National Engineering Survey and Design Master
Doctoral Supervisor, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University
Deputy Director, National Heritage Center
Member of the Expert Committee on Historical and Cultural Heritage Conservation and Inheritance, Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development  
Vice President, Urban Planning Society of China  
Chair, Urban Design Branch, Architectural Society of China  
Chair, Academic Committee on Industrial Architectural Heritage, Architectural Society of China  
Vice President, Urban Renewal Branch, China Engineering Construction Standardization Association  
Vice President, Chinese National Committee of ICOMOS  
China’s first Lifetime Honorary Member of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS)  
Chair, Asia-Pacific Branch of ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Historic Towns and Villages (CIVVIH)  
UNESCO Chairholder in Heritage Conservation Planning and Social Sustainable Development

Professor Jie Zhang has long been engaged in scientific research, teaching, and practical work in the fields of urban and rural heritage conservation and renewal, urban character shaping, and sustainable development. He has achieved groundbreaking research results in the cultural cognition, conservation, and renewal of traditional Chinese cities and settlements, publishing 20 monographs, including Tracing the Origins of Ancient Chinese Spatial Culture and Methodology for Historic City Conservation Planning, as well as over a hundred journal articles in domestic and international publications. As a key drafter, he has compiled national standards, local guidelines, and group standards, and holds multiple software copyrights and invention patents. He has led and completed numerous national and international collaborative research projects, including key projects under China’s 13th Five-Year National R&D Program, National Natural Science Foundation projects, and projects funded by the U.S. Energy Foundation. He has supervised nearly 100 doctoral and master’s graduates and received the Beijing Municipal Teaching Achievement Award (First Prize).  

He has directed the completion of several major conservation and renewal projects, making significant contributions to exploring urban conservation systems suited to China’s context and establishing long-term, effective approaches to multi-level conservation and renewal at the "city-district-building" scale. Representative projects include conservation plans for nationally designated historic cities such as Guangzhou, Kunming, and Chengde, as well as conservation and renewal designs for districts, buildings, and environments, including Fuzhou’s Three Lanes and Seven Alleys, Beijing’s Imperial College-Yonghe Temple area, Nanjing’s Old Southern City, and Jingdezhen’s Taoxichuan Cultural and Creative Block.  

As the primary contributor, Jie Zhang has received numerous prestigious awards, including:  
UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation (Awards of Excellence, Innovation, and Distinction)  
Ministry of Culture Innovation Award  
Huaxia Construction Science and Technology Award (First Prize)  
Architectural Society of China Science and Technology Progress Award (First Prize)  
China Industry-University-Research Collaboration Innovation Achievement Award (First Prize)  
German Design Award (Gold in Architecture)  
The Architecture MasterPrize (Best of Best)  
ICONIC Awards: Innovative Architecture (Best of Best, twice)  
Ministry of Education Engineering Survey and Design Award (First Prize, five times)  
National Planning and Architecture Industry Awards (First Prize, over ten times)

Dr Donia Zhang is an author, writer, and editor of Architectural Humanities in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. She is the director of Chinese Culture Publishing, Neoland School of Chinese Culture, Neoland-Neolife Cross-Cultural Studies; the founding editor of Courtyard Architecture: Along the Silk Roads, around the World; and the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism (JCAU).

She has authored four scholarly books: Courtyard Houses of Beijing: Past, Present, and Future (2009/2010/2011), Schoolyard Gardening as Multinaturalism: Theory, Practice, and Product (2009), Courtyard Housing and Cultural Sustainability: Theory, Practice, and Product (2013/2016), and Courtyard Housing for Health and Happiness: Architectural Multiculturalism in North America (2015/2017).

Moreover, she contributed three chapters in two eBooks, Dialogues of Sustainable Urbanisation: Social Science Research and Transitions to Urban Contexts (2015), and New Approaches in Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism (2020). She has also published 20 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals. WorldCat has listed most of these publications.

Donia has seven years of work experience in the architectural industry in Toronto and Chicago, and eleven years of teaching experience in higher education in Ontario, Canada. The subjects she has taught include: History of Art and Architecture, Interior Design, and AutoCAD, among others.

Donia is a graduate of Oxford Brookes University (BArch, MA, PhD) in the UK and Brock University (MEd) in Canada. She has also obtained a Verified Certificate of Achievement in The Architectural Imagination from Harvard University | edX, and a Verified Certificate of Achievement in Interpreting Vernacular Architecture in Asia from the University of Hong Kong | edX. She is a former associate at the City Institute at York University, and a visiting scholar/occasional co-instructor at McMaster University, Canada.

Professor Xianmin Mai graduated with a Bachelor's, Master's, and Ph.D. in Architecture from Tsinghua University and completed her postdoctoral research at the International Research Center for Transport and Urban Studies, Nagoya University, Japan. She currently serves as a Standing Committee Member of the Party Committee and Vice President of Southwest Minzu University.  

She leads the Plateau Building Ecological Adaptation Technology Youth Innovation Team of Sichuan Province and holds key academic roles, including:  

Council Member, Urban Design Branch, Sichuan Society of Architecture  

Council Member, Student Branch, Architectural Society of China  

Member, Sichuan Higher Education Teaching Guidance Committee for Architecture-related Disciplines  

Professor Xianmin Mai has been selected for several prestigious national talent programs, including:  

China’s National Major Talent Program

Young Top-Notch Talent of the "Ten Thousand Talents Plan" (Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee)  

Young and Middle-Aged Talent Development Program of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission  

Reserve Candidate for Sichuan Province Academic and Technical Leader

She has led three National Natural Science Foundation projects and participated in over 20 additional research projects at various levels. She has published three academic monographs, one textbook, and more than 90 Chinese and English research papers in SCI-indexed journals, Chinese core journals, and other key academic publications. Her primary research focuses on: Adaptive Building Technologies for the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau; Zero-Carbon Building Technologies for the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau; Architectural Cultural Heritage Preservation and Transmission.

Dr. Guanghui Ding is the author of Constructing a Place of Critical Architecture in China: Intermediate Criticality in the Journal Time + Architecture (Routledge, 2016), with Charlie Xue, co-author of A History of Design Institutes: From Mao to Market (Routledge, 2018) and co-editor of Exporting Chinese Architecture: History, Issue and “One Belt and One Road” (Springer, 2022), and with Jiawen Han and Xianwen Kuang, co-author of Chinese Cities as Pedagogy: Interdisciplinary Teaching Practice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025). He is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Architecture at City College of New York.

Ding’s research focuses on the history, theory, and criticism of modern Chinese architecture.

Dr. Cui Liu is an Associate Professor at the College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, and serves as the Deputy Director of the Department of Architecture.

Editorial Board Member: Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism, Contemporary World's Architecture

Reviewer: Routledge, IGI Global, Regional Studies, Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture

Consultant: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Department of Science and Technology of Zhejiang Province, Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province, International Exchanging Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology

Member: International Seminar on Urban Form, Regional Studies Association, Triple Helix Association, China Architectural Society, China Urban Planning Society

Dr. Liu’s research focuses on urban morphology and physical-virtual interaction of public space. Leveraging theories such as urban morphology, landscape ecology, and spatial production, she employs digital intelligence technologies to investigate the morphological characteristics, dynamic mechanisms, and design methodologies of urban and rural spaces.

Dr. Liu has led multiple research projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation, Zhejiang Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project, and the Ministry of Education’s Humanities and Social Sciences Research Program. She was also awarded the EU Erasmus+ Research Grant and has directed numerous architectural design and urban-rural planning initiatives.

Her academic contributions include 10 books (in Chinese and English) and over 30 journal articles published domestically and internationally. Recognized for teaching excellence, she has received two National Outstanding Teaching Plan Awards for architectural design and developed two provincial first-class undergraduate courses in Zhejiang. Additionally, she has led the compilation of several key textbooks, including those under the China Association of Higher Education’s "New Engineering" 14th Five-Year Plan, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs’ 14th Five-Year Plan, and Zhejiang Province’s New Engineering Key Textbook Series, while contributing to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development’s 14th Five-Year Plan textbook.

Gerardo Semprebon is an architect and assistant professor at the Politecnico di Milano. PhD at the same university and at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

He is interested in contemporary architecture and design strategies for revitalizing rural settlements. He conducts research and teaching in architectural design at the Politecnico di Milano and Xi'an Jiao Tong University. He is also an associate editor for the Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism, for which he curated the special issue “Reshaping Rural China” and a contributor for Domus. His books Rural Futures. Toward an Urban(ized) Peasantry in the Chinese Countryside (LetteraVentidue, 2022) and Fragile Heritage in Chinese Ruralities. Enacting Architectural Tools to Valorize Historical Palimpsests (Springer, 2024) elucidate the methodological aspects developed in theoretical and applied research.

Dr. Miguel Amado is a full professor and researcher in Architecture and Urban Planning at the Instituto Superior Técnico of Lisbon University. 

He is a member of the National Technical Commission for Building Standardization - CT 171 - Sustainability of Buildings; National Technical Commission for Building Standardization – CT151 – Building Thermal; Sector Technical Committee for Construction of the National Quality Council. He has been a member of the CS10 – Standardization of the Construction sector; Working Group on Sustainable Development of the National Association of Built Environment Technology – ANTAC of Brazil, and he has been invited to several international scientific events and is still are consultant to various governments of CPLP, were his work in the design of new public policies.

He is a member of the Editorial Board of 14 international magazines, including 3 from Q1 and 4 from Q2; Associate Editor at a journal; Academic Editor of 2 journals; Guest Editor in 6 journals; Advisor Board in 2 journals. Also, Miguel has been a Keynote Speaker in several international scientific events, and his involvement with society and knowledge transfer is recognized by various activities with the public, private, or non-profit sector, or to the public in general.

Dr. Miguel Amado is dedicated to advancing knowledge and methodologies for sustainable development and the built environment. His approach emphasizes the integration of sustainability principles and the environmental parameters of the SDGs, alongside cultural and economic considerations in spatial planning, urban design, and architecture.

His work spans strategic planning and housing policy programs, focusing on the regeneration of informal settlements and developing sustainable urban planning and architectural design solutions. He is deeply involved in areas such as global, regional, and local governance, metropolitan area studies, community planning, socio-spatial segregation, eco-mobility, circular economy, globalization strategies, and renewable energy implementation.

Additionally, his previous projects have centered around smart cities, sustainable urban planning, and energy efficiency within urbanism and architecture. He continues to apply these principles in his practice of design in urban planning and architecture.

Amado's research areas include social housing, residential segregation, governance at various scales, city-regional development, community planning, spatial segregation, eco-mobility, planning theory, urban development, slum upgrading, housing policy, incremental housing, migration, globalization, and sustainable development.

Dr. Rachel Armstrong is Professor of Design-Driven Construction for Regenerative Architecture.

She holds a First-Class Honours degree with 2 academic prizes from the University of Cambridge (Girton College), and a medical degree from the University of Oxford (The Queen’s College). She was admitted as a Member to the Royal College of New Zealand General Practitioners between 2005 and 2015 with a PhD in Architecture (2014) awarded by the University of London (Bartlett School of Architecture), which established the principles of ‘living’ technologies for architectural design.

Her work interrogates the transition from an industrial era of architectural design to an ecological one. Drawing together the fields of architectural design, natural and medical sciences, she develops “living” technologies within the practice of the built environment, which apply some of the characteristics of biological systems to perform work, to establish new standards for sustainable living. Bringing living technologies into proximity with architecture and design with biologically produced materials, like mycelium biocomposites, she looks for approaches that can radically change the impacts of human inhabitation on the environment, so our lifestyles are beneficial for living systems. Heralding an era of change, the implementation of ‘living’ technologies and biomaterials can fundamentally change the impact of the built environment on our living world, to reach new levels of sustainability where building impacts are aligned with the natural realm and are resilient against climate change.

Dr. Ding Wen 'Nic' Bao is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Architecture Technology Stream Coordinator at the School of Architecture and Urban Design, as well as a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Innovative Structure and Materials and a member of the Post-Carbon Research Centre at RMIT University. His research explores design methodologies for establishing a complementary relationship among architecture, computational design, structural engineering, behavioural algorithms, robotic fabrication, additive manufacturing, and intelligent construction.

Dr. Bao is a practising architect with 12 years of professional experience, and he holds an Australian Registered Architect (ARBV). US Registered Architect (NCARB) and RIBA Chartered Architect. He used to work for Architectus, Bates Smart, Fender Katsalidis, Billard Leece Partnership, with Cox and Noel Robinson Architects. Currently, Nic is the Director & Principal Architect of BWA Architects, Founder of FormX Research Lab and Partner at Ameba Institute of Engineering Structure Optimisation. Nic is also a committee member of the Australian Institution of Architects (AIA) Design Technology Advisory Group to the National Practice, as well as an officer/committee member and Secretary at the Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA). He is a core member of the organising committee of DigitalFUTURES International conferences (2020 - now) and the IASS 2023 Annual Symposium. He is also an editorial board member of three high-impact international journals, including the Sustainable Structures journal (Q1 journal), the Architectural Intelligence journal (Springer) and the Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism.

Dr. Bao has published over 60 articles, including high-impact journal papers, book chapters and conference papers. Nic's work has been exhibited widely, and is recognised at the national and international levels, including Hong Kong BoDW, Shanghai DigitalFutures Exhibition, Barcelona IASS Expo, Shenzhen Biennale, Melbourne Design Week, Venice Biennale, Melbourne IASS Expo, National Gallery of Victoria and Melbourne Design Fair, Current Chinese Science, etc.

Dr. Bao also played a role as a scientific reviewer and session chair for the international conference, including CAAD Futures, CAADRIA, ASCAAD, eCAADe and CDRF - DigitalFutures, as well as ran 14 workshops at international conferences including DigitalFutures, CAADRIA, ACADIA, and SIGraDi. Recently, he led the AA Visiting School in Hainan, China and the IASS Masterclass in Melbourne, Australia.

Recently Dr. Bao received the 2024 & 2025 DigitalFUTURES Project Award, 2024 CDRF Best Paper, 2023 A'Design Award, 2023 DigitalFUTURES Young Award, 2023 RMIT Award for Research Excellence (Early Career Research), the third prizes of IASS Design & Competition of Innovative Lightweight Structures in 2023, 2022 IAI Design Award, 2021 Grand Prix Design Paris Gold Award, 2021 Muse Design Award, 2021 RMIT Prize for Research Impact (Design), 2021 Young CAADRIA Award, 2020 RMIT Engineering Publication & Impact Prize, 2019 CISM Research Excellence Award and two significant first prizes in structural optimisation and additive manufacturing competitions nationally and internationally in 2019 & 2020.

Umberto Berardi is Professor, Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Founder Director of the Building Science BeTOP Lab  (and Inc.) 
Principal Investigator of the Center for Urban Energy 
Associate Researcher to the Center for Urban Research 
affiliated with the Environmental Applied Science and Management graduate (Master's and Ph.D.)

His Research Interests are Building Science/Physics, including:
green cities: climate change adaptation, natural-based solutions, green infrastructure
new materials: organic and inorganic Phase Change Materials, aerogel-enhanced products
Energy efficiency: integration of energy-saving technologies (green roofs, double skin facades) in buildings
acoustics: both architectural acoustics (sound propagation, energy decay, shape optimization) and building acoustics (noise insulation, new natural materials)
lighting: daylight, glare metrics, shading systems, building simulation 
sustainability: sustainability assessment at building, community, and city level, diffusion of green technologies, smart city 

Dr. Jianming CAI is an emeritus professor of the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the former RUAF China regional coordinator of RUAF Foundation, which is an international organization in promoting urban agriculture based in the Netherlands. He got his First Degree from Beijing University and Master Degree from ITC of the Netherlands, and his Ph.D. from The University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Modern Geographical Sciences and co-author of more than twenty books in Chinese and English. He has published more than 180 papers in academic journals since 1990, both in Chinese and English, as well as many consultant reports. He frequently serves as a senior consultant or expert on urbanization, regional development, urban agriculture and food security issues to both international agencies such as the World Bank, ADB, AIIB, EU, IDRC, Lincoln Institute and Chinese Government Ministries such as the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Construction and the Ministry of Civil Affairs, local governments and private sector (e.g. the Shui On Land). He is also an active member of many academic associations and editors of numeric international journals. His current research focuses on urban-rural sustainable development, regional/urban/rural planning, urban food resilience and agro-tourism. 

Carolyn Cartier is Professor of Human Geography and China Studies in International Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, where she teaches 'Contemporary China' and has convened the Asia Pacific Research Group. A specialist in urban China and geographical thought, she is a Founding Member of the UTS China Research Centre (2009-14) and a Founding Fellow of the Centre for China in the World at the Australian National University. As a geographer with teaching specialties in nature-society relations, she also teaches 'Planetary Decarbonization' for the Sustainability and Environment program.

The core of Cartier's current research concentrates on fields of human geography, cities, and China Studies. Her research, funded by the Australian Research Council, focuses on how China changes subnational territory to establish and transform cities through changes to the administrative divisions, establishing the concept of territorial urbanization. She received the Association of American Geographers’ China Geography Specialty Group Outstanding Service Award 2022 in recognition of this work and for ‘significantly advancing China research in and beyond the discipline through highly impactful scholarship'.

The larger ambit of Cartier's research program concerns debates in the history of urban theory, contemporary socialism in China, and the conjunctures of spatial thought and political economy. She maintains research interests in comparative Asian studies, including the urban landscape and built environment, the political economy of cities and regions, and representations of the city in contemporary alternative art.

Committed to the priority of research design based on new ideas that advance the scholarship in combination with sustained local fieldwork, Cartier's general approach to research in Asia is theoretically informed comparative international area studies. She supervises doctoral research on topics concerning cities, regions, territory, urban political economy, and comparative urbanization. Her advising approach supports students to pursue originality and critical significance.

Professor Albert Chan is a Distinguished Research Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). His extensive leadership experience includes serving as PolyU's Dean of Students from 2021 to 2025 and as the Head of the Department of Building and Real Estate from 2015 to 2021. His dedication to academic excellence is further highlighted by roles such as Associate and Interim Dean of the Faculty of Construction and Environment from 2011 to 2014, and as the Associate Director of the Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development from 2016 to 2025. In addition, Professor Chan held the title of Endowed Able Professor in Construction Health and Safety from 2019 to 2025 and served as the Chair Professor of Construction Engineering and Management from 2015 to 2025. His academic credentials include an MSc in Construction Management and Economics from the University of Aston in Birmingham and a PhD in Project Management from the University of South Australia. Before joining PolyU in 1996, he was a Senior Lecturer and Deputy Head of the School of Building and Planning at the University of South Australia. His influence extends globally, as he has served as an Adjunct Professor at numerous prestigious institutions both in Mainland China and internationally.

Professor Chan is a highly committed and influential researcher, specializing in diverse subjects such as project management, procurement strategies, public-private partnerships, and health and safety within the construction industry. His remarkable body of work boasts over 1,000 published articles, including refereed journal papers, international conference contributions, consultancy reports, and a variety of other scholarly articles. Recognized for his expertise, Professor Chan has served on prestigious panels including the Engineering Panel of the Research Grants Council in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) and the Built Environment Panel of FORMAS in Sweden, as well as the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Professor Chan is a non-official member of the Construction Industry Council (CIC), which is a statutory body to forge consensus on long-term strategic issues concerning the construction industry.  Since 2020, he has stood among the top 2% of scientists globally, according to Stanford University researchers. His dedication to advancing the field was further acknowledged when he received the Medal of Honour (M.H.) from the Government of the HKSAR on July 1, 2024. This honour recognizes his vital contributions to construction policy research and his commitment to developing the next generation of professionals in the industry.

Dr. Fei Chen is a Reader in Urban Design at the Liverpool School of Architecture. She is an urban morphologist and urban designer. She is interested in how physical spaces, particularly public spaces, affect people's sense of identity, place value, quality of life, health, and well-being. She is also interested in urban design governance across various planning cultures, focusing on new development, conservation, and regeneration practice.

Dr. Chen leads the Urban Form and Social Space research group in Architecture, and she is the Executive Editor of the Journal of Urban Management (Elsevier). She was the inaugural Director of the European Chapter of the International Association for China Planning (IACP) and a key member of the International Seminar on Urban Form (ISUF).

She mainly engaged in research on:
Urban morphology and typomorphology
Urban design and design governance in planning practice
Public spaces and health and well-being 

Prof. Sidney C.H. Cheung received scholarships given by the Japanese Government/Monbusho (1984-94) for his undergraduate, master's, and doctoral programmes and his anthropological training in Japan. He is the Professor and Associate Director of the Centre for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Studies. He has been doing research about freshwater fish farming in Hong Kong in order to understand the fishermen and their perspectives on environmental change, sustainable development, and wetland conservation. Currently, he is working on an ongoing multi-site research project exploring the impact of the move of American crayfish from the U.S. to Asia and on the global consumption and production of crayfish in China, Japan, and the U.S. 

Besides academic publications, Cheung was co-hosting three RTHK radio/television programmes entitled: 《港饮食、讲文化 (Hong Kong Foodways and Culture)》in 2004, 《文化非主流 (Culture Unconventional)》in 2005,《考饮考食》in 2017/2018, 《味之天下：中华色香味》in 2022 and《艺文谷之味觉漫游系列》in 2025, through which he was able to bring anthropological perspectives to the mass public. Again, some of his research findings were used for the RTHK documentary series of 《香港故事 (Hong Kong Stories) 》, such as [年年有鱼] and [东江逆流] in 2008.

Prof. Cheung's Research interests include:
Visual anthropology, anthropology of tourism, cultural heritage, food and identity, social change and aquaculture development, Ainu-Japanese relations, coastal communities, incense traditions.

Professor Heng Chye Kiang is the Provost’s Professor at the College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore, where he was the former Dean of the School of Design and Environment (SDE) (2007 to 2016) and the Head of its Department of Architecture prior to his deanship. He teaches and researches urban history, sustainable urban design, and planning, and publishes widely in these areas. Professor Heng has served on the boards of government agencies, including the URA, HDB, CLC, JTC, BCA, and advises academic institutions like SIT, NAFA, CUHK, and HKU. He is currently appointed Honorary Professor at CUHK and has been appointed Visiting Professor at Hanyang University (Korea), Keio University (Japan), Southeast University, Chang’an University, Xiamen University, Tongji University (China), and EAVT (France). He has served as a jury member in numerous international design competitions and on several editorial boards of international journals. He is also a planning consultant to several award-winning urban planning and design projects in Asia.

Prof. Chye Kiang's Research Areas/Specialisations include:
Singapore’s urban planning and design
History of Chinese cities and architecture
Urban design and conservation in Asia
Sustainable urban planning and design

Marco D'Orazio is professor at Università Politecnica delle Marche.

Dr. Dang Anrong teaches at the School of Architecture of Tsinghua University. His main research and teaching focus is on human settlements, urban and rural planning, and digital cities, using remote sensing (RS) and geographic information systems (GIS). 

His research and teaching areas mainly include:
New technical methods in urban and rural planning and their applications
Digital urban and rural planning theories, technologies, and methods
Spatial information technology and its applications in urban and rural planning
Basics of landscape geoscience and landscape planning design

Brian Deal is Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Brian Deal's research activities have focused on developing and deploying planning tools that engage the profession of planning and ultimately help communities make better decisions. His current research includes urban land use transformation and modeling, the development of useful decision support tools, and research into energy systems and planning for climate change. He is the Director of the Land use Evolution and impact Assessment Modeling (LEAM) Laboratory and the Director of the Smart Energy Design Assistance Center (SEDAC). He is also one of the primary authors of the University of Illinois’ climate action plan (iCAP), is a faculty mentor to the Student Sustainability Committee, and chairs the facilities committee for campus sustainability planning efforts.

Previous positions have included a decade of professional practice in architecture and as a senior researcher with the Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL), where he focused on issues of sustainable design and development utilizing spatial simulation modeling techniques for military facilities. Professor Deal received a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Illinois with a specialization in land use planning, modeling, and analysis. He also holds a master’s degree and a professional license in architecture.

Prof. Deal's primary research areas are sustainable planning and decision support systems. His current work includes follow-up and implementation planning for the campus climate action plan, a look at how urbanization is affecting rural amenities in Korea, and the technological advancement of a next-generation, ‘sentient’, decision and planning support system.

Dr. Yiping Dong is an  Associate Professor and the Coordinator of the HTH (History, Theory and Heritage) Lab at the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China.

Dr. Yiping Dong is actively researching architectural history and heritage, including Heritage theory, Industrial heritage and heritage-led regeneration, water city, the adaptive re-use of buildings, and Chinese architectural history and theory in a global context.  
 She is the Board Member of TICCIH(The International Committee for the Conservation of Industrial Heritage), and also active in the ACHS (Association of Critical Heritage Studies) as Vice president; and deputy secretary of URBHAC-ASC (Urban and Rural Built Heritage Academic Committee under the Architectural Society of China), the academic member of IAHAC (Industrial Architecture Heritage Academic Committee) of China.  She is a visiting professor at Sapienza University of Rome in 2023, and the RIBA President's Medal Student Award Jury member for Dissertation in 2025. 

Prof. Fung is a researcher who has published widely on Chinese architecture landscapes in both traditional and contemporary contexts. As Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, he is supervising PhD students on topics ranging from Song and Ming dynasty gardens to contemporary Chinese architecture. As Lecturer in Landscape Architecture in the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University for the last four years, Stan Fung has developed a course entitled “Topology and Imagination” into a lively platform for introducing Chinese design culture to students in the GSD. More recently, as Visiting Professor of Architecture in the School of Architecture at Southeast University in Nanjing, Stan Fung is a member of the Virtual Department of Architectural History and Theory, an initiative funded by the Chinese Ministry of Education to develop and share high-quality online courses among Chinese universities. Before joining CUHK, he had previously held teaching positions at the University of Adelaide, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of New South Wales.

Stan Fung’s work has been supported by grants from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange in Taipei, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in Architecture in Chicago and the Ian Potter Foundation in Melbourne. In recent years, he has been awarded two GRF grants from the University Grants Council in Hong Kong.

As a PhD supervisor, Stan Fung has worked with research students on a wide range of topics: the emergence of interior design in 19th-century Europe, modern publicity and the image of professional architects in Australia, the modern architecture of Richard Neutra and Richard Schindler, the contributions of Nadar Ardalan to modern Islamic architecture and historic images of Tiger Hill in Suzhou. An account of his views on doctoral education can be found in InterVIEWS: Insights and Introspection on Doctoral Research in Architecture (edited by Federica Goffi, Routledge, 2021).

Prof. Zhonghua Gou is a professor of the School of Urban Design, Wuhan University.

Professor Gou serves as the deputy editor, guest editor, and editorial board member of several SCI journals. At the same time, he acts as the publishing advisor for the series of books on United Nations Sustainable Development Goals published by Springer. Besides, he has been serving as a reviewer for numerous government-funded funds from various countries and regions, such as the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (HK-RGC), the Australian Research Council (ARC), the United Kingdom Natural Environment Research Council (U.K. NERC), and the Israel Science Foundation (ISF). 

His research interests include green building design and technology, building performance simulation, healthy buildings, and environmental control etc.

Prof. Kai Gu is a Professor of Urban Morphology in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Auckland.

Following research appointments at the University of Birmingham, UK, and the University of Waterloo, Canada, Kai Gu joined the University of Auckland in 2006. He now teaches urban design at the School of Architecture and Planning. Most of his research publications are on urban morphology and urban landscape management. His field-based urban research has been supported by the British Economic and Social Research Council, the Canadian International Development Agency, and the Natural Science Foundation of China. He served as Secretary-General of the International Seminar on Urban Form between 2010 and 2018.

Dr. ChengHe Guan is an Assistant Professor of Urban Science and Policy at NYU Shanghai, Global Network Assistant Professor, and PhD Advisor at NYU Wagner. 

He is the founding co-director of the Shanghai Key Laboratory of Urban Design and Urban Science (LOUD) https://urban.shanghai.nyu.edu/. Dr. Guan is affiliated with the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, the School of Ecology and Environmental Sciences at East China Normal University, and the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Additionally, he serves as a senior research consultant to the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at the University of Oxford.

Dr. Guan’s research focuses on spatial analytics of urban morphology and green space planning, organized around two interconnected themes: (1) Urban green space analytics with AI-enhanced urban sensing techniques, and (2) Urban form analytics and simulation for climate-adaptive cities. His work is published in leading academic journals such as Nature Communications, Communications Earth & Environment (Nature Portfolio), Journal of Planning Education and Research, Landscape and Urban Planning, Land Use Policy, Health and Place, Journal of Urban Affairs, Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, and Cities.

Professor Heath is a qualified architect and town planner and joined the University of Nottingham after working in practice. He is the Course Director of the MArch Sustainable Urban Design and the Director of Postgraduate Programmes. He has previously been the Director of the Institute of Architecture, Head of the School of the Built Environment and subsequently head of the Department of Architecture & Built Environment. He has also been the Associate Dean for Internationalisation and External Relations in the Faculty of Engineering and Acting Vice Provost for Research & Knowledge Exchange at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC).

Professor Heath gained his BA (Hons) Architecture (RIBA/ARB Part 1) from the University of Manchester before completing his DipArch (RIBA/ARB Part 2) and Certificate of Professional Architecture (RIBA/ARB Part 3) at the University of Nottingham. He subsequently successfully completed an MA in Environmental Planning (RTPI) and his PhD in Architecture & Urban Design also at the University of Nottingham.

Professor Heath has worked in the UK, China, South East Asia,and the Middle East, where he has undertaken consultancy and projects related to architecture, urban design, and building and urban environmental performance assessments.

He has also acted as an external examiner in many prestigious universities around the World for undergraduate, postgraduate programmes as well as being a PhD examiner. He has chaired many academic and professional accreditation and validation panels in the UK, Malaysia, China, Qatar, and for the UAE's Commission for Academic Accreditation.

Professor Heath is also a member of the Human Factors Research Group.

His Research Interests:
Urban Design; Architecture Design; Place-making; Urban Revitalisation; Historic City Quarters; City Centre/Urban Living; Urban Heritage Conservation; Adaptive Re-use of Buildings.

Prof. Michael U. Hensel is Professor (part-time) of the Architecture Internationalization Demonstration School of Southeast University.

Prof. Michael U. Hensel is a registered architect, partner in the practice OCEAN Architecture | Environment, and founding member of the experimental design network OCEAN net. He is a founding and steering board member of the LamoLab Research Centre, series editor of the Springer Nature book series Designing Environments and initiator and chair of the international Architecture and Environment symposia series. He heads the research department for Digital Architecture and Planning at Vienna University of Technology, where is board and faculty member at the interfaculty Centre for Geometry and Computational Design and member of the Centre for Computational Complex Systems. His work is located at the intersection between architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, ecology, sustainable development, and data- and computerscience especially in areas of higher complexity.

He taught at world-class schools and universities including the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, Berlage Institute Amsterdam & Rotterdam, Technical University in Munich, Rice University in Houston and University of Technology Sydney. He was founding director of the Emergent Technologies and Design program at the Architectural Association and founding and acting director of the Research Centre for Architecture and Tectonics in Oslo. Furthermore, he was innovation fellow at the University of Sydney, honorary fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Technical University in Munich, and senior resident at Polytechnic University of Milan.

Dr. Xiao Hu is a full professor in the Department of Architecture, University of Idaho. Dr. Hu's research seeks to understand the architectural organizations and orders of the modern city in response to the broader cultural, social, political and psychological transformation. His current focus is on the problem of spatial identity as manifested in architectural and urban settings, with a particular emphasis on the East Asian, Southeast Asian, and Middle Eastern contexts. His recent research also explores urban morphologies with the application of digital tools.

Dr. Beisi Jia is an associate professor in the Department of Architecture, HKU. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Nanjing Institute of Technology (NIT China) and a Postgraduate Diploma from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). He obtained a Ph.D in Architecture History and Theory in 1990 through a joint program of NIT and ETH Zurich. His Post-doctorate research projects in Zurich include a survey of housing projects in Switzerland. Since 2016, he has been Honorary Professor of Southeast University in China.

Since January 1996, he has been a tutor, lecturer, and coordinator of programmes of the Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Study of the school. Besides the design studio, he is teaching in courses History of Chinese Architecture and Housing in Urban development in his school. He was invited as guest and visiting professor in Ball State University in US, University of Montreal in Canada, Southeast University in China, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

He is the joint coordinator of W104-Open Building Implementation in the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB).  He participated in organization an international conference on Open Building and student competition almost annualy since 2003, in Zurich, Beijing, Derban , Boston, Paris, Bilbao – named a few in last few years. Since 2008 an international student competition has been held along with the conference.  Since 1996 he completed several research projects in housing adaptability and housing sustainable development based in China and Hong Kong. Jia Beisi has published 4 books and about 53  papers in international and/or national journals including Open House International, Landscape Research, Habitat International. He has been guest editor for issues of journal Open House International, reviewer and organizer of journals and conferences.

He is also the Director and Partner of the Architectural design office  Baumschlager Eberle Hong Kong.Ltd, led and/or participated in 12 major projects and competition-winning projects since 2008, including housing, shopping malls, institutional buildings, urban design, and a hotel.

His major Research Interests are Quality housing design and construction, which is people-responsive and interactive, and environmentally friendly, open buildings in Asian cities.

Dr. Ying Jin is a Professor of Architecture and Urbanism, Director of Research, and Director of Studies for Robinson College.

Dr. Jin's main research interests are computer models of cities, and urban history.  He has extensive industry experience and directed multi-disciplinary teams in building and using computer models as experimental platforms to appraise policy scenarios that involve investment, regulation, pricing and promotional campaigns.  Key projects include strategic planning of London and surrounding regions, sub-regional and local planning in the English Midlands, transport and energy scenarios for the European Union, long term city region and transport plans in China and in South America, mapping urban poverty in emerging economies, and assessing development and transport options for Cambridge and surrounding regions.  His interests in urban history lie mainly with the European Renaissance cities and the Chinese cities since the Tang Dynasty in the 7th Century.

At the Department of Architecture Professor Jin leads the Cities and Transport Research Group, which is one of the world’s leading centres in the creation and use of conceptual and practical models for cities and city-regions.  These models have been applied in policy and planning studies to assess novel designs of buildings, neighbourhoods, transport and energy systems.  The group’s past policy impacts were reviewed in a Cambridge University case study in REF2014. 

Among a wide range of research projects, Professor Jin leads the city-scale data science and urban modelling applications at the EPSRC Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC 2011-2020).  He is the Principal Investigator for a research project to assess the alternative growth scenarios for the Combined Authority of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, funded by the Combined Authority and Cambridge Ahead (2016-2020).  He is also a co-Investigator at the EPSRC research project Managing Air for Green Inner Cities (2016-2018), and the Smart Urban Design research project funded by the Cambridge-UC Berkeley-National University of Singapore Global Alliance initiative (2016-2018).  He is the lead convenor of the international symposia on Applied Urban Modelling since its launch in 2011.

Professor Jin is the current Director of the Martin Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies.

Professor Jian Kang, FREng, MAE, IMCAE, FIOA, FASA, DFIIAV, CEng, has been a full professor since 2003. He is past-President of the International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration (IIAV), and he also chaired the European Acoustics Association Technical Committee for Noise, and the EU COST Action on Soundscape of European Cities and Landscapes. He was awarded IOA Rayleigh Medal 2022, Tyndall Medal 2008 and Peter Lord Award 2014; NAS Lifetime Achievement Award 2014; and CIBSE Napier Shaw Bronze Medal 2013. He is Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering, a Member of Academia Europaea -The Academy of Europe, and an International Member (Academician) of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Prof. Kang has worked in the field for 40 years, with 80+ research projects, 800+ publications, 90+ engineering/consultancy projects, and 20+ patents. His work on acoustic theories, design guidance and products has brought major improvements to the noise control in underground stations/tunnels and soundscape design in urban areas. He is recipient of the prestigious Advanced ERC Grant Award, currently working internationally on developing Soundscape Indices.

Professor Lai Delin has a doctoral degree from Chicago University, United States. He is now an associate professor in the Art Department of the University of Louisville. His research is focused on Chinese architecture history and Western architecture history.

Dr. Iannace Gino is an Associate Professor at the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, where he is qualified as a full professor in the field of environmental acoustics (9C2 ING-IND 11). With a Ph.D. in environmental acoustics, his research interests span various aspects of acoustics, particularly focusing on environmental acoustics and the acoustic properties of materials. He has published over 77 papers in indexed international scientific journals and contributed to 48 conference proceedings. Dr. Iannace has over 30 years of professional experience in acoustics, including conducting action plans, noise maps, and acoustic impact assessments. He has participated in several national and international projects and has served as a reviewer for multiple journals, as well as an editor for the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. He has held numerous academic and scientific coordination roles, leading research units in several projects. His teaching activities are extensive, ranging from undergraduate to master’s levels, and he has taught in several international universities. He is also an active contributor to acoustics and environmental control education, with a strong track record of involvement in international teaching programs and conferences.

Dr. Eshrar Latif is an Associate Professor at the Welsh School of Architecture (WSA), Cardiff University, UK. Within WSA, he holds the role of Course Director for the MSc Sustainable Mega Buildings program and Chair of the Research Ethics Committee, responsibilities that align with his passion for sustainable architecture and ethical academic practices. He has contributed significantly to various research, consultancy, and infrastructure grants, furthering the advancement of sustainable architectural paradigms. He co-authored the book titled 'Thermal Insulation Materials for Building Applications in 2019, a collaborative effort aimed at enhancing knowledge in the realm of sustainable construction materials. In essence, his professional journey has been characterised by an unwavering dedication to advancing sustainable architectural practices through education, research, and ethical leadership within the academic sphere.

Dr. Latif's Research interests include:
Hygrothermal performance of bio-based thermal insulation materials
Hygrothermal performance of hemp-lime
Energy performance monitoring of buildings and test cells
Laboratory-based experiments related to building physics
Innovative construction materials
Low energy building design
Simulation of heat and mass transfer.
Indoor Air Quality
Circular Economy for Sustainable Buildings
Urban level sustainability

Dr. Andrew Law is Newcastle Director of the Confucius Institute; Senior Lecturer in Town Planning

Dr. Law's research examines the way in which societies and individuals understand, process, interpret and/or narrate their pasts; he has conducted research on social theory, the history of ideas, historical imaginaries, collective memory, national myths and narratives, nostalgia, the politics of history and the uses and abuses of history and/or the past more broadly. In his career, he has often examined these themes in relation to architecture, townscapes, urban conservation, built heritage, intangible heritage, and urban place branding. While his early research explored British/English cases, since 2010, he has investigated Chinese case studies. In this respect, he has become an enthusiastic student of Chinese studies (Sinology).

His research interests relate to:
Social theory
Sociological theory
The history of ideas
historical imaginaries
Collective memory
nostalgia
The politics of history
The politics of the past
The uses of the past
The use and abuse of history/the past
heritage
Historical place branding
Nostalgic place branding
Faux history
Historical simulacra
nationalism
national myths
national narratives
race and ethnicity
Chinese studies

Steffen Lehmann, Assoc. AIA, RIBA, AA Dipl., is an internationally renowned designer, educator, scholar, author, scientific researcher and strategic leader. He holds a senior tenured position as professor of architecture and urbanism, and has served as executive director of three architecture schools in the US and Australia, including the Las Vegas School of Architecture at UNLV. Currently, he directs the interdisciplinary Urban Futures Lab and previously led the Future Cities Leadership Lab Institute as CEO, translating strategic vision into impactful programmatic initiatives amid a rapidly evolving profession and transforming society. Prior to UNLV, Lehmann was a chair and full professor since 2002, in the UK and Australia, and for many years held the UNESCO Chair for Sustainable Urban Development in the Asia-Pacific Region.

He has dedicated his long and distinguished career as an architect, urban designer and educator to the creation of new knowledge and social impact through the improvement of cities’ public spaces and resource-efficiency, most recently as the founding director of the interdisciplinary think-tank Urban Futures Lab at UNLV. He has generated significant external research income through his involvement in numerous research and consultancy projects, industry partnerships, and publications that are highly cited. Steffen has published 24 books with prestigious publishers, and numerous (500+) articles and papers on architecture and sustainable urban development. In the 1990s, he coined the concept of Green Urbanism. In 2010, he coined the term Zero Waste City, and since then, has developed large-scale urban design projects, exploring the concepts of Density without High-rise and The City of Short Distances.

His research is mainly in the field of urban resilience, sustainable architecture and urban design. Over the last 25 years, his pioneering work and influential scholarship are best known for its holistic view of urbanization and for actively promoting sustainability, devoted to understanding and unraveling the principles of the modern metropolis and its urban systems, exploring the themes:
Sustainable Architectural and Resource-efficient Urban Design,
Urban Development for Future Cities,
Climate Change, Urban Resilience and Environmental Sustainability,
High-performance Architecture, Entrepreneurship and Leadership.

Ute Lehrer is an Applicant for the MCRI on ‘Global Suburbanisms’ and holds a PhD in Urban Planning from UCLA. She taught at SUNY Buffalo and Brock University before joining York, where she serves as a Professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies. She has been involved in comparative urban research on Zurich, Frankfurt, Berlin, Los Angeles and Toronto, investigating new urban forms, processes of spectacularization and megaprojects. She has recently completed a SSHRC-funded project on “Urban Images, Public Space and the Growth of Private Interest in Toronto” in which she studied the development of private residential real estate development in form of condominium towers in Toronto. She was involved in an in-depth comparative study of the financial centres of Frankfurt and Zurich in the 1990s, the first such comparative study on two global cities in continental Europe (Hitz et al. 1995).

Research Interests: Cities and Globalization; Economic Restructuring and Urban Form; Political Economy of the Built Environment; Theory and History of Planning, Urban Design and Architecture; Built Environment, Ethnicity and Immigration to Urban Area.

Dr. Huan Li got Ph.D. in Geography from Nanjing University (jointly cultivated at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), postdoctoral fellow at City University of Hong Kong; Certified Land Valuer in China, Registered Second-Class Constructor in China; Leading Scholar of Zhejiang Province, Leading Talent of Zhejiang Universities; Wrote 2 copies of "Suggestions from Scientific and Technological Workers" and 1 copy of "Zhejiang Social Science Research Bulletin"; Obtained 3 invention patents, 2 software copyrights, and published over 30 academic papers.

His current research is on the human transformation of land and the links between urbanization, global change, and sustainability. His research integrates remote sensing, field interviews, questionnaire surveys, and modeling methods to study land change and urbanization, forecast urban growth, examine the environmental consequences of urban expansion, and the changes in human behavior.

Zhigang Li is a professor of urban studies and planning at the Department of Urban Planning, School of Urban Design, Wuhan University,  one of the top ten universities in mainland China. He also served as the dean of this school after 2015. Prof Li is also a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS). Before 2015, Prof. Li worked at the  School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. 

Prof. Hao Li is a professor in the School of Architecture, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology
Member of the Urban Design Expert Committee of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development
Member of the National Committee for the Evaluation of Architectural Education in Higher Education Institutions
Member of the Urban Design Branch of the Chinese Society of Architecture
Member of the Architectural Education Evaluation Committee of the Chinese Society of Architecture
Member of the Urban Design Academic Committee of the Chinese Urban Planning Society
Member of the Urban Renewal Academic Committee of the Chinese Urban Planning Society
Regular Member of the Xi'an Civil Engineering and Architecture Society

His research interests include:
Urban design, urban renewal, public space, and building renovation design

Dr Mengbi Li holds a PhD in Built Environment from the University of New South Wales, Sydney. As one of the members of the pedagogic revolution, First Year Model of Victoria University, Mengbi joined VU on a permanent basis in 2018.

Mengbi is passionate about exploring and implementing innovative teaching methods and curriculum design to address pedagogic challenges and help students reach their full potential. She is interested in nurturing curiosity in her students and an enduring enthusiasm for the discipline of built environment in today’s rapidly changing society.

Mengbi’s research interest is in promoting an understanding of the history of architecture, with a particular focus on the pre-modern architecture and settlements in China. She seeks pathways to intellectual understanding and response in architecture from its own history. She is striving for a critical rethink of a series of dogmas, mind-sets and vigorously imposed goals in the production of cities and buildings.

Currently, Mengbi’s research is contributing better practices for low-carbon living and sustainability to architecture by challenging existing principles that clash with these objectives.

Dr. Hongtao Liu is the Director of the International Research Center for World Heritage of Southwest Jiaotong University, doctoral supervisor. National Natural Science Foundation of China referee, expert of the Ministry of Education's Degree and Graduate Education Center, major project review expert of the Ministry of Science and Technology, expert of national industrial heritage projects; Member of the Agricultural Heritage Branch of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Academic Committee Member of the Chinese Ancient Bridge Protection Foundation, Member of the Japanese Institute of Architecture, Member of the Chinese Urban Planning Society, Member of the Chinese Cultural Heritage Society; Member of the Chinese Residential Architecture Professional Committee, Member of the Modern Architecture Protection Professional Committee of the Chinese Conservation Technology Association; Reviewer of International Journal of Heritage Studies, Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering, China City Planning Review, Journal of Architectural Heritage, and other journals. Expert of the Sichuan Provincial Expert Service Team, Expert of the Sichuan Provincial World Heritage Expert Committee, Standing Director and Director of the World Heritage Work Committee of the Sichuan Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture, and selected for the Chengdu Rongbo Plan in 2021. Mainly engaged in research and practical work related to the protection and utilization of local heritage, urban renewal, and preventive protection. Awarded the title of "Most Beautiful Scientist of Sichuan Province" in 2020 and reported by CCTV's "People" program.

Dr. Elena Lucchi is MSC (m.arch.), PhD (architecture technology/environmental technical physics), M.A. Graduate of the Technical University of Milan with honors in architecture; Doctor of Research in advanced technology and design for the environmental quality of the building and urban scale, awarded at Milan Polytechnic with a dissertation on environmental quality, Conservation of cultural objects. Energy and environmental regeneration strategies of the Museum heritage." 

Her research activities concern the link between energy, environment, and architecture, with particular attention being paid Environmental technical physics, energy diagnosis and environmental diagnosis, energy rehabilitation, ai Highly insulating materials (SIMS), building integrated photovoltaic systems (bipv), redesign, The estimation of energy potential on an urban scale, bioclimatic and environmental design, The analysis of comfort and the preventive conservation of cultural heritage. Her research has focused on the Internet, in particular on the efficiency and energy upgrading of existing and historic buildings, simulations, Thermometers, in situ and laboratory tests, environmental monitoring and measuring instruments Environmental assessment. She is a scientific assistant at Eurac research and has been assigned to research at Milan Polytechnic, and collaborator of Infoenergia, the energy agency of the province of Milan, and editor-in-chief. On these issues, he has participated in a number of EU-funded research projects, the Ministry, foundations, public bodies, and private companies, and has won prizes and scholarships International and national. Finally, the SAN Martino asylum architectural project in Bareggio won the Legambiente award awarded environmental and social sustainability for the municipality, and energy efficiency in building apartments.

Dr. Pedro Luengo is presently a professor of the History of Art Department at the Universidad de Sevilla. He received his PhD in History of Art from this institution. He has been a visiting academic at different international institutions, such as San Agustin Museum (Manila), Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas (Mexico), European University Institute (Florence), the King´s College London, and the Oxford University and Sapienza Univeristà di Roma. He has taken part in several international research projects, being the principal investigator of one on Xiyanglou buildings in the Yuanming Yuan Garden in Beijing and one on the architecture of power during the eighteenth century. He has published several papers in journals, both national and international.

Luo Deyin is a Full Professor of Architectural History at Tsinghua University’s School of Architecture (Beijing). Since earning his PhD in Architecture in 2003, he has dedicated his career to the research, preservation, and revitalization of China’s vernacular architecture and traditional villages. Over two decades, he has authored over 20 influential academic works, including Chinese Ancient Theaters, The Ancient Castles of Yu County, and Research and Practice of Vernacular Settlements. His work bridges agricultural heritage with modern sustainability, emphasizing the integration of tradition and innovation. Key projects include the internationally recognized Songyang County revitalization and the establishment of the Conference for the Revival of Chinese Villages (CRCV).

His research interests: Vernacular Architecture, Traditional Village, Architectural History

Naglaa A. Megahed is a professor of architecture. She serves as the head of the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Faculty of Engineering, Port Said University, Egypt. Her research and teaching focus on history and theory of architecture, building technology, architectural education, and sustainable architecture.  She has numerous scientific publications in the most important international journals in architecture, design, and the built environment, qualifying her to be named one of the world's most influential scientists in her field, according to Elsevier's global databases published in October 2023. She was included in the top 2% of most cited scientists worldwide by the Stanford University Global Scientist Citations Ranking (2022-2023).

Ms. Qing Mei is a doctor of philosophy in architecture and is now an associate professor of architecture and urban planning at Tongji University, China. Mei received architectural training and completed a master's study on architectural history at Southeast University, China. She taught and practiced at Xiamen University for 8 years as a lecturer and an architect prior to commencing her research degree in Hong Kong. During her years overseas, she conducted research on overseas Chinese architecture, and gained rich educational exchange experiences through visiting scholar, attending conference, delivering lectures and on-site survey in the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, the Mediterranean countries (Egypt, Greece, Turkey), Indonesia, Philippines, with focus on “Chinese” building types: temple, huiguan and garden. Mei received her PhD degree (2004) by adding a focus on returned overseas Chinese houses and settlements in coastal areas of southern China. She has received overseas and national awards several times, and has served voluntarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region on consultation, museum design projects, and historic architectural surveys, as well as conservation projects in Shanghai and Ningbo. She has been passionate about understanding the architecture of Asia and China, particularly as it concerns southeast China and Southeast Asia. Her previous publication concentrated on the exploration of how the indigenous Chinese architecture was transplanted to other contexts in Southeast Asia, where the Chinese settled during the Ming and Qing dynasties. In recent years, she has been involved in teaching architectural history, historic conservation, and design studio at Tongji University, China.

Eric S. Nelson is Professor of Humanities at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Professor Nelson has been teaching at HKUST since 2014. His areas of teaching and research include modern European, East Asian, and intercultural/comparative philosophy and religion. He is particularly interested in questions of communication, interpretation, and social interaction (hermeneutics and ethics).

Eric S Nelson is the author of Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in Early Twentieth-Century German Thought (Bloomsbury, 2017), and he is currently working on a GRF-funded project (16631916) on the early modern German reception of Chinese philosophy.

He has published over seventy articles and book chapters on Chinese, German, and Jewish philosophy. He is the co-editor with François Raffoul of the Bloomsbury Companion to Heidegger (London: Bloomsbury, expanded paperback edition 2016) and Rethinking Facticity (Albany: SUNY Press, 2008). He has also co-edited with John Drabinski, Between Levinas and Heidegger (Albany: SUNY Press, 2014); with Giuseppe D'Anna and Helmut Johach, Anthropologie und Geschichte: Studien zu Wilhelm Dilthey aus Anlass seines 100. Todestages (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2013); and with Antje Kapust and Kent Still, Addressing Levinas (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2005).

Professor Jianlei Niu received his BEng and MSc degrees from Tsinghua University and his PhD from Delft University of Technology. He also had experience as an R&D engineer with a utility manufacturer in the UK during his tenure as a lecturer with Tsinghua University, researching clean coal-combustion technologies. In the period from Feb 12, 2017 to Feb. 9, 2019, he was a Professor of Building, Environment and Energy, a conjoint appointment of the School of Architecture, Design and Planning and the School of Civil Engineering, The University of Sydney.

His technology contributions are in a broad area linking thermal and fluid sciences with the building environment, and his current research topics include indoor environmental quality, thermal comfort, thermal energy storage, HVAC, and urban microclimate. During his tenure with HKPolyU, he secured 18 RGC CERG/GRF grants, along with two ITF grants, two RFCID/HMRF grants and one RGC/NSFC joint grant, and one RGC CRF grant as a Co-PI. He has successfully supervised over 20 PhD students. He is currently leading a RGC Theme-based research scheme (TRS) project "Healthy and Resilient Cities with Pervasive LoCHs', aiming to develop a simulation-based optimisation (SBO) method to create localised outdoor thermal-comfort hubs(LoCHs) by design in the urban and estate planning stage.

He was awarded the fellowship by three leading societies: ASHRAE(American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-conditioning Engineers), ISIAQ(International Society of Indoor Air Quality) Academy of Fellows, and IBPSA (International Building Performance Simulation Association) Academy of Fellows.

Francesco Nocera is an Associate Professor of Building physics and building energy systems in the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Catania.

His main interests are:
Basic thermodynamics, 
Thermo-fluid dynamics,
Heat transmission,
Lighting, acoustics,
Rational use of energy,
Use of renewable energy sources
Energy service management in buildings and urban landscapes.

Dr. Masa Noguchi is an Associate Professor in Environmental Design at the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne, specialising in "Environmental Experience Design (EXD)" decision-making analysis based on a mass customisation framework that embraces machine learning and value engineering techniques for improvement of operational energy efficiency, affordability, and occupants' wellbeing in the built environment. In parallel to EXD studies, he also initiated global movement on zero energy mass custom home (ZEMCH) and vertical village/subdivision plug-in housing system research and development for future-proof city evolution. Dr Noguchi is a Chartered Engineer, Environmentalist, and Technological Product Designer registered respectively with the Engineering Council, Society for the Environment, and the Institution of Engineering Designers in the UK. In 2002, he also became a member of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and today, he serves as a Certified Passive House Designer registered with the Passive House Institute in Germany. Dr Noguchi is the founding coordinator of ZEMCH Network (www.zemch.org) which consists of over 800 partners from over 40 countries and developed a series of industry-academia knowledge transfer events. ZEMCH international conferences (from 2012), ZEMCH sustainable design workshops (from 2014) and ZEMCH technical missions (from 2006) are amongst the projects being organised by ZEMCH Network today in partnership with the regional experts centres based currently in Australia, Brazil, Italy, Korea, UAE and UK. At the Melbourne School of Design, he spearheads ZEMCH (Zero Energy Mass Custom Home) related courses. Before coming to Melbourne, he was a Reader at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, The Glasgow School of Art, where he established a ZEMCH pathway within the Master of Architectural Studies program. Dr Noguchi leads ZEMCH engineering design research for the delivery of socially, economically, environmentally and humanly sustainable built environments in global contexts. Inventing a "mass custom design" system approach to quality affordable housing, he developed a digitalised interactive mass custom design communication tool, which was demonstrated in the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon's Canadian house 2005. In 2006, he designed Canada's first (near) net zero energy modular home "EcoTerra house" - built and commercialised through the federal government's EQuilibrium sustainable housing initiative/competition in 2007. Moreover, Dr Noguchi turned his "mass custom design" system into reality through the Donside Urban Village development in Aberdeen, Scotland, and he also contributed to a low-cost prefabricated mass housing projects in Brazil. Serving as the editorial board member of numerous journals, Dr Noguchi is frequently invited to deliver keynote lectures on ZEMCH R&D projects at national and international conferences stressing the need for EXD methodological research and practice in built environments for the energy efficiency and affordability as well as the occupants' physical and mental health and wellbeing.

Dr. Lei Ping is Associate Professor of Chinese Studies and Chair of Foreign Languages Department at The New School University in New York. She holds a PhD in East Asian Studies from New York University. Her research centers on Marxism, urbanism, cultural sociology, and social classes in Asian and global economies and societies. Her latest book, Shanghai Mundane: Survival and Revival of Bourgeois Sentiments under Chinese Socialism (Bloomsbury Publishing, September 2025, ISBN: 9781666951387) offers a new critical intervention into the studies of the paradox of Chinese socialism. Her writings have also appeared in leading peer-reviewed academic journals such as Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism, Developing Economies, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, China Review International, NewBooks Asia. Ping has served on the editorial boards of Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism as well as Journal of Urban Studies and Public Administration. Ever since 2020, her University Lecture "China Today: Art, Economy, and Politics” has been continuously awarded by The New School as one of the few university-wide Signature Courses that demonstrates the university’s commitment to innovate in the online teaching and learning space of critical China Studies. Ping also launched and directed the first field-based undergraduate summer study abroad program for The New School in Shanghai China in collaboration with Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts and Parsons School of Design.

Professor (Scientia) Deo Prasad Elected as a Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 1991, he has been a highly influential, driving force for sustainable design in both academia and professional practise and in 2006 he received the Royal Australian Institute of Architect’s National Education Award for contribution to ‘sustainability education, research and design’. In 2004 he received the NSW State Government’s individual GreenGlobe Award for ‘leadership and commitment to the supply of renewable energy’ He has also won the Federal Government’s national award for ‘outstanding contribution to energy related research’. 
 
Deo is the Chief Investigator and CEO of the Co-operative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living (CRCLCL: www.lowcarbonlivingcrc.com.au). This is the largest ever industry-government-professions-research collaboration spin-off in Australia (built environment sector) and is leading to transformative impacts – enabling Australian industry and professions to compete globally in a low carbon future. He is also one of the Ambassadors for Sydney (Business Events, NSW Govt) with special focus on promoting Sydney as a destination for high end environmental-scientific events. In 2014 he was awarded the Outstanding Alumni Award for contributions in the field of sustainability by the UNSW.

Zhu (Joe) Qian is an Associate Professor of the School of Planning, University of Waterloo.

His research interests include:
Comparative urban planning and policy
Land use planning and urban form
Land use reform and policy in China
Heritage conservation and planning in China

Xuefei Ren is a comparative urbanist whose work explores urban governance and the built environment from a global perspective. She is the author of three award-winning books: Governing the Urban in China and India: Land Grabs, Slum Clearance, and the War on Air Pollution (Princeton University Press, 2020), Urban China (Polity, 2013), and Building Globalization: Transnational Architecture Production in Urban China (University of Chicago Press, 2011).

Ren is a fellow in the Humanity’s Urban Future program at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) and previously served as a Public Intellectual Fellow of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. She has held editorial roles as an associate editor for the Journal of Urban Affairs and City and Community, and as an editorial board member of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Her research has been supported by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Urban Studies Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, among others.

Dr. Zhibin Ren's research has focused on the interactions between urban forest ecosystems, urban environment, and people. He has conducted about environmental stresses and their impacts on urban forests. His research also investigates urban forest structure, health, change, and its ecosystem services from urban vegetation from remote sensing and field surveys. He is the World's Top 2% Scientist since 2023.

Dr. Peter Rowe is the Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture and Urban Design and Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor. Rowe served as Dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design from 1992 to 2004, Chairman of the Urban Planning and Design Department from 1988 until 1992, and Director of the Urban Design Programs from 1985 until 1990. Prior to Harvard, Rowe served as the Director of the School of Architecture at Rice University from 1981 to 1985 and also directed many multi-disciplinary research projects through the Rice Center, where he was Vice President from 1978 onwards, and at the Southwest Center for Urban Research.

Rowe’s research and consulting are extensive, diverse and international in scope, including subjects dealing with matters of cultural interpretation and design, as well as the relationship of urban form to issues of economic development, historic conservation, housing provision and resource sustainability. He has served as a principal investigator on projects sponsored by a wide range of U.S. government agencies, and has served as an advisor to a number of cities on matters of urban design and planning including Beijing, Guiyang, Guangzhou, Kunming, Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuhan and Wenzhou in China; Incheon in South Korea and Barcelona in Spain. He was also a board member of several prominent cultural and academic institutions, like the Center for Canadian Architecture and the Cities Programme of the London School of Economics, as well as on the board of several companies involved in low-cost housing provision and the use of environmentally sustainable technologies.

Rowe is the author, co-author, or editor of 32 books and numerous articles.

Professor Marc Aurel Schnabel is a recognised expert in digital transformation, -design, -heritage, intelligent cities, and extended reality environments. With over 30 years of experience spanning Germany, China, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, his career bridges academia and the creative fields. Now, as the Dean of the Design School at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, he guides four departments – Architecture, Civil Engineering, Industrial Design, and Urban Planning and Design – and their research centres.

Previously, he was the Founding Director of the FORUM8 Research Lab, the Japanese leader in virtual city/building simulation, at the Cambridge Innovation Center in Tokyo. Trained as an Architect, Professor Schnabel has held leadership roles, including the Deanship of a New Zealand University, Presidencies of the Architectural Science Association (ANZAScA), the Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA), and the Autodesk Industry Advisory Board, and Principal Investigator of New Zealand's National Science Challenge, 'Better Homes, Towns, and Cities'.

He has been awarded Fellowships by ANZAScA, CAADRIA, and Salzburg Global. He is a member of the Austrian Science Fund's PEEK - Arts-Based Research Board as an expert in design and a partner of the European Union's REACH (RE-designing Access to Cultural Heritage). He has curated several digital architectural exhibitions, including Ars Electronica Aotearoa, and founded the Digital Architecture Research Alliance (DARA) and the online network Urban Digitalics, connecting professionals and researchers in innovative digital design. 

Throughout his career, Professor Schnabel has combined academic leadership with interdisciplinary research to contribute to developing sustainable, intelligent, and innovative design practices.

Prof. Marichela Sepe is Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Member of the Teaching Board of the PhD in Engineering-based Architecture and Urban Planning at the DICEA Sapienza Università di Roma. Previously, she has joined the ISMed-CNR and the Department of Architecture of the University of Naples Federico II. In 2013 she was visiting Professor at the Peking University - and held lectures in the Peking, Wuhan and Xi'an Universities -, and in 2024 at the Faculty of Architecture at Gdańsk University of Technology. Her research interests include: urban design and planning; place identity; healthy city; proximity; livable public spaces; post seismic reconstruction and creative urban regeneration. On these topics, she has published several national and international journal articles, conference papers, books and book chapters.

In national and international contexts, she is responsible for and member of the scientific committee of conferences, referee and member of the Editorial board of the main scientific journals of urban design and urban planning and she has acted as coordinator and scientific officer in national and international research projects. 

Currently she is Responsible of the Urban Impact Unit of the “SUMMA” PRIN 2020, and “LOVE Sapienza: Livable, enjOyable and attractiVE spaces for the community” research project with Sapienza University founds, responsible for the Scientific Laboratory "Geodesign and Urban design" of LUPT University Federico, II and coordinator of the GUDesign network.

Prof. Sepe is Vice President of INU, Urban Planning Italian National Institute Campania section and member of the national INU Governing Board, member of the Eura Governing Board and member of the Urban Design Group, the Association of Public Space Biennial and DOCOMOMO. 

In 2014-2018 she won: the Ardito-Desio Award for the paper presented at Ipsapa 2014, 2016 and 2018 Conference; the Runner-up Practitioner paper at T-Forum 2015; the Urban Planning Literature Award of the Italian National Urban Planning Institute (INU) in 2014, 2015 and 2017. She has participated to several Architecture and Urban Design competitions, in which she took two first places and one selection.

Dr. Jessica Sewell is an associate professor of Urban and Environmental Planning in the School of Architecture, University of Virginia.

Dr. Jessica Sewell's research focuses on the relationships between gender and architecture, urban space, and material culture.

She is the author of two books, Exploring Gender in Vernacular Architecture (University of Tennessee Press, 2025) and Women and the Everyday City: Public Space in San Francisco, 1890-1915  (University of Minnesota Press, 2011).

Her main current research looks at the question of men in private space, focusing on the bachelor pad as a site of masculine fantasy and an urbanized counterpoint to the suburban home in the 1950s-60s United States. She is also at work on a collaborative book on the architect and urbanist Giancarlo de Carlo and a new project on the Great Valley of the Appalachians.

She is also the author of the app Exploring Suzhou, which provides a cultural landscape tour of the Chinese city of Suzhou. This app was used for many years to enrich the teaching in large-enrollment classes in Architecture and Urban Planning, and Design at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. This app is also the seed of a digital project in process, the Guide to Suzhou Cultural Landscapes, supported by the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) at UVA.

Her research has also been supported by fellowships and grants from the Institute for Advanced Study, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, the Humanities Institute at Boston University, the Huntington Library, and the Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr. Ayyoob Sharifi is a Professor at the IDEC Institute, Hiroshima University, Japan. He also has a cross-appointment at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Graduate School of Innovation and Practice for Smart Society, and the Graduate School of Advanced Science and Engineering.  His research is mainly at the interface of urbanism and climate change mitigation and adaptation. He actively contributes to global change research programs such as the Future Earth, and currently, he is serving as a lead author for the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Before joining Hiroshima University, he was the Executive Director of the Global Carbon Project (GCP), a Future Earth core project- leading the urban flagship activity of the project, which is focused on conducting cutting-edge research for supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation in cities. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering (Surveying), a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning, and a doctorate in Environmental Engineering. He is interested in pursuing research at the interface of climate change and urban planning. The ultimate goal of his research is to provide further insights into how to develop sustainable, peaceful, just, and resilient communities.

Professor Joe Tah is Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of Technology, Design and the Environment, which comprises the School of Architecture, School of Arts, School of the Built Environment, and School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics.

Prior to taking up this role, Joe served as Associate Dean of Strategy and Development in the Faculty. He previously held a number of roles, including the Founding Head of the School of the Built Environment, Head of the Department of Real Estate and Construction, and Professor of Project Management.

His academic career spans over three decades, in which he has developed a wealth of strong interdisciplinary intellectual resources built on his research interests, which are at the intersection of civil engineering, construction management, computer science, and artificial intelligence. He has generated significant external research income through involvement in many research & consultancy projects funded by the EPSRC, EC, Innovate UK, ERDF, ESF, etc. He has successfully supervised many PhD students and research associates. He has undertaken several knowledge transfer initiatives and consultancy work involving the re-engineering of organizational business processes and the development and implementation of innovations in ICT in various construction companies. His publications are highly cited and include a co-authored book on 'strategic management applied to international construction' and over 180 refereed journal and conference papers.

Dr. Jinhua（Selia）Tian got her PhD degree from the Department of Architecture, the University of Hong Kong. She also studied Chinese American history as a visiting scholar at Azusa Pacific University in the United States and the University of British Columbia, Canada. She is now a researcher and associate professor on overseas Chinese history as well as heritage conservation at Wuyi University, China.

Tan is a consultant on cultural heritage conservation projects in China. She was an important consultant on architectural conservation projects during the World Cultural Heritage listing applications of Kaiping Diaolou (succeeded in 2007) and Fujian Tulou (succeeded in 2008).

Tan established the Cangdong Project for research and practice in a real heritage conservation site after Kaiping diaolou was inscribed on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list, focusing on architectural conservation and community development, and cultural continuity. The Project was awarded the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Cultural Heritage Conservation Award of Merit in 2015. The Cangdong Project is now an educational center for heritage conservation for the public good.

Tan has been working closely with international universities, such as the history department and the archaeology center of Stanford University (USA); the Architectural Conservation Programme of the University of Hong Kong, and the Graduate School of the University of British Columbia (Canada).

Dr. Tao Jin is an associate professor in the field of urban planning at South China University of Technology.

He has led and participated in a number of important research projects, including: the National Natural Science Foundation Youth Fund: Research on the Morphology and Evolution Mechanism of Traditional Rural Houses in Guangdong Based on Cultural Geography; the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation: Research on the Cultural Geography of Traditional Rural Houses in Meizhou, Guangdong; the 12th Five-Year National Science and Technology Support Program Project: Research and Demonstration on Key Technologies for Improving Infrastructure and Expanding Functional Use of Traditional Villages; the 11th Five-Year National Science and Technology Support Program Project: Research on the Protection Planning Technology of Historical and Cultural Villages; etc.

His main research directions are: protection of traditional villages and houses, old city renewal, protection of historical cultural heritage, and urban design.

Professor Wang retired at the end of fall 2018 after over 20 years with Washington State University. During his tenure, Wang taught graduate courses in history and theory, interdisciplinary ethics and practice, research methods, and foundation courses in design and construction.

Wang is the co-author of Architectural Research Methods (2002, second edition 2013, John Wiley & Sons, with Linda Groat) and has lectured on architectural research nationally as well as in China and Europe. He is also the author of A Philosophy of Chinese Architecture Past, Present, Future (Routledge, 2017), and is currently under contract with Routledge for a book titled Architecture and Sacrament: A Critical Theory. Professor Wang has published on architectural theory and research methods in numerous journals.

Dr. Fan Wang studied first Physics and then Architectural Technology in Zhejiang University. In late 80s’ he worked as a university lecturer in building physics and architectural engineering and his research concerned vernacular technology and architecture and low cost building design. His early studies into thermal behaviour of earthen tower buildings, one of traditional Chinese dwellings earned him two major scholarships to continue his research in University of Sheffield in UK. In Sheffield he developed a number of CFD models examining heating problems in large heavy buildings, radon entry in houses with cellars, and flow optimisation in continuous casting. Then he brought the modelling expertise to Battle McCarthy, a very active consulting firm specialised in environmental design, where he worked closely with engineers, architects and planners on various projects on environmental and sustainable building design, including the World Trade Centre in Amsterdam and the Millennium Tower in Nairobi.Since he joined the School of Built Environment Fan has been teaching subjects in architectural engineering and carrying out research in airflow and thermal modelling. His special interests are in VAC in hot climate, wind safety and comfort in built environments and building/system thermal performance modelling. More recently he has been exploring how modelling can help optimising control algorithm to achieve best performance of building systems. Fan’s engagement in green building design also includes promoting practise in low energy buildings design and sustainable urban development, for which he has been invited to give guest lectures as visiting professor in China, the most populated and rapidly industrialised country. He is technical advisor to Dept of Development and Renovation, Shanghai Research Institute of Building Sciences. He was a member of Peer Review College of the UK government funding research council Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) from 2000 to 2003. He has received research awards from various organisations, from research councils, like EPSRC, Royal Academy of Engineering and governments, such as Scottish Executives and Malaysia Education Ministry. His most recent research on developing solar-wall heating systems was sponsored by Scottish Government and industrial organisations.

Dr. June Wang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at City University of Hong Kong and contributes as a Visiting Professor at Gran Sasso Science Institute. Her research lies at the intersection of urban political economy and cultural studies, with special concern for creative/cultural cities and platform urbanism. She sits on the editorial board of a number of journals, such as Economy and Society, Sociology Compass, Journal of Urban Affairs, Built Heritage, and JCAU. Her long-term research interest dwells on the Deleuzian (re-)territorialisation of state space, that is, how the intertwined political and economic logics put human and non-human things on the move, resulting in ceaseless re-configuration of economy and population. Her recent work focuses on digital labour, digital infrastructure, and the assembled value chain in global China. She has authored papers in journals such as Annals of AAG; EPA; Dialogue of Human Geography; Geoforum; IJURR; Planning Theory; South Atlantic Quarterly; Territory, Politics, Governance; and Urban Geography.

Dr. Mo Wang is Doctor, Postdoctoral Fellow, Associate Professor, Master's Supervisor, Young Reserve Talent of Guangzhou High-level Talent, Deputy Director of the Infrastructure Department of Guangzhou University, Deputy Secretary-General of the Non-Party Intellectuals Association of Guangzhou University, Top 2% Global Top Scientist of 2024, In-Database Expert of the Guangdong Land Space Planning Expert Group, Expert of Guangdong Science and Technology Consultation, Guangzhou Science and Technology Consultation Expert, Executive Editor of "Landscape Design Studies", Young Editor of "Guangdong Garden", Associate Editor of "Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism", Vice President of the Municipal Branch and Landscape Architecture Branch of the Guangzhou Surveying and Design Association, Member of the Education Work Committee of the Chinese Landscape Architecture Society, Deputy Director of the Landscape Education Information Professional Committee and Landscape Planning and Design Professional Committee of the Guangdong Garden Society, Member of the Ecological Landscape and Landscape Architecture Professional Committee of the China Engineering Standards Association.

His research areas include resilient cities, green infrastructure, and generative urban design.

Dr. Saige Wang is an associate professor at the School of Energy and Environmental Engineering of Beijing University of Science and Technology.

Her research areas include:
1. Multi-factor coupling simulation of energy-water-carbon in complex systems and paths for enhancing resilience
2. Ecological-environment-economic impact assessment and optimization management of photovoltaic new energy development
3. Research on multi-objective collaborative sustainable development paths for emission reduction, carbon reduction, environment and economy in typical industrial sectors

Georgia Butina Watson is Professor of Urban Design and Research and Practice Consultant in Planning and Urban Design. She was Head of Planning Department between 2001 and 2015;  Chair of Oxford Brookes University Research Degree Committee between 2000 and 2016; and Chair of the Joint Centre for Urban Design between 1991 and 2001. She is an urban design and planning specialist with a particular interest in: urban design and architectural history and theory; urban morphology; placemaking; place-identity; cultural heritage and historic cities; environmental and sustainable urban planning and design; urban regeneration; urban gaming; public participation and community development; sustainable, healthy and resilient cities; open space and liveable streets; planning and design of new settlements;  young people and the built environment; enquiry by design and social science research methods.  Key research projects were funded by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC); Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC); Department  for International Development (DFiD); British Council; UK Central and Local Government( ODPM, DCLG); Higher Education Council for England (HEFCE); Commission for Architecture and Built environment (CABE); National Health England (NHSE); Slovenian Research Council; EU; Ministry for Construction in Vietnam; Ministry of Planning Qatar.

She is an Academician and the Regional Co-ordinator for the Academy of Urbanism, a member of the Urban Design Group, a member of SUE (Sustainable Urban Environment) UK network and a member of International Council for Caring Communities (ICCC). She was a Trustee of Oxford Preservation Trust for 10 years and has served as a Trustee for various Art and Heritage foundations, and was also a member of the Design Review Panel for the West End Area of Oxford. She has received several awards for innovation in research methods and practice in participatory community projects. She also Chairs the QAA (Quality Assurance Agency) benchmarking for planning discipline (2015-2024) and provides advice to UK and international government agencies. She regularly delivers keynote and high profile public lectures on planning and urban design topics and sits on international jury panels for judging planning and urban design projects. She was a jury member for NIC competition entries for CAMKOX growth corridor  and chaired two events as part of the Academy of Urbanism initiative.

Dr. Wong Wah Sang joined the Department of Architecture of HKU as academic staff since 1990. He is currently an Associate Professor of the Department. On various occasions, he had served as associate head, acting head, and acting dean for the Faculty of Architecture. He taught in various courses for design, technology, and practices in the BAAS and MArch curriculum as well as acted as supervisor and examiner for MPh and PhD students in HKU. Dr. Wong had also taught in the Centre of Buddhist Studies since 2004 for various courses.

Dr. Yunqing Xu is Senior Associate Professor at the Department of Urban Planning and Design, Design School and Director of the University Research Centre for Urban and Environmental Studies (UES) of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Her expertise lies in sustainable and livable cities, planning and property development, land and housing, urban policies, and discretionary planning. Dr Xu has diverse work experience previously at international organisation, universities and property consultancy companies. She has developed rich experience in government-education-industry collaborations and serves roles such as International Advisory Board Member of the UN-Habitat World Cities Report, think tank expert for the Construction Branch of CCPIT, China, and procurement selective review expert for the Suzhou government.

Her research interests:
Incentive-based urban regeneration; property-led urban (re)development; regional coordinated development; sustainable city and assessment
Urban planning and property development, discretionary planning, and transfer of development rights
Housing and livability; housing and urban policies; land and housing market

Professor Yinong Xu was educated at Tsinghua University, China, and the University of Edinburgh, the United Kingdom. He had taught Chinese architecture and urbanism at Brown University for two years before his employment at the University of New South Wales, where he has concentrated on teaching architectural history and theory, architectural design and architectural communications, while intensively devoting himself to cross-cultural and inter-institutional engagement in both educational and institutional development. Yinong has authored one scholarly book and numerous book chapters and articles for international refereed journals and conferences. His main areas of interest in research include architectural history, urban history, garden history, time and memory in architecture, and architectural and pictorial space, all of which have been approached from cross-cultural perspectives.

Prof. Yung Yau is now teaching and researching at Lingnan University. Before he joined Lingnan University as a Professor in August 2021, he had worked in the Buildings Department, The University of Hong Kong, and City University of Hong Kong. His research interests include anti-social behaviour, heritage conservation, building illegality, housing economics, governance of multi-owned properties, inclusive built environment, and urban regeneration. He is a professional member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Yu Ye, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Architecture, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University. He worked as a researcher in the Future Cities Laboratory, Singapore-ETH Centre, ETH Zurich, and as a senior research assistant in the Faculty of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong. He obtained his Ph.D. in urban design from the University of Hong Kong and an MSc in urbanism from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). As an urban designer and researcher, Dr. Ye’s research focuses on two fields. The first is applying quantitative morphological tools and big data to inform urban design and assist better place-making. The second is evidence-based urban design based on virtual reality and biometric sensors to achieve human-oriented measurements.

Dr. Jihui Yuan is an Associate Professor of the Graduate School of Human Life and Ecology, Division of Human Life and Ecology, Osaka Metropolitan University. 

His research mainly aims at developing urban heat island (UHI) mitigation and building energy savings strategies, including the research on i) retro-reflective (RR) materials possibly applied to building exterior wall surface, ii) development of weather database used for air-conditioning design, iii) prediction of building indoor & outdoor thermal environment affected by urban climate change and different urban block coverings; iv) human thermal comfort from different urban and building designs.

Qi Zhang holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in architecture from Tsinghua University. He is the chief architect of China Architecture Design & Research Group Co., Ltd., and the director of Zhang Qi Studio. He is a national-level recipient of the New Century Hundred and Thousand Talents Program, an expert with the State Council's Special Allowance, and one of the 100 contemporary architects in China. He has received the Young Architect Award of the Chinese Architectural Society, the Guanghua Longten Award - China Design Contribution Award, and the China Design 70 People Nomination Award. He is the director of the Green Building Investment Promotion Committee of the China Building Energy Conservation Association, a member of the Architectural Theory and Creation Committee, the Education Building Professional Committee, the Contemporary Chinese Creation Forum, and the Academic Committee of Industrial Building Heritage of the China Construction Engineering Association. He is also a member of the Traditional Architecture Branch of the China Construction Design Association, a member of the Performance Venue Professional Committee of the China Performing Equipment Technology Association, and a member of the China APEC Architects. He is a senior member of the Chinese Architectural Society, a member of the Hong Kong Architects' Society, and a Chinese APEC Architect.

Professor Binsheng Zhang obtained his BEng in 1982, MSc in 1984, and Ph.D. in concrete materials science in 1987 at Tongji University, Shanghai. After briefly working as a lecturer, he joined the Civil Engineering Department at Glasgow University in 1988 as a research fellow, working on the EPSRC and industrial projects until 2002. Afterward, he worked as a structural engineering consultant for two years and then became a Lecturer in structural engineering in 2003 in the School of Engineering and the Built Environment at Edinburgh Napier University. In 2013, he joined Glasgow Caledonian University as a Senior Lecturer in Civil and Structural Engineering, and he became a Professor in 2016.

Dr. Miaoxi Zhao is a professor in the Department of Urban Planning, School of Architecture, at South China University of Technology. He currently serves as Head of the Urban Planning Department and Deputy Director of the Guangdong Smart City Planning Engineering Technology Research Center. In 2019, he received the Chinese Urban Planning Youth Science and Technology Award.  

Dr. Zhao has led more than 20 national and provincial-level research projects. To date, he has published over 100 academic papers, with significant research findings appearing in internationally recognized journals such as Urban Studies, Cities, Urban Planning, Urban Planning Journal, Geography Journal, and Architectural Journal. His publications have been indexed by major databases including SCI, SSCI, CNKI, China Doctoral Dissertations Full-text Database, and China Conference Proceedings Database, and he has been recognized as a highly cited researcher (top 1%) by CNKI.  

His recent research interests include: 1) urban image perception in networked environments; 2) spatial network analysis of polycentric cities; and 3) the identification of urban spatial characteristics using multi-source data.

Dr. Jing Zheng received her Ph.D. in Architecture from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2012. She is currently an Associate Professor of the Department of Architecture at Wuhan University, China. Her research is in the field of Chinese vernacular architecture, with a specific focus on the politics, social, and cultural impulses. During her stay at HYI, she plans to conduct research on the interaction between Chinese vernacular fortresses and local militarization in late imperial China.

Prof. Guangya Zhu is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Southeast University, and an expert who enjoys the government's special allowance. He previously served as the director of the Architecture History and Theory Teaching Department, the director of the research institute, and the academic leader of the architecture department at Southeast University. He also concurrently held various social positions such as the vice president of the Chinese Society of Ethnic Architecture, an expert of the National Cultural Heritage Administration, and an academic member of the National Committee for Historical Cities. He received the Building Education Award of the Chinese Architectural Society and the Lifetime Achievement Award for the Chinese Ethnic Architecture Cause. 

He has profound insights into the large wooden structures of the Ming Dynasty buildings, the dating of ancient buildings, Chinese classical gardens, and the design concepts of ancient buildings. He is one of the main authors of the national standard textbook "History of Chinese Architecture". Facing the problems and contradictions in the protection of architectural heritage in various periods of our country, he constantly creates new forward-looking theoretical and technical research directions, such as the research on the evaluation methods of Chinese architectural heritage in 1989, the rescue records and scientific analysis research of traditional architectural techniques in 1999, the research on adaptive fire protection and municipal technology for famous cities protection in 2001, the research on preventive protection of architectural heritage in 2007, and the research on the economics of heritage protection in recent years. In 2019, he published the monograph "Architectural Heritage Protection Science", which systematically constructed the theoretical and knowledge system of the architectural heritage protection discipline, condensed the core theories of Chinese architectural heritage such as the values of rebirth and restoration, the aesthetic view of dynamic harmony, and the practical rational methodology, and won the National Publishing Fund and the nomination for the China Publishing Government Award. His scientific research achievements have won one National Science and Technology Progress Award First Prize and six provincial and ministerial-level science and technology awards from the Ministry of Education, the National Cultural Heritage Administration.

Dr. Sisi Zlatanova is Professor, Faculty of Built Environment, UNSW Sydney.

She has graduated as a surveyor at the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy (Bulgaria) and obtained my PhD degree on 3D GIS for Urban Development at the Graz University of Technology (Austria). She worked as a software programmer at the Central Cadastre (Bulgaria) and have been at academic positions at UACG (Bulgaria), the Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC, the Netherlands), Graz University of Technology (Austria), Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands) and Siberian State University of Geosystems and Technologies (Russia). She joined the University of New South Wales in January 2018.

She supervises master's and PhD students on topics related to 3D spatial modelling and analysis. Her recent research concentrates on 3D Indoor modelling and navigation. She is an author and co-author of more than 300 papers, and she has edited and co-edited 23 books. A full list of publications (downloadable) is available here. She has been involved in the work of several international organisations. She is the president of ISPRS TC IV on Spatial Information Science, the treasurer of UDMS, and a co-chair of OGC SWG IndoorGML. She has been actively participating in the organisation of conferences such as Gi4DM, UDMS, 3D GeoInfo, Indoor3D, and summer schools.

Dr. Bruno De Meulder teaches urbanism at the KU Leuven, where he is vice-chair of the Department of Architecture and coordinates the post-graduate programmes of human settlements and urbanism. In his research, theory and practice, analysis and design, history, and contemporary urban practices intersect. At the KU Leuven Urbanism and Architecture (OSA), De Meulder is currently supervising design research that focuses on spatial production and consumption patterns, territorial reuse, recycling, and upcycling – from Flanders, Belgium, to Ca Mau, Cantho, and from Saigon, Vietnam, to Cajamarca, Peru.

Dr. Chen Fei is an associate professor at the School of Architecture of Tianjin University.

His research interests include: 
1. Community renewal / Renovation of old buildings 
2. Barrier-free / Age-friendly / Inclusive / Cognitive Disability-Compliant Communities 
3. Environmental Behavior Studies / Digital Environmental Design / Digital Human Factors / Digital Fabrication 
4. Health-oriented Urban Renewal / Campus Renewal Design

Prof. Dr. Donizete Beck is currently serving as a Professor/Lecturer at the School of Economics and Business, Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas. Also, he is a research partner of the "International Laboratory for Digital Transformation in Public Administration" of the Higher School of Economics (Russia), and research partner of the "The Public Organizations and Public Policy Interdisciplinary Behavioral Lab" of the School of Political Sciences, the University of Haifa (Israel). Furthermore, he was postdoctoral researcher at Centro de Estudos das Cidades - Arq.Futuro Lab of Insper Institute of Education and Research. Also, he was Associate Editor of the "Journal of Environmental Management & Sustainability" (JCR 2022: 0,5) for one year and a half. Dr. Beck holds a Ph.D. in Administration from Universidade Nove de Julho (UNINOVE), with a one-year fellowship at the School of Political Sciences, University of Haifa, Israel. Dr. Beck also holds an M.Sc. in Smart and Sustainable Cities (UNINOVE). In addition, he has a Certification in Political Science from the Fundação Escola de Ciência Política de São Paulo (FESPSP) and an MBA in Hospital Administration (UNINOVE). He also holds a B.A. in Business Administration (UNINOVE) and an A.D. in Public Administration (UNINOVE). Finally, he is a former member of the Municipal Participative Council of São Paulo Municipality. His research interests are within three main areas of the field of Administration Sciences: Urban Management, Public Administration, and Business Administration. Much of his research involves the Theory of Stakeholders, which is vital in the strategy and performance of these three organizational niches and has an impact on socioeconomic and environmental development. He also works with ESG, CSR, Resource-based View, and Network approaches. It is remarkable that his interdisciplinary approach between Urban Studies, Sustainability, and Administration Sciences, he also has experience with urban phenomena and tools, such as Smart Sustainable Cities, Land-Use Planning, Urban Policies, and Urban Governance. It is noteworthy to highlight that Dr. Beck is one of the creators of the "Cross-Network Information Analysis" methodological protocol, which investigates dyadic phenomena by the Mixed Method Research approach and has already been validated in three internationally recognized journals (Q1, all indexed to Scopus and WoS). He is also the author of an encyclopedia entry on Stakeholder Theory published by Elsevier in the International Encyclopedia of Business Management. His main publications were published in high-impact journals, such as Sustainable Cities and Society (JCR 2022: 11,7), Journal of Cleaner Production (JCR 2022: 11.1), Ecological Economics (JCR 2022: 7), and Cities (JCR 2022: 6.7).

Postdoctoral fellow at the School of Architecture, Tianjin University.

Ruoran Wang is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the International Research Center for Chinese Cultural Heritage Conservation, School of Architecture, Tianjin University.  She received her doctoral degree from Tianjin University in 2022 and her BA(Hons)/MSc in Landscape Architecture from the University of Edinburgh, the UK, in 2014.  Her main research areas include the urban and construction history of East Asia's modern treaty port cities, the modern cultural heritage conservation of East Asia, and architecture history and theory.  She received the Excellent Paper Award for Young Scholars, International Conference on East Asian Architectural Culture. She is now undertaking the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project of the Ministry of Education and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation projects.

Xiaoliang Wang is a lecturer and master's supervisor at the School of Architecture, Southwest Minzu University. He graduated from Southwest Jiaotong University and is a member of the Architectural Society of China.

The main research directions include adaptive technologies for buildings in the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau region, green buildings, and the collaborative optimization of building light and thermal performance etc.

He has presided over one project funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and participated in more than ten other scientific research projects at various levels. More than 20 academic papers have been published in domestic and international academic journals such as CIS, Hey, and Chinese Core, and four national utility model patents have been authorized.

Dr. Yubin Xu is an Assistant Professor from XJTU, who obtained his M. Arch and Ph.D. from Tongji University, Shanghai. During his Ph.D., he also conducted a joint Ph.D. program at the College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore. Dr. Xu’s research focuses on the regeneration of the historic built environment and the revitalization of cultural heritage by integrating environment-behavior studies and regional vernacular architecture.

Dr. Xu Gaofeng is an associate professor at the School of Architecture and Art, Beijing Jiaotong University.

His main research interests:
1. Research on Urban and Rural Land Use and Policies
2. Research on Urban Spatial Measurement and Big Data Application
3. Research on Spatial Planning and Governance

Dr. Yang Qianru holds a double bachelor's degree in Architecture and Computer Science and Technology from Southeast University
Master's Degree in Architectural Design and Theory from Southeast University
Doctor of Human Settlements Degree from Sichuan University
Master's supervisor
Deputy Director of the Department of Architecture, School of Architecture, Southwest Minzu University
Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of the Digital Architecture Specialized Committee of the Sichuan Architects Society
Research on the Application of Spatial Information Technology in Cultural Heritage Protection Deputy Director of the Chengdu Workstation of the Key Scientific Research Base of the National Cultural Heritage Administration
Member of the Computational Design Academic Committee of the Architectural Society of China
Member of the Cultural Heritage Protection Committee of the China Society for Surveying and Mapping

Her research interests include:
AI-assisted architectural design, AI-assisted architectural heritage protection, computational design, parametric design, numerical control construction of buildings, new urban science, etc. 

Zhang Jiazhen, a Doctor of Architecture, is an associate professor and master's supervisor at Wales College, Lanzhou University. He is also the director of the Department of Environmental Design and Rural Revitalization.

His research fields are rural revitalization, industrial heritage protection, and sustainable development of human settlements.