Igor Lacík

Igor Lacík is the research professor working at the Polymer Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, Slovakia. From 2010 till 2018 he was the director of this institute. From 2011 till now he is the Head of Department for biomaterials research (http://www.polymer.sav.sk/OVB). His primary research topics are kinetics of free radical polymerization of water-soluble monomers, implantable microcapsules for immune-protection of transplanted cells in diabetes treatment, and hydrogel-based biomaterials. His long-term research stays include Sydney University (with Prof. Robert G. Gilbert), CNRS Strasbourg (with Dr. Françoise Candau), Vanderbilt University (with Prof. Taylor G. Wang), and Georg-August University Goettingen (with Prof. Michael Buback). He publishedaround 150 publications.

He leads and/or is involved in numerous national and international projects, among others contracts with BASF SE (Germany), Otsuka Pharmaceutical Factory Inc. (Japan), Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (USA), Chicago Diabetes Project (USA). He has been awarded by prestigious national awards, lately Crystal Wing for Medicine and Science (2015), Personality of the Science and Technology (2018), The Slovak Academy of Sciences Medal for support of the science (2022), Dionyz Ilkovic Medal for contribution to physical and chemical sciences (2022), and ESET Science Award as a Laureate in the category Outstanding Scientist in Slovakia (2023). Since 2024 he serves as the president of Polymer division IUPAC and the member of the IUPAC Science Board.

Katja Loos

Katja Loos is Professor at the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials of the University of Groningen, holding the chair of Macromolecular Chemistry and New Polymeric Materials. She currently serves as the President of the European Polymer Federation for the period of 2023 to 2025. 

She specialized in Organic Chemistry and Polymer Chemistry during her university studies at the Johannes Gutenberg Universität in Mainz, Germany and the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, USA. She moved into the field of Enzymatic Polymerizations during her doctoral research at the University of Bayreuth, Germany and the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brasil. After a postdoctoral research stay at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, NY, USA she started an independent research group at the University of Groningen. 

Katja Loos pioneered the field of enzymatic polymerization, especially the biocatalytic synthesis of polysaccharides and polyamides, and the synthesis and self-assembly of PVDF containing block copolymers. Already early in her career Katja Loos was awarded two travel scholarships of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and she received the very prestigious Feodor Lynen Fellowship award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to conduct her postdoctoral research. During her independent research career, on the basis of her unique approach in combining modern polymer synthesis, (macro) molecular self-assembly, and utilization of the arising structures the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded her the prestigious VIDI grant in 2009 and VICI grant in 2014 and the German Research Council (DFG) the Eleonore Trefftz guest professorship within the scope of its excellency initiative. Among others she was awarded the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the IUPAC Distinguished Women in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Award and the Team Science Award of the Dutch Research Council (NWO). In 2023 she received the title of Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion.

Katja Loos is a Fellow of the Dutch Polymer Institute (DPI) and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC).

Wojciech Pisula

Professor Wojciech Pisula holds a PhD in Chemistry, which he obtained in 2005 at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz. In 2015, he received his habilitation in Material Science from the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany. In the same year, he was appointed as Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Physics at the Lodz University of Technology in Poland, and later promoted to Full Professor in 2020. Wojciech Pisula has been serving as an Editor for Synthetic Metals since 2016 and as Editor-in-Chief for Electronic Materials since 2020. His research interests primarily focus on the physical and chemical aspects of self-organizing semiconductors and their functionality. He has authored over 230 publications in peer-reviewed journals resulting in an H-Index of 82. In addition to his academic career, Wojciech Pisula also joined Evonik Industries in 2006, where he currently holds the position of Director at the Applied Technology Silicone.

Sandra Schlögl

Sandra Schlögl currently heads the division “Chemistry of Functional Polymers” at the Polymer Competence Center Leoben and finished her habilitation (post-doctoral lecturing qualification) in Macromolecular Chemistry at Montanuniversitaet Leoben in 2017. Her research centers on stimuli-responsive polymers, dynamic polymer networks, photochemistry in polymers and surface functionalization of polymers. She has already published more than 160 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has received several national and international awards (e.g. EARTO Innovation Award,

Paul Dufour Award) for her research.