Dr. Zimeng Wang is a Professor at Fudan University, Executive President of its Young Faculty Association, and Editor-in-Chief of Applied Geochemistry, the official journal of International Association of Geochemistry (IAGC). He earned his B.Sc. from Fudan University and Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, with postdoctoral research at Stanford University and faculty experience at Louisiana State University. In 2018, Dr. Wang joined Fudan through China’s national talent recruitment program, leading a research team focused on soil environmental sciencewith a courtesy affiliation at the IRDR International Center of Excellence. He received honors including the ACS James J. Morgan Award, IAGC Ebelmen Awardand various awards for his popular science contributions, published over 80 articles in journals such as Nature Geoscience and Science Advances, and directed over ten national research projects. He also serves as a council member of IAGC and holds leadership roles in prominent Chinese scientific societies.

Dr. Zhongming Shi is the Product Lead of the City Energy Analyst (CEA), one of the first open-source urban building energy modelling platforms supporting low-carbon urban design. At ETH Zurich, he also teaches the studio-based course Integrated Design Project, which bridges urban design with decarbonisation strategies. Recent studio topics include the densification of Zurich’s Altstetten and the regeneration of the former Shanghai Expo site.

Zhongming completed his PhD with Prof. Arno Schlueter at ETH Zurich’s Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore. He previously led a research project on building-integrated agriculture in collaboration with the National University of Singapore, and is currently leading a new project on decarbonising Chinese cities in partnership with Tongji University.

Yin Li holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Zhejiang University and a Master’s degree at ETH Zurich. After graduating, he worked for eight years at Giuliani Hönger Architekten in Zurich, Switzerland, during which he also obtained an MAS Master of Advanced Study in Building Energy Engineering from Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU). In 2022, he returned to China to continue his work in architecture and consulting as the specially appointed local lead expert for the Sino-Swiss ZEB Project. He has engaged in architectural practice in various locations, led architectural design competitions in Shenzhen and Switzerland, and is frequently invited to participate in teaching practices and guest lectures at several universities.

Elena Cima is a Senior Lecturer in Public International Law at the University of Geneva, where she teaches courses on international environmental and climate law, energy law, and investment law. She is the Director of the University of Geneva’s Summer School in International Law and International Humanitarian Law. She also serves as external faculty at Sciences Po Paris and at the World Trade Institute in Berne. Elena holds a PhD in International Law from the Geneva Graduate Institute, a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Milan and an LL.M degree from Yale Law School. She is the author of the monograph From Exception to Promotion: Re-Thinking the Relationship between International Trade and Environmental Law (Brill, 2021). She has co-edited several books and has published articles in peer-reviewed journals on international trade law, climate law, water law, as well as investment law. In addition to her academic commitments, Elena is often involved in investment arbitrations, international water and climate negotiations, as well as advisory proceedings before international courts and tribunals.

Khalil Berro’s work treats the world as a relational object, shaped by desire, power, and control. At the core of the Swiss-Lebanese artist’s approach lies a poetic engagement with acute locations and environmental sciences, reconfiguring and proposing new modes of perception of the non-human (nature).

His process begins not with a concept, but with a journey, collaborations with scientists, dedicated field research in remote and precarious locations, materialized through methods that range from the highly technological to the dangerously crude. Berro’s research has led his work deep into Arctic coal mines, across chemically-cleared Indonesian palm oil fields, and atop Alpine peaks, launching rockets into clouds to seed artificial rain. Each encounter brings its own ambivalence, its own revelation about the dynamics between humanity and its habitat.

Through film, photography, sculpture, and installation, Berro stages these tensions, making them palpable. His images disorient, proposing new ways of sensing what has always been there, challenging established environmental and cultural realities.

Bin Li is Associate Professor at School of Architecture, Central Academy of Fine Arts. She is a multidisciplinary architect and holds a Master of Architecture from MIT and BA from The University of Hong Kong. Her design research draws on “Climate Design in the Anthropocene”: geomorphic landscape and future architecture under climate change and the urbanization of countryside, landscape routes and architectural pauses, as well as transdisciplinary, transcultural, and transcalar perceptions of space and place. Bin received her PhD in urbanism and landscape from The Oslo School of Architecture and Design and has taught at universities in Europe. She publishes with renowned academic design journals such as Thresholds(MIT Press) and JoLA. Her design and artistic works have been exhibited and gained international awards such as the MIT Legatum Fellow and the Swiss Arts Council artist (design and architecture).