October 25, 2024 - Afternoon Session (Keynote Reports)
Hosts: Professor Zhang Longwa
Venue: Report Hall, 2nd Floor, College of Forestry and Landscape Architecture, Anhui Agricultural University

6. Registration

(1) Please fill in the conference reply form and send it to the conference organizing team before October 22, 2024

(2) Fees:

No Charge.

  

                          Anhui Agricultural University

October 19, 2024

Introduction to keynote speaker

Kohei Kubota, a professor at The University of Tokyo, specializes in insect ecology, species evolution, genetic diversity, and the role of insects in wood decomposition. He has participated in various academic conferences in Japan and has held several prestigious roles. These include serving on the Japan Forestry Society's Award Committee in 2000, the Editorial Board of the Society of Tree Medicine in 2002, and the Editorial Board of the Japanese Society of Applied Entomology and Zoology in 2007. In October 2007, he became the General Director and Councillor of the Society of Tree Medicine. He also served on the Executive Committee of the Agricultural Society of Japan in 2008 and as a member of the Special Research Committee of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) in August 2009. Additionally, in August 2009, he worked as a Document Reviewer for the International Affairs Committee of the JSPS. Kubota has been a Councillor of the Japan Beetle Society (2013–2022) and its President (2023–present). He has also served as a representative of the Entomological Society of Japan (2018–present). He has received several accolades, including the Entomological Society of Japan's Award in 2001 and 2006, and the Biogeographical Society of Japan's Award in 2009. He has authored over 100 academic papers in international journals and conferences.

Evan Siemann, Rice University, USA Dr. Evan Siemann's research focuses on predicting and managing biological invasions along with their associated impacts. Topics he has emphasized recently include: post-introduction evolutionary change in invasive plants, variation in the biotic interactions (especially with insects and soil microbes) of invasive plants among and within ranges, the role of secondary chemicals in biotic interactions, the role of interactions among invasive plants in their success, and the effects of plant invasions on litter dynamics and ecosystem functions. Evan has more than two hundred publications and his researches was published in some top-level journal.

Chen Xin, a professor at the School of Pharmacy, Changzhou University. He graduated from the Department of Chemistry at Lanzhou University and has studied and worked at Tsinghua University, Duke University, and the University of California, Riverside. His main research focuses on GPCR allosteric modulators of membrane proteins and insect pheromones. In collaboration with Nobel laureate Robert Lefkowitz from Duke University, he discovered the first allosteric modulator of the β2-adrenergic receptor. In applied research, his team has systematically studied insect pheromones, obtaining three biological pesticide registration certificates from the Ministry of Agriculture, with products being promoted over 2 million mu (approximately 330,000 acres) nationwide. He has led four projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, published 125 papers, and holds four U.S. patents and 36 Chinese patents. He has been awarded five provincial and ministerial-level scientific and technological awards. He is a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Engineering, a Jiangsu Province Dual Innovation Talent, and a second-tier candidate in the Jiangsu Province "333 High-level Talent Project."

Jacob D. Wickham, is currently a Senior Scientific Researcher at the Severstov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences. He has worked in China and Southeast Asia for over 15 years and his research interests include chemical ecology of woodboring beetles and understanding the multitrophic mechanism of biological invasion by investigating multi-trophic levels of interactions among pest insects, host plants, and their microbiome. He has published more than 40 articles in international peer-reviewed journals, including ISME and Current Biology. Jacob is the Senior Managing Editor of the journal Integrative Zoology, the flagship journals for the International Society of Zoological Sciences, headquartered at the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of in Beijing, China.

Chu Xi, is a researcher at the Chemosensation Laboratory of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, focusing on insect olfactory neural pathways and odor-guided navigation. Her research has been published in several renowned international journals, including Current Biology, eLife, Journal of Comparative Neurology, and Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience. Her work spans multiple subfields within entomology, including ecology, physiology, and neuroanatomy. She has participated in several international collaborative projects, including the Sino-Norwegian joint project (co-funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Research Council of Norway): "Plant-Insect Interactions: Imaging Olfactory Pathways for Herbivorous Insects to Carbon Dioxide, Pheromones, and Plant Odors"; a project funded by the Research Council of Norway in collaboration with the Functional Genomics of Insects group at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences: "Chemosensory Mechanisms Underlying Egg-Laying Behavior in the Pest Helicoverpa armigera – Peripheral and Central Mechanisms"; and the European Horizon project, PURPEST: "Preventing Plant Pests Through Technology-Guided Monitoring and Site-Specific Control."

Sohrab Rahimi, a research associate in Biological Engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and manages the Wood Fluid and Thermal Treatment Laboratory within UBC’s Wood Science Department. He earned M.Sc. degrees from the University of Tehran and West Virginia University and a Ph.D. in Wood Science from UBC’s Faculty of Forestry. Dr. Rahimi has published over 30 research papers with 380 citations, contributed two book chapters with Springer, and holds a patent in his field. He has received over ten awards across Iran, the USA, and Canada, recognizing his contributions to renewable energy and sustainable production. His collaborative efforts extend internationally, with co-authored research involving institutions such as Oregon State University, Beijing Forestry University, Nanjing Forestry University, and Anhui Agriculture University. A dedicated advocate for renewable energy, Dr. Rahimi focuses on advancing efficient lumber and pellet drying methods.

Zhang Xinxing, an assistant Professor at University of Oklahoma, he obtained his bachelor's degree at the University of Science and Technology of China in 2010. He then joined Dr. Rebecca Butcher’s lab to study C. elegans pheromone molecule biosynthesis at the University of Florida and got his PhD in 2016. During his postdoctoral training at the University of Michigan, he focused on the sensory biology of C. elegans. The main findings are 1) The BBSome protein complex regulates light sensation in C. elegans independently of its cilia roles. 2) the molecular sensors of high osmolarity (thirst) in metazoan. In 2023, Dr. Zhang joined the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center as an assistant professor and established his laboratory. The current research directions follow the main findings above. We use multidisciplinary approaches to tackle these questions, including genetics, biochemistry, biophysics, opto- and chemo-genetics, whole-brain activity imaging, and cryo-EM.

Mariano Damián Aquino, an assistant professor at La Plata National University. He graduated from the National University of Patagonia in Argentina and main research areas are fungal metabolism, fungal ecology, and molecular biology. His team focuses on the study of fungal ecology in the Nothofagus forests of Patagonia, Argentina. They have conducted morphological and molecular identification of fungal strains collected from the region and analyzed the lipid composition of various strains, clarifying the relationship between the ecological environment of fungal isolation and fungal lipid composition. He has published over 10 papers and received several research grants from the Argentine government.

Jiang Tao, a Ph.D candidate from the University of Göttingen, Germany. His research focuses on tree cover segmentation, individual tree detection, carbon stock estimation, and mapping Trees Outside Forests (TOF) using deep learning. His work involves processing high-resolution satellite imagery and applying deep learning techniques for tree cover segmentation, identifying individual trees, and estimating carbon stocks. Previously, he served as a forest carbon project consultant at a renowned international company, where he was responsible for greenhouse gas integrity assessments, project risk analysis, and carbon project optimization. Jiang Tao also worked as a teaching assistant at Beijing Forestry University, where he taught courses related to forest mensuration. He has extensive experience in forest carbon management, remote sensing applications, and academic research.