Dr. Bahrami is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Alternative Energy Conversion Systems at SFU. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineers (FCAE) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (FASME). Bahrami championed interdisciplinary, collaborative research in multitudes of sustainable clean energy systems, including: harvesting and transforming low-grade heat for sustainable air conditioning, thermal energy storage, atmospheric water harvesting, heat pump systems and dehumidification for applications in automotive, agri-food, sustainable city, and hybrid thermal electric microgrids. He has a strong track record in successful collaboration with national and international research institutes and industry. He formed 2 start-ups; won national and international research and innovation awards; published 12 patents and 350 publications; and supervised 180+ highly qualified personnel, including 8 professors.

Gretar Tryggvason is the Charles A. Miller, Jr. Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins University and the head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He received his PhD from Brown University in 1985 and was on the faculty of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor until 2000, when he moved to Worcester Polytechnic Institute as the head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Between 2010 and 2017 he was the Viola D. Hank professor at the University of Notre Dame and the chair of the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. Professor Tryggvason is well known for his contributions to computational fluid dynamics; particularly the development of methods for computations of multiphase flows and for pioneering direct numerical simulations of such flows. He served as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Computational Physics 2002-2015, is a fellow of APS, ASME and AAAS, and the recipient of several awards, including the 2012 ASME Fluids Engineering Award and the 2019 ASTFE Award.