Since July 2025, Mrs Cantoni has served as Director General of CIRA - the Italian Aerospace Research
Center (located in Capua, Italy), while also heading the Research and Testing Infrastructures
Directorate. In this role, she leads multidisciplinary teams of over 70 experts and oversees
infrastructures and projects worth more than €200 million, driving CIRA’s position as a leading hub
for aerospace innovation and technological excellence.
Graduate in Aeronautical Engineering with a PhD in Materials and Structural Engineering, she brings
over three decades of experience in developing advanced materials, including high-performance
composites and ceramics, as well as in aerospace research and the management of complex, high-impact
projects at both national and international levels.
Mrs Cantoni is an active member of numerous technical-scientific committees and European
associations, a lecturer in master’s programs and specialized courses on aerospace materials and the
Space Economy and the author of more than 35 international publications. Her work is further
distinguished by several patents in composite and ceramic materials, reflecting her significant
contributions to scientific and technological progress in aerospace.
Prof. Liangbin Li received his Ph.D. (2000) in Polymer Material Processing from Sichuan
University.
From 2000 to 2004, he was a postdoctoral fellow in FOM-Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics
and Technology University of Delft, The Netherlands. From 2004 to 2006, he worked as a material
scientist at the Unilever Food and Health Research Institute. Since 2006, he joined the National
Synchrotron Radiation Lab at the University of Science and Technology of China to start the Soft
Matter Group and awarded the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of China in
2013.
His primary research interests are developing in-situ synchrotron radiation X-ray scattering
techniques, polymer physics relevant to processing such as flow-induced crystallization,
stress-induced deformation and phase transition of polymers.
He authored more than 300 publications and has served as an Associate Editor for Macromolecules
since 2018.
Alexandra Albunia has 25 years of experience in material and polymer science. She studied chemistry
at
the University of Salerno (Italy), where she defended her PhD in 2003 and where she started her
research
activity. She joined Borealis as a scientist in 2011, where she is currently a Senior Group Expert.
She
worked on the development of new materials, from synthesis and characterization up to final
application,
from small scale to commercial scale production. In the last years, she explored circularity and
sustainability of polyolefin solutions too. The research activity is documented by around 80
scientific
publications, among peer reviewed journals, books, and patents.
She is Executive Board Member of the European Chemical Society (2024-2026) and member of Committee
for
Industry of the “Societa’ Chimica Italiana” (2020-2025).
Nino Grizzuti Professor of Transport Phenomena and Rheology at the University of Naples Federico
II.
He is author or co-author of about 150 scientific papers, most of them published on peer-reviewed
international Journals. His main research area is rheology, with particular emphasis on the
relations between macroscopic rheological response and microstructural organization, including:
Molecular modeling and rheology of polymer solutions and melts, liquid crystalline polymers and
polymer blends; phase transitions (both in absence and in presence of flow) of complex fluids;
hydrogels for food and bioengineering applications.
Currently, his research is focused on the viscoelasticity of polymer melts with specific
architectures, the sol and gel properties of polymeric hydrogels and their implications on
3D-printing.
He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Polymer Engineering.
Francisco Chinesta is currently full Professor of computational physics at Arts et Metiers Institute
of Technology (Paris, France), Honorary Fellow of the “Institut Universitaire de France” - IUF - and
Fellow of the Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering.
He was AIRBUS Group chair professor and since 2013 he was and is ESI, RTE, SKF and Keysight chair
professor.
He received many scientific awards, among them the IACM Fellow award, the IACM Zienkiewicz award,
the ESAFORM award, ….
He is author of about 440 papers in peer-reviewed international journals. He is president of the
French Association of Mechanics, as well as the director of the GdR CNRS I-GAIA on data and
artificial intelligence based augmented engineering.
He received many distinctions, among them the Academic Palms, the
French Order of Merit, … in 2018 the Doctorate Honoris Causa at the University of Zaragoza (Spain)
and in 2019 the Silver Medal from the French CNRS.