Speakers

Prof. Zaili Yang
Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), UK

Zaili Yang is Professor of Maritime Transport at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), UK. Prior to his current appointment, he was Reader in Maritime Transport (2010-2014) and a lecturer in Maritime Operations (2007-2010) at the School of Engineering, Technology and Maritime Operations, LJMU. He received his BEng in Maritime Transportation from Dalian Maritime University, China, in 2001, MSc in International Transport from Cardiff University, UK, in 2003, and PhD in Maritime Safety from LJMU, UK, in 2006. Prof. Yang’s research interests are analysis and modelling of safety, resilience and sustainability of transport networks, particularly maritime and logistics systems. Prof. Yang has received more than £13m (located to LJMU only) external grants (£8m as the PI) from the EU, UK EPSRC and UK DTI to support his research, including a prestigious ERC consolidator grant. Research funding support has also been received from government collaborators (i.e. UK MoD and Korean research collaborative funds) via PhD research projects. Prof. Yang has successfully completed 9 postdoctoral and 45 PhD projects. He currently has 5 postdoctoral researcher and 11 PhD students under his supervision in the research areas of maritime safety, logistics operation and port optimisation. His research findings have been published in 400 refereed papers in risk and supply chain areas, including 240 SCI/SSCI cited journal and 150 conference papers. Prof. Yang is a member of 9 transport/maritime journals (e.g. Transport Research Part E). He has also served as a member of review boards for national research councils of USA, UK, EU, Canada, Norway, China and Hong Kong. He has received 15 paper awards and 4 research awards (e.g. Northeast Asia Logistics Award 2018).

Prof. Hamed Taherdoost
University Canada West, Canada

Dr. Hamed Taherdoost is an award-winning leader in research and development, known for his contributions across both industry and academia. He is the founder of Hamta Business Corporation, Associate Professor and Chair of RSAC at University Canada West, & Director of R&D at Q Minded | Quark Minded Technology Inc. He has over 20 years of experience in both industry and academic sectors. He has worked at international companies from Cyprus, the UK, Malta, Iran, Malaysia, and Canada and has been highly involved in development of several projects in different industries, healthcare, transportation, residential, oil and gas and IT. Additionally, he has served as a trusted technical and technology consultant for multiple companies, providing advisory and mentorship. In academia, Dr. Taherdoost has held teaching positions in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America since 2009. He began his academic career as a lecturer at AU & PNU and later served as an adjunct professor, dissertation chair and faculty fellow at Westcliff University, USA, & adjunct professor and thesis supervisor at Gisma University of Applied Sciences, Germany. His research tenure at IAU lasted over eight years, during which he supervised numerous students. Dr. Taherdoost has a prolific publishing record, with over 350 scientific articles in top-tier journals and conference proceedings. His work is widely recognized, with a strong citation impact reflecting in a high h-index (>50), and his contributions span book chapters, edited volumes, and authored books focusing on technology and research methodology. His textbooks on E-Business and Digital Transformation are teaching at global institutions, including the University of Malta, the University of Macau, and University Canada West. His research accomplishments have earned him a place among the top 10 SSRN Business Authors from 2021 to 2024, as well as being featured in the Stanford-Elsevier list of the world's top 2% of Scientists in 2021, 2022 2023 and 2024. Dr. Taherdoost has organized and chaired many workshops and conferences and has frequently been invited as a keynote speaker. He is an active member of the editorial, reviewer, and advisory boards for several prestigious journals published by Taylor & Francis, Springer, Emerald, Elsevier, MDPI, EAI, IGI Publishing, and Inderscience. He has also participated as an organising, scientific and technical committee member in over 400 conferences held across Europe, America, Australia, Asia, and Africa. Dr. Taherdoost's leadership and innovation have earned him numerous accolades, including THE BIZZ Business Excellence Award, PeerJ Award, and recognition at the Asia Corporate Excellence & Sustainability Awards. He was a finalist for the Innovation in Teaching of Research Methodology Excellence Awards and Southeast Asian Startup Awards by Global Startup Awards. Additionally, his research achievements also include winning several best paper awards, outstanding reviewer awards and best presentation awards like MLIS awards, CSA award, CSTFM Lecture award, the Outstanding Editorial Board Member award from Bilingual Publishing, Best Paper of the Year of Computers MDPI, Editor's Choice Articles of Algorithm Journal, and Best Interview Award of Encyclopedia. Dr. Taherdoost is the Editor of a book series with Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group) titled Mastering Academic Excellence: Research, Teaching, Learning, and Publishing. He serves on the editorial boards of several high-impact journals, including the International Journal of Information Technology Project Management (IGI, IF: 0.8), Transactions on Scalable Information Systems (EAI, Q2), International Journal of Electronic Government Research (IGI, IF: 1.2), Information Resources Management Journal (IGI, IF: 1.4), Journal of Blockchain (MDPI), and International Journal of Data Mining, Modelling, and Management (InderScience, IF: 0.5, CS: 0.9). He is also an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics (Scopus) and Academic Editor of PLOS ONE. He’s been a guest editor of special issues in Results in Engineering, Elsevier (IF: 5 & CS:4.5), Electronics MDPI (IF: 1.9 & CS: 4.7), Computers MDPI (IF:2.8 & CS: 4.7), Discover Computing by Springer He is a Certified Cyber Security Professional and Certified Graduate Technologist. He is a GUS Fellow - GUS Institute | Global University Systems, senior member of IEEE, and Working Group Member of International Federation for Information Processing - IFIP TC 11 - Human Aspects of Information Security and Assurance and Information Security Management. Currently, he is involved in several multidisciplinary research projects, including studying innovation in information technology, blockchain, cybersecurity, and technology acceptance.

Assoc. Prof. Ts. Dr.-Ing. Joewono Prasetijo
Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), Malaysia

Joewono Prasetijo is Dr.-Ing. graduated from Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. He also completed his Master's and Postgraduate Diploma (Eng.) at the IHE-Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. His main educational and research backgrounds are road quality services and road safety as well as track work engineering and maintenance. He is now a member of Working Group Committee 1: Public Transport Expert Group – Road Congestion (EWGPTC) at the Ministry of Transport Malaysia since 2023. He is also a member of the Evaluation Panel (APP) at the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) since 2018. Currently serving as an Associate Professor at the Department of Transportation Engineering Technology at Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), Dr. Joewono is also the Principal Researcher (PR) of the Industry Centre of Excellence for Railway (ICoE-Rel) which is officially under the Cluster 13 (Rail) of the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia. Previously, he was appointed as Chairman of the MySafe Road Tactical Road Safety Committee @ Batu Pahat, Road Safety Department, Ministry of Transport Malaysia in 2017, Head of the Department of Transportation Engineering Technology, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Head of the Industry Centre of Excellence for Railway (ICoE-Rel), Deputy CEO of the Metro System Academy (MSA), Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia. He has over two decades of academic and research experience in railway transportation systems, urban mobility, traffic engineering, and logistics planning. He has led various national and international collaborations, particularly focusing on road quality and safety, sustainable railway integration, rail accident analysis, and capacity optimization for railway systems. Dr. Joewono has published over 88 academic works in Scopus- and WoS-indexed journals and proceedings, including topics on red-light running behavior, weaving section capacity, and urban rail transit planning. He has received research grants from the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education, New Car Assessment Program for Southeast Asian Countries (ASEAN NCAP) -Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS), and international partners, and frequently contributes to policy discussions on public transport and multimodal infrastructure planning. He is also actively involved in academic quality assurance, serving as an assessor and curriculum reviewer for engineering and technology programs in Malaysia. His work continues to shape the development of rail transport education and mobility policy in Southeast Asia. He actively contributes as a reviewer for journals such as Sustainability, Journal of Advanced Transportation, and Transportation Research Record. He is a member of ASCE, Transportation Research Board (TRB), and the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS) collaborative network. Dr. Joewono is also a regular speaker and panelist at regional transport conferences, including ASEAN rail development forums and bilateral university-industry engagements in Malaysia, Japan, and Indonesia.

Prof. Sara Moridpour
RMIT University, Australia

Prof. Sara Moridpour holds a Bachelor of Civil Engineering and received her master’s and PhD degrees in Traffic and Transportation Engineering. She has more than 20 years of work and research experience in traffic and transportation. She has been working at RMIT University since 2010 and is currently a professor of transport engineering. Sara is highly engaged in various research and professional activities within and beyond RMIT. She has worked on different projects, published numerous journal papers, and presented at prestigious conferences in transport modelling, traffic simulation, road safety, and sustainable transport. She has served as a technical and organising committee member of conferences and as an editorial board member of engineering journals.

Assoc. Prof. Vishal Sharma
Queen's University Belfast, UK

Vishal Sharma is a Reader at the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EEECS) at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. He is the director of the Innovation-by-design lab at QUB. Previously, he led the British Computer Society (BCS) Accreditation for QUB and was the Chair of the Computer Science Programme Review Working Group. He is the Northern Ireland Advanced Research and Engineering Centre (ARC) co-investigator. He also served as the co-chair of the IEEE UK and Ireland Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Before coming to QUB, he was a Research Fellow in the Information Systems Technology and Design Pillar at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, where he worked on the future-proof blockchain systems funded by MoE, Singapore. From November 2016 to March 2019, he worked in multiple positions in the Information Security Engineering Department at Soonchunhyang University, South Korea. Before this, he worked as a lecturer in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Thapar University, India. He is the recipient of the nine paper awards. He has authored/co-authored more than 150 journal/conference articles and book chapters and co-edited four books. His authored work is included in the IEEE ComSoc’s best readings in UAV Assisted Wireless Networks, Topic: Interference Mitigation and Drone Deployment. In 2024, he was recognised with QUB’s Individual Performance Award. Dr Sharma leads research in Cyber Defence and Secure Computing, with an emphasis on Network and Mobile Internet Security, Unmanned Aerial Systems, Agentic AI, Distributed Ledger Technology, and Digital Twins. He is a senior member of IEEE, a professional member of ACM, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy via the Queen’s Merit Award.

Prof. Wen Xiong
Beijing University of Technology, China

Wen Xiong, Professor and Associate Dean at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Beijing University of Technology. He concurrently serves as President of the Active Transportation Branch of the China Urban Public Transport Association and Secretary-General of the Municipal Transportation Committee of the Science and Technology Commission, Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of China. He has undertaken major projects such as the Key Program of the National Social Science Foundation of China, “Human-Centered Street Observation and Governance in the Chinese Context”. He established the China Urban Active Transportation Index and has contributed to active transportation planning in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Cangzhou, and Tianjin Binhai New Area. His research achievements have been recognized with honors such as the First Prize of the 17th Beijing Philosophy and Social Sciences Outstanding Achievements Award and the 5th Qian Xuesen City Science Gold Award.

Assoc. Prof. Peng Yang
Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, China

Peng Yang is currently an associate professor in the Institution of Data and Information and Division of Logistics & Transportation, Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University. He obtained his PhD degree in 2011 from the Industrial Engineering Department of Tsinghua University. He received both Master’s degree and Bachelor’s degree from the College of Mechanical Engineering, Chongqing University, in 2004 and 2007 respectively. His research interests include Robotic Warehousing System, Dynamic Order Picking Technologies, AI Technologies in the Warehouse and Logistics, Energy saving and carbon reduction in the Logistics Facilities.

Assoc. Prof. Chongfeng Wei
University of Glasgow, UK

Dr Chongfeng Wei obtained his PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK, and is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Glasgow, where he leads the Interactive Versatile Automation research group. Dr. Wei has published over 100 academic and conference papers in the fields of autonomous driving, intelligent transportation, dynamics and control, and human-machine interaction, including one ESI hot paper and six highly cited papers. He has received several prestigious awards, including: Best Paper Award at IEEE-ICHMS, Best Paper Award at MEDER, Royal Society Research Award Finalist in Robotics and AI, Best Academic Poster Award at IAVSD. Dr. Wei currently serves as an Associate Editor for multiple journals, including IEEE TITS, IEEE TVT, IEEE TIV, IEEE Open Journal of ITS, and Frontiers in Robotics and AI. Dr Wei is also a member of the UK EPSRC Early Career Forum in Robotics and Intelligent Systems and a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (HEA).

Assoc. Prof. David E. Boyle
Imperial College London, UK

Dr David E. Boyle is an Associate Professor in the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London, where he leads the Systems & Algorithms Lab. His research focuses on trustworthy, interpretable, and efficient learning for autonomous and cyber-physical systems, with applications in UAVs, robotics, and intelligent infrastructure. In this keynote, he will discuss recent results published in ICML, CoRL, and leading IEEE Transactions journals, highlighting new directions in interpretable and safe learning for autonomous systems.

Dr. Serio Angelo Maria Agriesti
Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark

Serio Agriesti is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), where he is working on embedding transport domain knowledge into machine learning solutions. He received his Ph.D. degree from Aalto University where Doctoral thesis focused on agent-based modeling, performance evaluation, and connected and automated driving. He has been a Research Fellow with the Politecnico di Milano, where he focused on the impact assessment of innovative transport systems, such as connected and automated vehicles and truck platooning. Serio has been involved in multiple national and European research projects and is part of the EIT Urban Mobility Doctoral Training Network. He has an extensive history of collaboration with universities, public bodies, industry and regulators. His publications covers multiple topics in the transportation domain, a non-exhaustive list being: network modeling, large-scale simulations, machine learning applied to traffic studies, deployment of intelligent transportation systems and impact assessment. His current research activities focus on machine learning in traffic simulations, on improving the performance of meta-models out of distribution and on embedding domain knowledge from simulators into machine learning algorithms.

Prof. Michel Bierlaire
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland

Michel Bierlaire is the director of the Transport and Mobility laboratory at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Since 2009, he is the director of TraCE, the Transportation Center. From September 2017 to August 2021, he has been the head of the Civil Engineering Institute at EPFL.
His main expertise is in the design, development and applications of models and algorithms for the design, analysis and management of transportation systems. Namely, he has been active in demand modeling (discrete choice models, estimation of origin-destination matrices), operations research (scheduling, assignment, etc.) and Dynamic Traffic Management Systems.
He is the founder of hEART: the European Association for Research in Transportation. He was the founding Editor-in-Chief of the EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics, from 2011 to 2019. He is an Associate Editor of Operations Research and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Transportation Research Part B and Transportation Research Part C.

Speech Title: Activity-based models: recent developments in travel demand modeling

Prof. Andrea D’Ariano
Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy

Prof. Andrea D’Ariano is Full Professor in Operations Research (MAT-09) at Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Department of Engineering (recently renamed as Department of Civil, Computer Science and Aeronautical Technologies Engineering). He got the Italian Full Professor Scientific Habilitation in Operations Research and Transportation Science.
His research publications were acknowledged by Airline Group of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (AGIFORS), INFORMS Aviation Applications Section, INFORMS Railway Applications Section, International Association of Railway Operations Research, TRAIL Research School, IEEE as best papers; by IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society as best PhD thesis; by AIRO as best Master thesis.
He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed international publications (including top-cited papers in high-impact journals). He served as editor and/or reviewer for numerous journals and as external expert and rapporteur for European Commission and National Foundations.
Speech Title: Models, algorithms, and applications to reschedule trains during disturbed operations

Prof. Fahimeh Farahnakian
University of Turku, Finland

Fahimeh Farahnakian is an adjunct professor in the Department of Computing at the University of Turku, Finland. In addition to her academic role, she works as a senior scientist at the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK), where she contributes to developing solutions that support the transition to a sustainable and carbon-neutral world. Her research interests span machine learning theory and algorithms, sensor fusion, computer vision, and data analysis methods, with applications across diverse fields. She is currently leading/participating in many EU projects focused on autonomous and smart ships. She has authored over 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications in these areas. Fahimeh is an active member of IEEE and has served on program committees for numerous scientific conferences. She has also played key roles in organizing conferences and has been an editor for seven special issues of scientific journals.

Speech Title: Application of Multi-Sensor Fusion Technology for Autonomous Driving

Dr. Christian Paglia
Institute of Materials and Construction, Supsi, Switzerland

Dr. Christian Paglia is the director of the Institute of Materials and Constructions at the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland. Publications on concrete, metals, corrosion and recycling of building materials. He is the editorial board member of materials and corrosion scientific journals. Member of the CENTC 51 WG 14 Hydraulic binders for road bases. Member of the Swiss standard committee SIA 215 on mineral binders. Member of the environmental strategy working group for the EU Pave European concrete paving association. Rilem technical committee member for the degradation of organic coating materials, for the carbonation of concrete with supplementary cementitious materials, chloride bonding in concrete, concrete fire spalling and performance-based asphalt recycling. Member of the commission for the impartiality of the Swiss certification body for construction products S-CERT AG (CH) / S-CERT FL GmbH (FL).
Speech Title: Materials recycling and transportation infrastructure

Prof. Thierry Vanelslander
University of Antwerp, Belgium

Thierry Vanelslander is a professor at the Department of Transport and Regional Economics at the University of Antwerp, where he graduated as a doctor in Applied Economics.
Until 2013, he was holder of the BNP Paribas Fortis Chair on Transport, Logistics and Ports. Until halfway 2009, he was director of the Research Centre on Freight and Passenger Transport, hosted by the Department of Transport and Regional Economics. He is currently course coordinator for Management of Innovation and Technology, and Port Economics & Business at C-MAT, and Transport Economics at the Faculty of Applied Economics of the University of Antwerp. He teaches in the Master in Maritime and Air Transport Management.
His research focuses on business economics in the port and maritime sector, and in land transport and urban logistics. His PhD dealt with cooperation and competition in sea port container handling. He is also the chair of the World Conference on Transport Research (WCTR) Special Interest Group A2 (Ports and Maritime), and topic area manager for WCTR’s track A (Transport Modes). Equally, he is the chair of the Freight & Logistics group within the European Transport Conference.
Speech Title: Economic potential and impacts of advanced transportation technologies
Abstract: The challenges that transportation has to deal with, seem larger than ever. Next to the ‘classical’ challenges like mode competitiveness, labour shortages, and competition for government investments, more recently it became clear that transportation has huge steps to take in reducing its climate impact and it has to recover its digital backlog. In this presentation, we look into the potential of a number of smart and green transport solutions through the cost and benefits they bring. More in particular, we focus on automated vessels, small barge convoys and the application of AI in a port setting.

Assoc. Prof. David Zhiwei Wang
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Dr. Wang is currently associate professor in School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, NTU. He received his PhD degree from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Bachelor degree from Beijing Jiaotong University. With both degrees in transportation engineering, Dr. Wang's research interests focus on Integrated land use-transportation planning; Transport network modeling and analysis, Public transport operations and planning, Logistics and network analysis. Dr. Wang is currently the Deputy Director of Transportation Research Centre @ NTU.
He serves as an Associate Editor of Transportmetrica A: Transport Science, editorial board member of Travel Behaviour & Society and Transportation Research Part E. He received Fred Burggraf Award from Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Research Councils of the United States in 2016; Tan Chin Tuan Exchange Fellowship in Engineering at NTU in 2017.