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2nd Annual Global Public Safety SymposiumNew Frontiers in Global Public SafetyMonday, Sept. 17, 2018Guest Speaker BiographiesProf. Weicheng FanHoward W. Emmons Distinguished LecturerProfessor Fan Weicheng received his BS degree inthermal science from the University of Science andTechnology of China (USTC) in Hefei and then joined thefaculty of USTC. He worked at USTC for 40 years andserved as the department head of Thermal ScienceDepartment, director of the State Key Laboratory of FireScience, and Vice President of the University. In 2003, hejoined Tsinghua University and founded the Institute ofPublic Safety Research and served as the director to thepresent. His was awarded an honorary PhD degree fromLoughborough University in UK.Professor Fan’s research work ranged from fire science, thermal science, riskanalysis, emergency management, to modeling and simulation. Professor Fan is aMember of the Chinese National Academy of Engineering. He served on manynational or international advisory boards for public safety and is currently servingas a Member of National Disaster Mitigation Committee, Vice Chair of StateAdministration of Work Safety, Member of Discipline Review Group of AcademicDegree Commission of the State Council, Director of the Expert Committee ofDisaster Prevention and Mitigation of Ministry of Housing and Urban-RuralDevelopment, Deputy Director Education Steering Committee of Safety Engineeringfor Ministry of Education, Vice President of National Fire Protection StandardizationTechnical Committee of China, Vice President of China Fire Protection Association,Vice President Chinese Society of Engineering Thermo-physics, President of AsiaPacific Society of Public Safety Science and Technology.Professor Fan Weicheng is the recipient of National Scientific and TechnologicalProgress Award (first class), National Teaching Achievement Award (first class),National Gold medal for Patents and National May 1st Labor Medal.

Dr. Louis GritzoKeynote SpeakerDr. Louis Gritzo is Vice President and Manager ofResearch with FM Global, one of the world’s largestcommercial property insurers. He oversees FM Global’steam of scientists, with expertise in fire, explosions,natural hazards (windstorms, flood, and earthquakes)and risk and reliability, who seek to understandproperty hazards and identify solutions that to preventproperty loss. Gritzo also oversees activities at FMGlobal’s US 125-million, 1,600 acre, ResearchCampus in West Glocester, RI USA, the world’s largestcenter for property loss prevention research as well asFM Global’s International Codes and Standards activities working to improve risk inkey markets.Prior to joining FM Global in 2006, Gritzo was manager of Fire Science andTechnology at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM, USA and was amember of its Advanced Concepts Group think tank.He currently serves as Past-Chair of the Board of Directors of the InnovationResearch Interchange (formerly the Industrial Research Institute), and on AdvisoryCommittees for Engineering at WPI as well as several other universities. He hasserved as chair of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Heat TransferDivision Executive Committee, on the Governing Board of the Global EarthquakeModel, and on the Research Advisory Committee for the National Fire ProtectionAssociation. In 2015, he served as an invited panelist in two sessions at the UNWorld Conference on Disaster Risk Management in Sendai, Japan.Gritzo has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, with a minor in applied mathematics,from Texas Tech University, USA.

Prof. Albert SimeoniKeynote SpeakerProfessor Albert Simeoni is the InterimDepartment Head of Fire Protection Engineering atWorcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester,Massachusetts. He is an internationally recognized leaderin fire and wildland fire and fire science with over120 journal papers, conference papers, and bookchapters. He has more than 20 years of experiencedeveloping experimental, analytical, and numericaltechniques to better understand fire dynamics andto predict fire and wildland fire behavior.Before joining WPI, he held academic leadershippositions in fire research in the UK (University of Edinburgh) and in France(University of Corsica and CNRS). He has also experience as a consultant in firescience in the US and has spent over 10 years volunteering and working as afirefighter in France.Starting as a volunteer firefighter, he ultimately led all aspects of fire, wildland fire,and rescue operations, in the capacity of Chief of Fire Station. He is Associate Editorof the International Journal of Wildland Fire, a principal member of the NFPATechnical Committees on Wildland Fire Management and on Wildland and Rural FireProtection, a member of the NFPA 921 subcommittee on Wildland FireInvestigation, and is the treasurer of the International Association of Wildland Fire.Prof. Simeoni’s research focuses on wildland fire behavior and impact with anemphasis on the fundamental phenomena driving fire behavior. He has conductedlarge field experiments in France and in the US and he is developing simulationtools to help fire protection engineers and managers to better do their job. Theapplied part of his research looks at extreme fire behavior, firefighter safety, andthe protection of the wildland-urban interface.

Dirk SteynPanel Discussion Topic: Emerging TechnologiesDirk Steyn is the Director of Engineering at the REVFire Group, where he is responsible for design,development and support of REV's Fire Apparatusproducts. The REV Group is a US-based manufacturerof specialty vehicles, with 21 domestic manufacturinglocations, producing 30 principal vehicle brands. REVFire Group, a subsidiary of REV, consists of FireApparatus manufacturers E-ONE, KME and Ferrara.Dirk has 25 years’ experience working at companieslike Navistar and E-ONE, where he led productdevelopment efforts for walk-in delivery trucks, motorhomes, military vehicles, and fire trucks. Dirk holds a Bachelor's degree inMechanical Engineering from the University Of Pretoria, South Africa. He is an avidcyclist and resides in Florida with his family.Prof. Xinming HuangPanel Discussion Topic: Emerging TechnologiesProf. Xinming Huang is currently the Dean’s ExcellenceProfessor in the Department of Electrical and ComputerEngineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). Dr.Huang received his PhD in electrical engineering fromVirginia Tech in 2001. After graduation, he became amember of technical staff with the Bell Labs of LucentTechnologies in New Jersey. He joined the faculty at WPIin 2006. He was a recipient of the Bell Labs annualexcellence award, IBM faculty award, DARPA young facultyaward, IEEE-HKN distinguished professor award, and wasnamed Joseph Samuel Satin distinguished fellow. He haspublished more than 120 refereed technical papers in IEEE journals andconferences. His current research is primarily focused on autonomous vehicletechnologies including machine learning, video/LiDAR information processing, andmultiple sensor fusion. He is also interested in integrated circuit design for Internetof Things, smart health and wireless systems.Link to WPI webpage: http://users.wpi.edu/ xhuang/

Prof. Eric YoungPanel Discussion Topic: Emerging ScienceProf. Eric M. Young is an Assistant Professor ofChemical Engineering at WPI. His goal is tounderstand and engineer novel microbial systems thatimprove the human condition. Microbes have vitalecological roles, such as decomposing wood, as well asindustrial roles, such as the synthesis of medicines andfermented products like penicillin or wine. Dr. Youngis exploring these industrial organisms; tuning theirunique biology to for purposes like specificallydetecting pathogenic microbes or making biomimeticunderwater adhesives. This interdisciplinary researchspans the fields of metabolic engineering, proteinengineering, synthetic biology, and bioinformatics.Dr. Young completed his doctoral work at the University of Texas at Austin. Fundedin part by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, he used directed evolution toengineer yeast membrane transporters. He went on to do postdoctoral research atMIT, embedded in the collaborative, DARPA-funded MIT-Broad Foundry effortdirected by Dr. Christopher Voigt. There, he developed new strategies for part andpathway engineering in yeast. Dr. Young received undergraduate degrees inChemical Engineering and Biological Engineering from the University of Maine atOrono. Link to WPI page: https://www.wpi.edu/people/faculty/emyoungMark MacaulayPanel Discussion Topic: Industry NeedsMark Macaulay is the VP of Advanced Combined Heat& Power (CHP) Applications at ZHP Systems, where heis responsible for system design/analysis, projectdevelopment activities and system support of CHPsystems, distributed generation programs and microgrid projects. ZHP Systems is a US-based distributor,packager and service company focusing on developingonsite power generation projects. Mark has over 25years of experience in CHP analysis, design andintegration and while Director of Product Engineering atClimate Energy was awarded the Popular Science's"Breakthrough Technology of The Year Award" for ourFreewatt Product line. Mark holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree inEnvironmental Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He enjoys playingand coaching hockey as well as hiking, kayaking and fishing.

Prof. José L. ToreroPanel Discussion Topic: Education NeedsProfessor José L. Torero holds the John L. Bryan Chairand is the Director of the Center for Disaster Resilienceat the Clark School of Engineering, University ofMaryland. He works in the field of Fire SafetyEngineering where he specializes in the behaviour of firein complex environments such as forests, tall buildings,novel architectures, tunnels, aircraft and spacecraft. Heholds a BSc for the Pontificia Universidad Católica delPerú (1989), and an MSc (1991) and PhD (1992) fromthe University of California, Berkeley. He received aDoctor Honoris Causa by Ghent University (Belgium) in2016.José is a Chartered Engineer (UK), a Registered Professional Engineer inQueensland, a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences andEngineering, the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK), the Royal Society ofEdinburgh (UK), the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences (Australia), theInstitution of Civil Engineers (UK), the Institution of Fire Engineers (UK), theSociety of Fire Protection Engineers (USA), the Combustion Institute (USA) and theRoyal Society of New South Wales (Australia).José joined The University of Maryland in 2017 following appointments as Professorof Civil Engineering and Head of the School of Civil Engineering at the University ofQueensland, Australia, the Landolt & Cia Chair in Innovation for a SustainableFuture at Ecole Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne, BRE Trust/RAEng Professor ofFire Safety Engineering at The University of Edinburgh, Associate Professor at theUniversity of Maryland and Charge de Recherche at the French National Centre forScientific Research.Currently, he is serving in the Grenfell Public Inquiry being instructed to provide“Oversight of all the technical experts including identification of relevant workstreams and addressing any gaps between experts.”