Prof. Cuiying Jian 

York University, Canada
Multifunctional Carbon Material Platforms Enabled by Intelligent Manufacturing and Predictive Modelling

Dr. Cuiying Jian is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at York University and holds a York Massey Fellow appointment at Massey College, University of Toronto. Prior to joining York, Dr. Jian worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on developing sustainable, economically viable applications of carbon-rich materials (e.g., polymers and industrial residues) through intelligent manufacturing for energy, health, and environmental systems. Dr. Jian has received the 2024 Petro-Canada Emerging Innovator Award, the 2025 Lassonde Innovation Award, and the 2025 Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering I.W. Smith Award, among other honours.　

 

 

Prof. Katsuyuki Kida 

University of Toyama, Japan  

Professor Katsuyuki Kida was born in 1968 in Osaka, where he studied mechanical engineering at Osaka University from 1988. Apart from course work, he studied rolling contact fatigue (RCF) occurring in TiC and TiN coated steels using both X-ray diffraction and scanning acoustic microscopy. After graduation he pursued his academic career and obtained a Ph.D. in engineering mechanics in 2000, investigating RCF problems of all-Si3N4 bearings. By observing cracking and flaking failure under RCF, he succeeded in explaining the material`s features from the viewpoint of fracture mechanics. From 2000 he focused his work on investigating the contact problems of several materials used in machine elements. He has also continued fundamental research on contact problems, for which he received ‘The Best Paper Prize (FFEMS PRIZE)’ from ‘Fatigue & Fracture of Engineering Materials & Structures’ journal in 2005. The awarded papers reported establishing a crack growth mechanism under contact pressure, a problem previously unsolved for over 70 years since S. Way’s proposed theory. His research interests now include the development of three dimensional scanning Hall-probe microscope technologies, fatigue phenomena in polymer bearing, crack growth mechanism under contact stresses and refinement of high-carbon steels.　

 

 

 

Prof. Teik-Cheng Lim  

Singapore University of Social Sciences, Singapore  
Speech Title: Metamaterials with Poisson’s ratio discontinuity at the original state

Teik-Cheng Lim won a Faculty of Engineering Annual Book Prize for his undergraduate education at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and was awarded an NUS Research Scholarship to pursue his PhD at the same university. Teik-Cheng is currently Full Professor as well as the Head of the PhD (Engineering) and Master of Engineering programmes at the Singapore University of Social Sciences. His monographs include Auxetic Materials and Structures (Springer, 2015), Mechanics of Metamaterials with Negative Parameters (Springer, 2020) and A Partially Auxetic Metamaterial Inspired by the Maltese Cross (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Professor Lim has been listed in Stanford’s list of top 2% scientists in the field of materials science since its inception.