Prof. M Alaa Mandour: Head of Architecture Department at Helwan University studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)-USA with Prof. Reihard Gothert. With varied experience in academic research, teaching, design and research based consultancy, Prof. Mandour bridges theory, design, and practice in his professional activities. He has written 4 books and over 45 articles and journal papers. Prof. Mandour's academic experience includes teaching courses on architectural programming, design methods and theories, his courses place emphasis on recent developments in architecture and Urbanism in different contexts, topological transformations in traditional architecture/urban spaces, sustainable design processes, assessing designed environments from the users' perspective, and diversity of urban spaces. He is an active Researcher, Architect and Urban Designer, his recent field of research is in sustainability, land management, virtual urban environments and physical interactions and also on the notion of deconstruction of history and reshaping of time introducing new theory for analysing history and extract precedents for a new futuristic language and how to deal with the problems of incompatibilities caused by the impact of time differences.

Xiang Ping is a tenured Full Professor at Central South University (ranked 95 th in the ARWU-Academic Ranking of World Universities and 146 th in the U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities Rankings). He graduated with his Ph.D. degree from City University of Hong Kong in 2012 and served as a Postdoctoral fellow and senior research associate in City University of Hong Kong between 2012 and 2017. He was also a visiting scholar (Visiting Professor) at prestigious universities in many countries, such as University of Cambridge, Swansea University and University of Strathclyde in the UK, Kunsan National University in South Korea, and Dartmouth College in the United States. Additionally, he has 6 years of experience in structural design at a large international consulting firm such as AECOM Asia Co. Ltd. In recent years, He has published over 180 SCI journal papers, with more than 120 of them being first or corresponding author papers, including Nature Communications and other high-impact international SCI journals. Among these, 7 papers are ESI highly cited papers. His total paper citations exceed 4,100, with the highest single citation surpassing 200, and an h-index>36 and an i10-index>110 as reported by Scopus and Web of Science. He has been included in the "World's Top 2% Scientists" list jointly published by Stanford University and Elsevier.

Prof. Hsu earned his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering in 1991 from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA. His research covers a range of technical interests in hydrology, Hydraulics, and water resources, from theoretical to computational to technological, on fundamental as well as applied problems. Prof. Hsu's research has been funded by the National Science and Technical Council (NSTC), Water Resource Agency (WRA), and Soil/Water Conservation Bureau through a number of cross-cutting programs, including: River/Reservoir sedimentation, Hydrological Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Engineering Education. Prof. Hsu's research has also been funded by local government agencies, industries, and corporations. Prof. Hsu has several patents in the area of groundwater recharge and measurement on river sedimentation. He has professional engineer (PE) licenses in both Taiwan and USA. When serving as a department head, his department was certified for IEET (Taiwanese ABET) accreditation for the first time.

Dr. Amar Razzaq is an Associate Professor at the Business School of Huanggang Normal University, China, and a Research Fellow at Shinawatra University, Thailand, and INTI International University, Malaysia. With a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics and Management from Huazhong Agricultural University, he is a leading researcher in environmental economics, water resource management, and agricultural policy. Dr. Razzaq’s groundbreaking work on groundwater markets, sustainability, and equitable water use has been published extensively in high-impact journals. Dr. Razzaq is a distinguished academic editor for PLOS ONE and serves on the editorial boards of several reputable journals, including Frontiers in Environmental Science and Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. He has also led special issues as a guest editor, focusing on topics such as sustainable food systems and climate-smart agriculture. Recognized as a prolific reviewer, he has contributed to over 200 peer reviews for top-tier SCI/SSCI journals. His contributions extend beyond research, as he has delivered keynote speeches globally on water resource governance, rural transformation, and sustainable development. Dr. Razzaq’s work has significantly influenced policy dialogues, particularly on integrating informal water markets into sustainable water conservancy strategies. He is a recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Chinese Government Distinguished Scholar Award. With a cumulative impact factor exceeding 170, Dr. Razzaq is widely recognized for his role in advancing research and fostering collaboration in water and agricultural economics.

Kris is currently a Senior Lecturer in Civil Engineering at the University of Waikato (UoW). He obtained his PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Auckland and masters in Earthquake Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee). Before joining the UoW, he was a Lecturer at the University of Auckland. After the completion of his master’s degree, Kris spent one year working for Geodata Spa, one of the world’s leading engineering firms for underground structures. During this time, he specialized in tunnel portal design, steel construction, seismic design of steel structures, and the designing of underground structures. After obtaining his PhD degree, Kris spent a further two years at the Kiwi Steel Holding LTD as a Research and Development Manager before joining the University of Auckland as a Lecturer. Over the last 8 years, his research has continued to revolve around thin-walled structures, covering a wide range of topics, such as modular construction, built-up columns and beams, modal decomposition, cold-formed steel connections, cross-section optimization of single and built-up sections, numerical methods, stainless steel, aluminium structures, steel and aluminium claddings, corroded steel members, 3-D printed structures, durability of cold-formed steel members, weathertightness of metal claddings, design methodologies, general stability and inelastic buckling. Kris's current research interests are fire performance of cold-formed steel structures, application of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for the structural prediction of cold-formed steel members, sustainability and life cycle analysis of structures. More recently, he is developing environmental models for life cycle assessment of steel structures and working towards developing methodologies for calculating the Embodied carbon (carbon footprint) of different structural materials. To date, Kris has authored and co-authored 2 book chapters, 15 conference papers, and more than 180 journal papers in prestigious Scopus indexed international journals. In google scholar, his work has attracted more than 5000 citations with an h-index of 43.