Dr. NGUYEN received his Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Ming Chi University of Technology, Taiwan, in 2017, and his Ph.D. in Information Science from the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) in 2022, where he spent the following year as a Postdoctoral Researcher. From 2023 to 2026, he was an Assistant Professor at the School of Information Science, JAIST. Since April 2026, he has been a Senior Lecturer and he established the Soft Robotics & Embodied Intelligence (SoREI) Laboratory.

His research interests include soft robotics, tactile sensing technologies, multimodal sensing systems, embodied intelligence, and physical intelligence. His goal is to answer one question: how much of a robot’s “thinking” can be handed to its body instead of its controller? To this end, he studies how a compliant body can sense, adapt, and act with less computation than a rigid machine would need, extending the work toward robot learning.

In 2024, Dr. NGUYEN received the Best Paper Award at the IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SII2024) and the IEEE RAS Japan Joint Chapter Young Award, in 2025. He has served on the organizing committees of SII2024 and the 2026 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft).

Dr. Doan‘s research has centered on the development of functional inorganic nanomaterials for biomedical applications, beginning with the synthesis and characterization of rare earth doped nanoparticles for medical imaging. This work included the design of nanomaterial-based contrast agents capable of integrating complementary imaging modalities within a single platform, together with approaches to surface functionalization and bioconjugation that enhance the specificity and performance of these systems. Dr. Doan subsequently advanced research on organic nanomaterials for bioimaging in biological systems, while continuing to strengthen this work through collaborations with academic and clinical institutions. More recent work has focused on the development of targeted nanoplatforms for cancer imaging and image-guided applications, extending advanced imaging approaches toward preclinical and clinical relevance. Taken together, Dr. Doan aims to foster an interdisciplinary research program spanning nanomaterials chemistry, bioimaging, and nanomedicine, driven by a sustained interest in translating fundamental nanotechnology into practical biomedical solutions.

Tomoyuki Hirano is an Assistant Professor in the Chemical Engineering Program, Graduate School of Advanced Science and Engineering, Hiroshima University. He received his Ph.D. (Engineering) in chemical engineering from Hiroshima University in 2022. His research concerns functional nanostructured materials synthesized by aerosol and flame processes, with applications in fuel cells, water electrolysis, heterogeneous catalysis, and thermal management. He is particularly interested in particle morphology, porous structure, and interface engineering for improving material performance and durability. In 2025, he received the Young Researcher Award from the Japan Association of Aerosol Science and Technology and the SCEJ Award for Outstanding Young Researcher from the Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan.

Dr. Phung Duc Luc is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Agriculture at Yamagata University. His research focuses on sustainable circular agriculture through the safe use of sewage-derived resources, particularly composted sewage sludge and treated wastewater. Combining field, controlled-environment, and laboratory studies, he investigates crop productivity, nutrient-use efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, dissolved organic matter, and soil microbial functions. He also examines the occurrence, fate, and transfer of emerging contaminants across water –soil–plant systems and their potential ecological and human-health risks.

Dr. Luc received his Ph.D. from the United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Iwate University. He previously served as a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Fellow and a Project Assistant Professor. Through collaboration with municipalities, resource-recovery operators, farmers, and international researchers, he develops practical solutions for climate-smart, resource-efficient, and environmentally safe agriculture.

Nguyen Thanh Sang’s research focuses on metabolomics and mass spectrometry-based investigation of bioactive natural products from plant, microbial, and food sources. His expertise includes LC-MS/MS data processing, feature based molecular networking, spectral similarity analysis, and compound annotation. His research involves the identification and prioritization of diverse bioactive metabolites, including saponins, flavonoids, ginsenosides, and antimicrobial peptides. He also works on functional food evaluation and fermentation derived bioactive compounds, integrating metabolomic profiling and R based statistical analysis and data visualization to interpret chemical and biological responses.

Assistant Professor Long Tam Pham, PhD in Business Administration (2024), is at the College of International Management, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU). As a Japanese Government Scholarship (MEXT) scholar, he holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration from Osaka University. His research explores Sustainable Development, Social Responsibility, and Sustainability in Management. He is an early-career researcher with a record in comparative management research, including the EURAM Sustainability Paper Award (2025) for a transgenerational study of family firms in Japan and Austria, the Distinguished Impact Award of the College of International Management (AY2026), and a British Council RENKEI Early Career Researcher Grant (2023).

Dr. Forhad Hossain is an academician, entrepreneurship educator, and social entrepreneur whose work focuses on Empathy-Driven Entrepreneurship (EDE)—an approach that connects entrepreneurship, innovation, and human-centered problem solving to address complex social and economic challenges. With more than 10 years of experience across academia and industry, his interdisciplinary background spans Management and Information Science, with research and practice in entrepreneurship, social business, SDGs, digital health, health innovation, and sustainable development.

Through his teaching, research, and entrepreneurial engagement, Dr. Hossain promotes entrepreneurship not only as a means of venture creation, but also as a mechanism for understanding people’s needs, designing inclusive solutions, and generating meaningful social and economic value. His current work on Empathy-Driven Entrepreneurship emphasizes the importance of empathy, contextual understanding, collaboration, and responsible innovation in developing entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

He has worked across sectors to design entrepreneurship programs, support startups, mentor aspiring entrepreneurs, and advance sustainable solutions, particularly in Global South contexts. He is also actively engaged in building collaboration between developed and developing countries to promote knowledge exchange, capacity building, and resource mobilization for sustainable impact.

Through his academic and practical initiatives, Dr. Hossain seeks to bridge empathy with entrepreneurship, research with practice, and ideas with action, contributing to more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems.