Li Wang, Ph.D, Chief Engineering Scientist at R&D institute of Baosteel, Deputy director of State Key Laboratory of Development and Application Technology of Automotive Steels, China
Presentation Title: Developments and outlook of ultra high strength steel sheets for automobile in China

Education： 
1982-1985: High school education in Shandong China
1985-1989: East China Institute of Technology, Bachelor of materials
1989-1992: Shenyang Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Master of materials , Research Focus：《Hydrogen embritlement of steel》
1999-2007: Shanghai Jiaotong University, Doctor of materials，Thesis Topic：《Research of TRIP steels for automotive》
Work Experience：
1992-1993：Baosteel cold mill Works, Engineer
1993-Today：Automotive sheet steels department，Baosteel R&D Center, No.889 Fujin road，Shanghai, Senior Engineer. The leader of the team automotive sheet steel. Deputy director of 《State Key Laboratory of Development and Application Technology of Automotive Steels》. focus on the research and development of automotive steel sheets for more than 30 years.

Uttam Singh, Vice President, TATA Steel, India

Presentation title: De-carbonizing the steel industry: India’s perspective

 

Mr Uttam Singh graduated in Metallurgical Engineering from IIT BHU in 1992 and subsequently joined as a Graduate Trainee in Tata Steel Ltd, Jamshedpur. After a stint of 4 years as Trainee and Manager of Blast Furnace Operation, he left on a sabbatical to earn ‘Executive MBA’ from XLRI, Jamshedpur. Since then, he has been serving in various capacities at Tata Steel for the last 25 years.  At present he is the Vice-President (Iron Making).

 

Mr Singh has made significant contributions in the blast furnace understanding, design and process improvements like estimation of floating state of the dead-man and its relation to the stability of the blast furnace operation, mass distribution in the falling stream of burden materials, development of coke rate prediction model for blast furnaces, evolution of refractory design in ‘I’ blast furnace of Tata Steel and improvement in slag granulation system design at ‘I’ blast furnace of Tata Steel, in total accounting to 30 international/national journals and more than 10 patents.

 

Mr Singh also led the successful team for the fastest ramp-up of ‘I’ Blast Furnace, achieving a record productivity of 2.8 Tons/day/m3 in the second year of production and achieving highest man power productivity of 25 KT/man/year which is better than European counter parts.  During his stint as the Chief of ‘I’ blast furnace he has also recorded just ‘One Lost Time Injury’, ‘Zero Effluent discharge’ and ‘Reduction of Water Consumption to 0.5m3/ton of hot metal’. He is also the recipient of ‘Best Departmental Head of the Year’, Tata Steel Ltd in 2005.

 

In recognition of his phenomenal contribution to the understanding, design and process optimization of blast furnaces keeping in mind the environment and safety concerns, Mr Uttam Singh is awarded the “2014 TSL New Millennium Award” by Indian Institute of Metal.

Hiroshi Nogami, Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University, Japan

Presentation Title: Toward Carbon-Neutral Steelmaking, Japanese Challenges

Hiroshi Nogami is a professor at Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University.

He studied Chemical Engineering and graduated from Tohoku University in 1987. He continued research on the mathematical modeling and numerical analysis of pulverized coal combustion and cokemaking and got the degree of Doctor of Engineering in 1992.

He started his academic career at Research Institute of Mineral Dressing and Metallurgy, Tohoku University as a Research Associate in 1992. He worked with Prof. Yagi for 13 years and developed kinetic-based operation simulators of various high-temperature processes, such as blast furnace, ultra-fine powder generation under arc plasma. He also worked with Prof. Guthrie at Department of Mining and Metallurgy, McGill University, Canada from 1997 to 1999. During this period, he developed a method of inverse-heat transfer analysis and applied it to the solidification process in single-belt strip casting. He also contributed to the development of a molten steel feeder for the same process. He was promoted to Associate Professor at Department of Chemical Engineering, Ichinoseki National College of Technology in 2006. Then promoted to Full Professor at Mechanical Science Unit, Muroran Institute of Technology in 2011. Finally, he moved back to Tohoku University in 2013.

His main research topics are the mathematical modeling of various industrial processes based on multiphase thermal fluid engineering and reaction kinetics, and optimization of metallurgical and chemical processes through the operation analysis utilizing developed models from the viewpoints of energy, CO2, and resource issues.  He has published more than 100 papers in refereed journals.

Seongyeon Kim, Head of POSCO Technical Research Lab., Korea

Presentation Title: Hydrogen and the Decarbonization Solutions of Steel Processes and Products at POSCO

Education:
- 1995   Ph.D. degree in Metallurgical Eng., Seoul National Univ.  
- 1990   Master’s degree in Metallurgical Eng., Seoul National Univ.
- 1988   Metallurgical Eng., Seoul National Univ. 
Experience:
- 2024.4~  Head of Technical Research Laboratories, POSCO
- 2024~    Head of Steel Manufacturing Process R&D Center, POSCO
- 2022~    Head of Steel Solution R&D Center, POSCO
- 2021~    High Mn Steel Production Technology Development Group

                 Research Fellow (Senior Vice President), POSCO
- 2017~    Group Leader of Steelmaking Research Group, POSCO
- 2016~    Group Leader of Mechanical Facility Research Group, POSCO
- 2009~    POCEM R&D Project Department (Team Leader, ’10~)
- 1995~    Gwangyang Iron & Steel Marketing Research Team, POSCO

Johannes Schenk, Montanuniversitaet Leoben, Austria

Presentation title: Ongoing Efforts and Challenges in Achieving Carbon-neutral Steel Production

Johannes Schenk started his professional career in 1990 at Voestalpine Industrieanlagenbau (now Primetals Technologies Austria). He worked as a process and research engineer for ironmaking technologies such as MIDREX, COREX, and FINMET. As general manager and vice president of R&D, he was responsible for developing the FINEX process between 1992 and 2007.

Since 2008, he has been a full professor for the Chair of Ferrous Metallurgy at the Montanuniversität Leoben. His research focus at the university is on the primary technology for steel production, i.e., ironmaking and crude steel production. The current topics in the ongoing research projects are related to CO2 lean steel production and circular economy. He was the Chief Scientific Officer of the Austrian metallurgical competence center K1-MET GmbH from 2015 to 2023.

Johannes Schenk has published over 180 papers in journals and conference proceedings and is the inventor and co-inventor of more than 30 patent families.

Rafael Mesquita, Director of Technology / CTO, CBMM

Presentation Title: Modern Steel: Niobium Driving the Future in High-Performance Materials

Dr. Rafael Agnelli Mesquita holds a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from São Carlos Federal University, Brazil, with Post-Doctoral Research conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Most of his career has been dedicated to the development and application of advanced materials, remarkably alloyed steels, focused on the connection between product characteristics and market success. As far as experience, Rafael Mesquita worked initially for 10 years in R&D in Industry and 4 years as a private consultant together with a professor assignment in Brazilian universities and lecturer at Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences. Later, he worked for 2 and 1/2 years as Director of Marketing and Technology at Villares Metas (voestalpine Edelstahl long products branch in Brazil). To date, Rafael Mesquita has published approximately 150 papers, developed 10 product patents and published 2 books with American publishers relating to the materials technology industry. He started working at CBMM in 2014 as a technical consultant for North America and in 2019 took the Technology team worldwide. Since 2021, Rafael Mesquita has been CBMM’s Director of Technology.