Prof. Maxx Q. Arguilla obtained his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of the Philippines Diliman in 2011, his Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from The Ohio State University with Prof. Joshua Goldberger in 2017, and his postdoctoral training at MIT in Prof. Mircea Dinca from 2017 to 2020. In July 2020, he joined the UC Irvine Department of Chemistry as a tenure-track Assistant Professor. His research program establishes the chemical rules involved in the creation of a new paradigm in functional inorganic crystals: the discovery of materials comprised of weakly bound one-dimensional (1D) chains that can be crafted into stand-alone or hierarchically ordered building blocks for next-generation devices approaching the atomic scale. He received the 2025 National Fresenius Award, the NSF CAREER Award, and the 2025 AFOSR Young Investigator Award; and was named as C&EN’s Talented Twelve in 2023, as Matter’s 35 PIs under 35 in 2024, ACS Materials Au Rising Stars in Materials Science in 2025.

Dr. Ball is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Arlington. He is a cognitive psychologist with expertise in the areas of memory and attention (e.g., prospective memory, retrospective memory, working memory, and metamemory). Within each of these domains, central questions concern individual differences and age-related changes in these processes. A primary focus of his research is to investigate how people make decisions to offload cognitive processes onto external tools to enhance task performance and free mental capacity for other activities using both behavioral and physiological (eye-tracking) methodology. This research is currently funded by the National Institute of Health. He has also participated in the Office of Naval Research Summer Faculty Research Program, reflecting experience engaging with defense-relevant research contexts.

Dr. Jonathan Calvert is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of California, Davis. His research focuses on neuroengineering approaches to restore function after neurological injury, with an emphasis on spinal cord injury and neuromodulation strategies such as spinal cord stimulation. He received his bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the Mayo Clinic Graduate School, and completed postdoctoral training in the School of Engineering at Brown University. Dr. Calvert's work bridges basic and translational neuroscience, integrating neurophysiology, biomedical engineering, and computational neuroscience to advance restorative neurotechnologies. His current efforts are supported by federally funded research programs to accelerate innovative interventions for neurological injury and disability.

Alejandra G. Castellanos is an Associate Professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Her research focuses on advanced materials for extreme environments, including high-entropy ultra-high-temperature ceramics (HE-UHTCs), composite materials, additive manufacturing, and AI-driven materials design. Her work integrates physics-based modeling, machine learning, multiscale simulations, and experimental characterization to accelerate the discovery and optimization of next-generation materials for aerospace, defense, and space applications. Dr. Castellanos collaborates with national laboratories, government agencies, and industry partners on research aligned with hypersonics, advanced manufacturing, and national security. She is a recipient of the Amelia Earhart Fellowship and is committed to student mentorship, workforce development, and expanding opportunities for Hispanic students in STEM.

Dr. Combs is the Dee Howard Endowed Associate Professor in Aerodynamics in the UTSA Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, & Industrial Engineering, where he is the Director of the Aerospace Engineering program, Director of the Center for Advanced Measurements in Extreme Environments, Director of the UTSA Hypersonics Lab, and Associate Dean for Research in the Klesse College of Engineering & Integrated Design. He holds a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Evansville and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin where he was a NASA Space Technology Research Fellow. Dr. Combs also serves on the board for the Dee Howard Foundation, a local non-profit focused on aerospace workforce initiatives with industry, and is the Chair of the Southwest Texas Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Chris is currently an assistant professor at the Advanced Science Research Center and City College of New York at CUNY. Prior to starting his own lab, Chris completed his PhD at UC Berkeley in materials science and engineering and a two-year postdoc at Harvard University in chemistry and chemical biology. His lab focuses broadly on engineering advanced materials by exploiting principles of sequence specificity, noncovalent protein modification, and polymer threading into nanopores.

Mohammad Ghashami is an Associate Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago and leads the Chicago Energy Engineering and Thermal Applications Lab. His research focuses on nanoscale energy transport and conversion, with emphasis on near-field thermal radiation, thermophotovoltaics, thermionic energy conversion, thermal management, and transport phenomena in micro/nanoscale systems. His group develops advanced experimental platforms and computational models to study photon-, electron-, and gas-mediated heat transfer across small gaps and engineered materials. He has extensive experience in precision thermal measurements, optical characterization, nanomaterials, and energy-conversion devices, and has led federally funded research projects at the intersection of thermal sciences, advanced materials, and sustainable energy technologies.

Ross Greer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of California, Merced. His research investigates resilient, human-interactive autonomous systems that can safely operate and collaborate in uncertain, novel, and safety-critical real-world environments. His work focuses on multimodal artificial intelligence, vision-language learning, and human-machine interaction for autonomous perception, reasoning, and decision-making, with an emphasis on grounding autonomy in natural human communication such as spoken language, gesture, and contextual multimodal signals. Through his research, he aims to advance the development of trustworthy autonomous systems capable of effectively teaming with humans in complex and dynamic operational settings.

Dr. Azadeh Haghighi is an Assistant Professor and the director of the Smarture Lab at the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). She serves as the Associate Editor for the Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing Journal and the Scientific Committee for the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). Her research has been supported, among others, by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, University of Illinois System, UIC Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, and the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center. Her research interests include Smart and Advanced Manufacturing, Additive and Robotic Manufacturing, and In-space Manufacturing. She is a recipient of the prestigious 2024 SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award, SME Outstanding Paper Award, UIC Chancellor’s Translational Research Initiative Award, and IMEC Future of Illinois Manufacturing Award

Guru Khalsa is an Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of North Texas. His theoretical and computational work spans advanced semiconductors and quantum materials. Current efforts address the integration of nitride semiconductors and superconductors for emerging classical and quantum computing applications, and the ultrafast control of quantum phases and complex order in solids. His work is strongly grounded in emerging experimental and materials science capabilities and is interdisciplinary and highly collaborative.

Dr. Leonel E. Lagos is an educator, a researcher, an inventor, a mentor, a leader, and a proud father of two girls and one boy. Since 2022, Dr. Lagos holds the position of tenured Associate Professor at FIU's Moss School of Construction (MSC) with a secondary appointment at FIU’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Dr. Lagos is also the main Principal Investigator on a 5-year $20M Cooperative Agreement funded by US Department of Energy. Dr. Lagos is a Principal Investigator (PI) and Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI) on several sponsored research programs and projects. Dr. Lagos counts with the hands-on technical experience and expertise to conduct sponsored research and the management skills to lead and execute successful research programs. Dr. Lagos multi-disciplinary research areas include robotics and remote systems, sensors development, physical AI, generative AI, environmental and nuclear remediation. Since 2022, Dr. Lagos has published 31 peer-reviewed papers.

Daniel Oropeza is an Assistant Professor of Materials at UC Santa Barbara, where his group advances next-generation alloys and ceramics through coupled materials synthesis, characterization, and manufacturing process fundamentals. He earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT (2021), with doctoral research in binder jet additive manufacturing for ceramics, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory focused on AM-driven control of metallic interfacial microstructure. Earlier work at Lockheed Martin addressed thermal management and propulsion materials for hypersonic platforms. His group's expertise spans powder rheology, melt-based metals processing, and sinter-based ceramics processing. He has received Young Investigator Awards from the American Ceramic Society and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.

Prof. Daniel I. Pineda is an Associate Professor in the Mechanical, Aerospace, and Industrial Engineering Department and Associate Director of the Center for Advanced Measurements in Extreme Environments at The University of Texas at San Antonio. A native of San Antonio with familial ties to the South Texas Rio Grande Valley, he received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. His research involves developing and using novel laser absorption spectroscopic methods to interrogate reacting flows relevant to advanced chemical propulsion for aerospace and energy applications, including those produced via additive manufacturing. Dr. Pineda also serves as the faculty advisor for UT San Antonio’s Aeronautics and Rocket Club, an undergraduate student club dedicated to the design, construction, testing, and launching of rockets in intercollegiate competitions.

Nick Rolston is an Assistant Professor of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University. His group's research focus is to develop the next-generation of photovoltaics and battery technology using the paradigm of design for reliability. Nick's research interests span the areas of renewable energy, materials science, thin-film mechanics, and solid-state device physics. Specific areas involve open-air processing of low-cost materials and devices, in-situ reliability characterization, scalable device manufacturing, and optimization/modeling of energy devices and systems using artificial intelligence and machine learning tools. Some applications of interest are thin-film perovskites for photovoltaics, semiconductors for flexible electronics, and lithium-based batteries for energy storage.

Sergey received his Sc.B. in Neuroscience from Brown and completed his PhD in neurosciences at Stanford in 2016, where he studied motor control of reaching and developed brain-computer interfaces in a monkey model in the lab of Krishna Shenoy. He did his postdoc in the Stanford Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory, mentored by Profs. Jaimie Henderson and Shenoy. There he built BCIs to restore the ability of clinical trial participants with paralysis to control a robotic arm and started to study the single neuron correlates of speech. In 2021 Sergey started his independent lab at the University of California, Davis. His group is currently focused on understanding and restoring speech and language production and bringing next-generation neural interfaces to human use.

Justin Urso is a research assistant professor at the University of Central Florida. His research focuses on remote sensing in harsh environments, with an emphasis on hypersonics, propulsion systems, and energy generation. His work integrates laser-based spectroscopy and imaging in high-temperature, high-pressure reactive systems, including impulse facilities, to improve performance, efficiency, and reliability in propulsion and energy systems. His research spans experimental diagnostics, sensor development for applications involving combustion, high-enthalpy flows, and extreme-environment monitoring.

Steven M. Weisberg, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Arlington and Director of the Spatial Cognition and Navigational Neuroscience Lab. His research examines how people learn, represent, and navigate environments, with a focus on spatial cognition, virtual reality, neuroimaging, individual differences, and aging. He develops behavioral and VR-based paradigms to study navigation behavior, including how people adapt when familiar routes or technologies fail. His work integrates cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and human performance methods, with experience leading interdisciplinary projects involving VR task development, fMRI, and computational analysis of navigation behavior. For ASCENDᴿ, his expertise is directly relevant to understanding resilient navigation performance and training when GPS or other automated supports are unavailable.

Dr. Wenwu Xu is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at San Diego State University and Principal Investigator of the Multiscale Modeling of Materials Lab (M3 Lab). His research integrates computational materials science, microstructure characterization, and field-assisted materials processing to understand and design materials across length scales, from atomic structures to engineered systems. His work focuses on multiscale modeling of metals, ceramics, composites, and interfaces, with emphasis on grain-boundary engineering, electro-nano-pulsing, flash sintering, in-situ SEM studies, molecular dynamics, and AI/ML-enabled materials research. He teaches and mentors students in engineering materials, mechanics of materials, nanomaterials, materials structure, and materials modeling. He also collaborates with researchers, national laboratories, and industry partners in materials processing, simulation, characterization, and AI-enabled materials design.

Yangying Zhu's research focuses on using thermo-fluid engineering approaches for future electronics and sustainable energy solutions. Her research combines fundamental understanding in heat and mass transfer with novel materials fabrication and characterization capabilities to address thermal management challenges of electronic devices, batteries, and electrocatalytic systems.