provincial projects, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Key Research and Development Programme, the Ministry of Science and Technology, International Cooperation Project, and the State-level Foreign Experts Project, etc. Her research results have been successfully applied in a number of major industrial projects. She has been awarded Elsevier China Highly Cited Scholar (2021/2022/2023), two second prizes of Huaxia Construction Science and Technology Award in China, two second prizes of Zhejiang Provincial Scientific and Technological Progress Award, ‘National Outstanding Youth in HVAC’, ‘Zhejiang University Qiushi Young Scholars’, etc. She has published more than 110 academic papers; published one monograph, co-authored five books; participated in the editing of 10 standards.
Georges Zissis

Georges Zissis

Professor, Chair of IEEE Smart Lighting Initiative, Université de Toulouse, FRANCE

Presentation Title: Sustainable Smart Lighting systems for buildings, latest achievements and future challenges!

Georges Zissis, Professor, Chair of IEEE Smart Lighting Initiative, Université de Toulouse, FRANCE Presentation title: Sustainable Smart Lighting systems for buildings, latest achievements and future challenges! Short Bio: Georges Zissis, PhD, FIEEE, Vice-Dean Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Toulouse, IEEE Smart Cities Technical Community Chair. Born in Athens in 1964, has graduated in 1986 from Physics department of University of Crete in general physics. He got his MSc and PhD in Plasma Science in 1987 and 1990 from Toulouse 3 University (France). He is today full Professor in Toulouse 3 University (France). His primary area of work is in the field of Light Systems Science and Technology. He is especially interested in the sustainable smart lighting systems; system and metrology issues for solid-state lighting systems; standardization and quality issues for light sources; impact of lighting to energy, environment, quality of life, health and security; illumination and lighting. He is director of “Light & Matter” research group of LAPLACE that enrolls 20 researchers. He won in December 2006 the 1st Award of the International Electrotechnical Committee (IEC) Centenary Challenge for his work on mesopic vision standardization for urban lighting systems (in conjunction with IEEE, IET and the Observer). In 2009, he won the Energy Globe Award for France and in 2022 he got the Alfred Monnier Award which is the highest recognition from the French Illuminating Engineering Society. He was Vice-Rector of Toulouse 3 University delegated to International Cooperation (2019-23). He was President IEEE Industrial Application Society (2019-20), and President of the Power Electronics, Electronics, Optoelectronics and System section of the French National Council of Universities (2014-19). He initiated and he chairs the IEEE Smart Lighting Initiative under IEEE Future Directions umbrella.

Program Schedule

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