Biographical note

Dr. Sadhan Mahapatra is currently working as an Associate Professor in the Department of Energy, Tezpur University. He has obtained M.Sc. (Physics) from Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan, M.Tech. (Energy Science and Technology) from Jadavpur University, Calcutta, and Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The area of the Ph.D. work is Biomass Gasification. He teaches Solar Energy, Wind Energy, Energy Management & Conservation and Energy Efficiect Building in the M.Tech. in Energy Technology Programme. His research interests are biomass gasification, climate responsive buildings, decentralized energy systems, and photovoltaic systems. He has published more than 60 papers in international journals and conference proceedings. He is Member of International Solar Energy Society (ISES), Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE), Institution of Engineers, Indian Science Congress, etc. He is Reviewer of many international journals including Energy, Applied Energy, Buildings andEnvironment, Solar Energy, Energy and Buildings, Energy for Sustainable Development, Journal of Cleaner Production, Energy Policy, Indoor and Built Environment, RSC Advances, Energy and Environmental Science, etc.
Dr. Muhammad Shahbaz is a Full Professor at the School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, China. He is also an Affiliated Visiting Scholar at the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, UK, and an Adjunct Professor at COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. He previously served as a Chair Professor of Energy and Sustainable Development at Montpellier Business School, France, and Principal Research Officer at COMSATS. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the National College of Business Administration and Economics, Lahore, Pakistan. His research focuses on financial economics, energy finance, energy economics, environmental economics, development economics, and tourism economics. He has published more than 300 research papers in peer-reviewed international journals, is among the world’s top 15 economics authors as ranked by IDEAS, and was selected as one of the top 5 authors on economics in developing countries by David McKenzie, Chief Economist of the World Bank. Dr. Shahbaz has published papers in various journals, including Applied Economics, Social Indicators Research, Renewable Energy, and the Journal of Cleaner Production.

Dr. Alfredo Vaccaro obtained his master’s degree from the University of Salerno and Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Presently, he is associated with the Department of Electric Power Systems Engineering, University of Sannio. Earlier he was associated with the research group of Intelligent Systems and Control at the Department of Automatic Control and System Engineering, University of Sheffield (UK). He also chaired the Research & Development Committee of theOpera21 Group SpA in the field of Advanced Information and Communications Technologies for Smart Grids and also Scientific Director of the bureau of the Research Centre on Pure and Applied Mathematics at the Department of Engineering, University of Sannio.  Presently, he is the Chair of the Task Force “Enabling Paradigms for High-performance Computing in Wide Area Monitoring Protective and Control Systems” of the IEEE PSOPE Technologies & Innovation Subcommittee and IEEE PES Awards and Recognition Committee. He published 1 international patent, 3 books, 9 book chapters, 75 journal papers, and 66 conference papers, obtaining 2250 citations and H-index 25 (SCOPUS). 
Valentina Emilia Balas is currently a Full Professor in the Department of Automatics and Applied Software at the Faculty of Engineering, “Aurel Vlaicu” University of Arad, Romania.  She holds a Ph.D. in Applied Electronics and Telecommunications from Polytechnic University of Timisoara. Dr. Balas is author of more than 350 research papers in refereed journals and international conferences. Her research interests are intelligent systems, fuzzy control, soft computing, smart sensors, information fusion, modeling, and simulation. She is the Editor-in-Chief to the International Journal of Advanced Intelligence Paradigms (IJAIP) and to the International Journal of Computational Systems Engineering (IJCSysE), Editorial Board member of several national and international journals, and evaluator expert for national, international projects, and Ph.D. Thesis. Dr. Balas is the Director of Intelligent Systems Research Centre in Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad and Director of the Department of International Relations, Programs and Projects in the same university. She served as General Chair of the International Workshop Soft Computing and Applications (SOFA) in eight editions 2005–2020 held in Romania and Hungary. Dr. Balas participated in many international conferences as Organizer, Honorary Chair, Session Chair, and member in Steering, Advisory or International Program Committees. She is a member of EUSFLAT and SIAM, a senior member of IEEE, member in TC – Fuzzy Systems (IEEE CIS), Chair of the TF 14 in TC – Emergent Technologies (IEEE CIS), and member in TC – Soft Computing (IEEE SMCS). Dr. Balas was past Vice-President (Awards) of IFSA International Fuzzy Systems Association Council (2013–2015), is a Joint Secretary of the Governing Council of Forum for Interdisciplinary Mathematics (FIM), A Multidisciplinary Academic Body, India, and recipient of the “Tudor Tanasescu” Prize from the Romanian Academy for contributions in the field of soft computing methods (2019).