Laureate Professor Behdad Moghtaderi is a distinguished chemical engineer and Director of the Centre for Innovative Energy Technologies at the University of Newcastle (Australia). He received his PhD and MES degrees from the University of Sydney in 1997 and 1994, respectively and his BE (Mechanical Engineering) from Shiraz University in 1989. His research interests are broad, but the underlying theme is ‘thermo-fluids engineering’ focussing on the nexus between energy, water, and carbon emissions in application areas such as renewable energy, sustainable/green fuels and chemicals, power generation, mining, and Defence. Behdad has played a key role in various hydrogen related initiatives in the Hunter and broadly in Australia (e.g., Hunter Hydrogen Taskforce; Hunter Hydrogen Roadmap; Australian Trailblazer for Recycling and Clean Energy; NSW Decarbonisation Hub; NSW Power to X Network, CRC-HILT). Behdad is also a successful entrepreneur who has had outstanding success in developing several technologies including the GRANEX Waste Heat Recovery Engine, Hydro Harvester, PFAS Harvester, VAMCO, and the Virtual Gas Well. Behdad has been in academia for the past 25 years and has worked in partnership with government and industry throughout this time engaging in innovative research and delivering research outcomes of national and international significance. During this time, he has successfully secured, led, and managed 208 projects worth $92 million and has supervised 55 PhD theses to completion. Behdad is also a prolific writer with a career total of 480 scholarly publications including 2 books, 12 book chapters, 267 refereed journal articles, 159 peer reviewed conference papers, 9 major technical notes/reports and 3 patents. His publications have attracted over 15,160 citations resulting in an h-index of 63 and an i10-index of 224. Behdad has also been ranked in the top 2% of energy technology researchers (~186,000 globally) by Stanford University / Elsevier World Scientific ranking (2024).