Prof. Guihua Xia receipts 13 provincial- and ministerial-level or higher science and technology awards, including two Second Prizes of the National Science and Technology Progress Award as the first-ranked contributor and six First Prizes at the provincial or ministerial level. He receipts  the Outstanding Talent Award for National Defense Science, Technology and Industry, jointly presented by five national authorities. He receipts an Outstanding Contribution Award for a major national engineering project, the Ho Leung Ho Lee Science and Technology Award, and the Second Prize of the National Teaching Achievement Award. With 40 years of experience in naval architecture and marine engineering, he serves as Vice President of the Chinese Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers and is the founder of ICNAME. He has led ICNAME’s development for more than a decade and has extensive international influence and experience in academic organization and management.

Prof. Carlos Guedes Soares is a Distinguished Professor of Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon. He is the Scientific Coordinator of the Centre for Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering (CENTEC), which is a research centre classified by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology as Excellent in 2014 and 2018. He received the MSc. and Ocean Engineer degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA in 1976, the Ph.D. degree from the Norwegian Institute of Technology of the University of Trondheim, in 1984, and the Doctor of Science degree from the Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal, in 1991. He is Doctor Honoris causa from the Technical University of Varna (2003) and University Dunarea de Jos in Galati, (2004). He has supervised more than 55 PhD students, has co-authored more than 700 journal papers and has more than 20,000 citations in Web of Science (29,000 in SCOPUS). He is one of the 5 Founding Members of the European Safety and Reliability Association (ESRA), and has been General Secretary, Vice-Chairman and Chairman of ESRA. He has been Chairman of the International Maritime Association of the Mediterranean (IMAM) (2005-2011; 2017-2019) and of the ISSC - Ship and Offshore Structures Congress (2012-2015). He has been Chair or Co-Chair of various conferences in the series of OMAE, ESREL, IMAM, MARSTRUCT, MARTECH, ICCGS and RENEW Conferences. He has been coordinating the Symposium on Structures, Safety and Reliability of the Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering (OMAE) Conference since 1989. He has been Editor and Editor-in-Chief of the Reliability Engineering and System Safety Journal (Elsevier) since 1992, is Co-Editor in Chief of the Journal for Marine Science and Application (Springer) and he belongs to the Editorial Board of more than 15 Journals. He is a Fellow of SNAME, RINA, IMarEST and ASME, "Membro Conselheiro" of Ordem dos Engenheiros, Member of ASCE, AGU, AMS and SRA and Member of the Portuguese Academy of Engineering.

Atilla Incecik is Professor of Offshore Engineering. During the last sixteen years he served as the Head of Department of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Marine Engineering, and Associate Principal and the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Engineering. Professor Incecik’s research activities include the development of hydrodynamic design and analysis tools and model testing of marine and offshore engineering systems, including marine renewable energy devices. Professor Incecik was the Research Manager of Industrial Doctoral Centre for Offshore Renewable Energy (IDCORE) and is a Chair Professor at Zhejiang University. Professor Incecik was Editor-in-Chief of Ocean Engineering Journal between 2006 and 2023. In 2019 Professor Incecik was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden in recognition of his research on green shipping and environmental sustainability. In 2022, Professor Incecik was recipient of The Royal Institution of Naval Architects’ William Froude Medal awarded for making a conspicuous contribution to naval architecture and/or shipbuilding. The William Froude Medal is the Institution’s highest award for professional achievement. In 2022 Professor Incecik was awarded the Confederation of European Maritime Technology Societies (CEMT) award in recognition of his ‘significant contribution to the advancement of knowledge in the field of ocean engineering’.

Šime Malenica was born in Split in 1965, where he enrolled in the Naval Architecture studies at the University of Split, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture in 1985. Two years later he continued his education at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, where he graduated in Naval Architecture in 1990. Šime Malenica obtained his master’s and doctoral degree at the Pierre and Marie Curie University (Paris VI) in 1991 and 1994, respectively. During that period he began his career at the French Institute of Petroleum (IFP). Currently, Professor Malenica works at the Classification Society Bureau Veritas (BV) Paris, where he is head of the Hydro-Structure Section. Professor Šime Malenica was awarded by the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts for his achievements in the field of technical sciences in 2014. He was elected a corresponding member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2016.

Liu Zuyuan, born in November 1963, holds a Ph.D. and is a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Energy Power Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology. He previously served as Vice President of Wuhan University of Technology and is a leading talent under China’s National “Ten Thousand Talents Plan.”  He has served as a member of the 5th and 6th Discipline Evaluation Groups in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering under the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council. He is Vice President of the Chinese Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, Executive Council Member of the China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry, and Director of the Key Laboratory of High-Performance Ship Technology of the Ministry of Education. He also serves as Deputy Chair of its Academic Committee, a member of the Academic Committee of the National Defense Key Laboratory of Underwater Robotics, and an expert for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and China State Shipbuilding Corporation.

Junli Wang is a Research Fellow, Vice President and Secretary-General of the Chinese Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, and a Standing Member of the Science and Technology Committee of China State Shipbuilding Corporation Limited. He is a recipient of the State Council Special Government Allowance, a member of the expert group for the National Key R&D Program on Deep-Sea Technology and Equipment, and an expert on transportation and marine equipment for the Ministry of Science and Technology. He has organized the planning, evaluation, initiation, and implementation of major national projects, including the Jiaolong manned submersible, oil tanker and container ship optimization programs, large floating production storage and offloading units (FPSOs), and 300–400-foot large jack-up drilling platforms.

Professor and doctoral supervisor at Harbin Engineering University; national-level leading talent; Chief Scientist of a National Key R&D Program; Director of the Key Laboratory of Polar Equipment Technology; Executive Deputy Director of the China–Russia Joint Laboratory of the Ministry of Science and Technology; Deputy Chair of the Sea Ice Committee of the Chinese Society for Oceanography; Deputy Chair of the Polar Navigation and Equipment Committee of the China Institute of Navigation; Director of the Heilongjiang Collaborative Innovation Center; and a committee member of the International Ship and Offshore Structures Congress (ISSC). As principal investigator, he has led two National Key R&D Program projects, one EU Horizon 2020 project, one national major scientific infrastructure planning project, four National Natural Science Foundation of China projects, and several other major research projects. He has received multiple awards, including the Grand Prize of the China Institute of Navigation, the First Prize of the Marine Engineering Science and Technology Award, and the First Prize of the Heilongjiang Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award. He has published more than 60 papers, over 40 of which are indexed by SCI or EI.