Plenary Speakers
Dr. Khalik Mohamad Sabil
Dr Khalik Mohamad Sabil is a Senior Manager in the Academic Alliance Unit at PETRONAS Research Sdn. Bhd., under the Research Management Center. He is actively engaged in both industry and academia, serving as an Honorary Research Fellow at Heriot-Watt University. He also contributes internationally as an Editorial Board Member for SpringerBriefs in Petroleum Geoscience & Engineering, a Main Committee Member of the Society of Engineering Malaysia, an invited member of the Board of Studies for Petroleum Engineering at UCSI, and an Industrial Advisory Panel member for the Chemical Engineering and Petroleum Engineering programmes at Heriot-Watt University Malaysia.
Dr Khalik has received notable recognition for his contributions to research, including being named in the 2019 Class of Influential Researchers by Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. He was also awarded the SPE Travel Grant 2015 to attend the SPE Middle East Unconventional Resources Conference and Exhibition 2015.
He has an established research track record with 90 publications, an H-index of 26, an i10-index of 41, and more than 1,851 citations. In addition, he holds three patents/design registrations, including innovations related to carbon dioxide separation and gas hydrate crystallisation. His work reflects strong expertise in research leadership, academic collaboration, and innovation in petroleum and chemical engineering.
Prof. Ir. Ts. Dr. Suraya Abdul Rashid
Prof. Dr Suraya Abdul Rashid is a professor at the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). She received her bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Nottingham University, United Kingdom, in 2000. She then pursued her PhD in Chemical Engineering, focusing on Nanotechnology from Imperial College London, United Kingdom, in 2004. She is a Chartered Engineer under the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), a Professional Engineer under the Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM), and a nanotechnologist under the Malaysia Board of Technologists (MBOT).
Prof. Suraya's research interests revolve around carbon nanomaterials synthesis and processing for various applications. She has published over 180 articles in citation-indexed journals and has a current H-index of 41. She was listed as Stanford-Elsevier’s World’s Top 2% Scientist for 2022, 2023 & 2024. She has received numerous national and international awards for her bio-based quantum dots (QD) research, such Emerging Innovator award for Malaysia Commercialization Year 2022, Gold Medal and Special Innovation Award at the iENA Tradeshow in Nuremberg, Germany, 2023, UPM’s Vice Chancellor Fellowship Award 2024 (Product Innovation and Commercialization), Malaysia SCOPUS Research Star Award 2025 (Excellence in Innovation) category, and the Luminory Award 2025 from Malaysian Invention and Design Society (MINDS).
Prof. Suraya is also the founder of a start-up company, Qarbotech, where she serves as Chief Scientist. Qarbotech is currently commercialising its research product, which is a patent-backed photosynthesis enhancer for the agriculture and horticulture industry. In 2023, Qarbotech received commercialisation grants from Temasek Foundation and Khazanah Nasional’s Dana Impak to show proof of scale of the technology in the paddy industry in Indonesia and Malaysia. In October 2024, Qarbotech received additional venture capital investment, resulting in a total of USD2 million raised through a couple of Seed rounds. Qarbotech has received numerous accolades, such as champion of Tech Planter Malaysia and Asia in 2021, Champion of the Climate Impact Innovator Challenge 2023, Awardee of Khazanah Impak Innovation Challenge 2023, Champion of Future Food Awards 2024, and Champion of Startup World Cup Kuala Lumpur Finals 2025. More recently in September 2025, Qarbotech was the first Malaysian company to be accepted into the Breakthrough Energy Fellowship, founded by Bill Gates.
Prof. Santanu Bandyopadhyay
Santanu Bandyopadhyay is currently Praj Industries Chair Professor, Department of Energy Science and Engineering, at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay). He obtained his B.Tech. (Hons.) in Energy Engineering from IIT Kharagpur in 1992, and M.Tech. and Ph.D. in Energy Systems Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1995 and 1999, respectively. His research interests include Process integration, Pinch Analysis, Industrial energy conservation, Modelling and simulation of energy systems, Design and optimization of renewable energy systems, etc. Since 1994, Prof. Bandyopadhyay has been associated with and contributed towards various developmental, industrial, and research activities involving different structured approaches to process synthesis, energy integration and conservation, as well as renewable energy systems design. Prior to joining IIT Bombay, he worked for M/s Engineers India Limited, New Delhi. He was one of the section editors for the Elsevier project, Encyclopedia of Sustainable Technologies. Over a decade, he was an Associate Editor for Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy (Springer Nature). He is currently one of the Editors-in-Chief for Process Integration and Optimization for Sustainability (Springer Nature) as well as an Associate Editor for Journal of Cleaner Production (Elsevier), and South African Journal of Chemical Engineering (Elsevier). He is a fellow of the Indian National Association of Engineering (INAE).