Teaching Staff

All members of the teaching staff have a proven excellent track of scientific and educational experience and skills necessary for a high-level education at an international level, as well as administrative and research responsibilities for the proposed joint master programme. They are all dedicated to the field of Tribology, strongly involved in academic and professional societies, industrial environment, leading roles in publishing, review and editorial activities. For these reasons they have received numerous international and national awards, clearly confirming their excellence and competences.

University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Mitjan Kalin

Prof. Kalin's areas of research are wear and friction mechanisms of advanced materials, surface and interfaces phenomena and boundary films for novel green technologies. He published >130 peer-reviewed papers (H-index 22; ~1.400 citations), 10 book chapters, 1 book, 11 patents. He gave 45 invited talks world-wide (5 key note), led >35 larger projects, mostly international and >130 smaller industrial projects. He is active member of Editorial boards, including the Editor-in-chief of Lubrication Science (Wiley). He is active reviewer of peer-review journals and evaluator of European projects and many national funding agencies world-wide. He received several prestigious domestic and international awards. Currently, he is the Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. He is in charge of 9 courses given to students of all 3 levels of study (BsC, MsC, PhD).

Janez Kogovšek

Assistant Prof. Dr. Kogovšek's research areas are related to friction and wear of nanoparticle additives and nanoscale interface phenomena. He has published >30 peer-reviewed SCI journal papers and contributions at international renowned conferences (1 invited talk; H-index 6; >140 citations). He prepared a student scripta for tutorials in Tribology. He has been involved in 9 national & international projects, 5 in collaboration with industry. He has been a member of organising/programme committees in 3 international & 2 national conferences. He has been leading tutorials for Mechanical power transmissions (2009-), Tribology (2009-), Lubricants and lubrication (2009-), Nanotechnologies (2012-), TRIBOS Master’s programme (2012-). Since 2016 he is giving lectures and tutorials for course Mechanical power transmissions. Since 2015 he is Administrative Manager of EMMC TRIBOS programme.

Marko Polajnar

Dr. Polajnar is an Assistant Professor at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. His main research field is related to the investigation of solid-liquid interactions and phenomena and their influence on the EHD contacts behaviour. He has published several scientific papers, with an average of 15 citations per paper and prepared over 15 conference contributions, mainly for the most renowned international conferences in the field of tribology. He has also been involved in 3 national and international industrial and research projects. Since 2010 he has been giving and/or leading tutorials for several courses, i.e., Tribology (2010-), Lubricants and lubrication (2011-), Nanotechnologies (2012-). Since 2016 he is conducting lectures and tutorials for the courses Maintenance Technologies and Aircraft Maintenance.

University of Leeds, UK

Anne Neville

Prof. Anne Neville is the Head of the Institute of Functional Surfaces at the University of Leeds. She holds the prestigious Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies. She has published more than 400 research papers and has supervised 74 PhD students to completion. In 2016, her extensive contribution to the research field of tribology and corrosion is recognised with the IMechE’s James Clayton Prize and the Royal Society Leverhulme Medal. She currently has a research group of 50 research students and PDRAs. She coordinated two Marie Curie ITN projects in tribochemistry (ENTICE) and tribocorrosion (FUTURE-BET). Prof. Neville has successful collaborations with industrial partners across the oil and gas, automotive and medical sectors. She is the PI for the Leeds University/BG Postgraduate Training Partnership in the area of oilfield corrosion.

Ardian Morina

Prof. Ardian Morina holds a chair in Engineering Tribology and is a Fellow of Higher Education Academy. He is currently the Director of Research and Innovation in the School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds. His research is focused in the interdisciplinary research fields of tribology and surface engineering and has been published in two book chapters and in more than 100 research papers as well as it has been presented in numerous national and international conferences. Prof. Morina is involved in teaching and training in all three levels: undergraduate students by teaching Solid Mechanics to 1^st year students, master students by teaching Lubrication and Lubricants module and supervising UG student projects and supervising PhD students. He is module leader of two modules and sits in the School of Mechanical Engineering’s Taught Student Education Committee.

Tomasz Liskiewicz

Dr. Tomasz Liskiewicz is an Associate Professor at the School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds. His main expertise is in surface engineering. He is studying, teaching and communicating engineered surfaces. His main research interest is in manipulating surface properties of materials for best performance in challenging technological environments. Current research projects include DLC coatings for flow control devices in oil & gas industry, surface engineered surfaces for automotive electrical connectors, nano-mechanical testing of PVD coatings. Dr. Liskiewicz is the module leader of two modules (Introduction to Tribology, master level and Surface Engineering, master level) and is involved in teaching Fluid Mechanics module to 2^nd year UG students. He is also supervising PhD students.

University of Coimbra, Portugal

Albano Cavaleiro

Prof. Albano Cavaleiro is head of "Surface Engineering Group" of Centre for Mechanical Engineering of Uni. of Coimbra and head of LED&Mat at Instituto Pedro Nunes. His teaching activity ranges from Materials Science, to Materials Selection and Surface Engineering courses. He managed and/or scientifically coordinated > 25 national & internat. research projects. He gave ~40 invited talks in internat. conferences, supervised 14 PhD students and published >300 papers (~270 in SCI journals; H-index 32; >4000 citations). He is Senior researcher at Centre for Mechanical Engineering, Materials and Processes (CEMMPRE). His main research areas: Materials and Surface Engineering, Structural transformations, Deposition, corrosion, oxidation and characterization of thin films and coatings, Tribology, Nanocrystalline materials, Electrolytes Fuel Cells, Biomaterials etc.

Amílcar Ramalho

Associate Prof. Amílcar Ramalho, with a PhD in the field of Tribological behavior of thin films of W-Co-C, teaches Maintenance, Mechanical vibrations and Machine elements modules. His research interests include tribology, friction and wear of materials and components, fretting, tribotesting and biotribology. He is co-author of >180 papers in international journals and conferences (H-index 19; >1250 citations). He belongs to the editorial board and collaborates as reviewer of several international journals. He is a Senior reseacher at Centre for Mechanical Engineering, Materials and Processes (CEMMPRE). His main research areas are: Friction and wear of engineering material, Tribological characterization of coated surfaces, Mechanical and tribological behaviour of biomaterials, development of tribological testing equipment.

Bruno Trindade

Associate Prof. Bruno Trindade is head of Centre for Mechanical Engineering, Materials and Processes (CEMMPRE) and Vice-director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research of the University of Coimbra. He teaches Materials Science and Surface Engineering courses. He was responsible for the management and/or scientific coordination in 10 national and international research projects. He published >120 papers (~70 in international SCI journals; H-index 13; >700 citations). He is a Senior researcher and head of the Centre for Mechanical Engineering, Materials and Processes (CEMMPRE). Its main research areas are: Materials and Surface Engineering, Structural transformations, Deposition and characterization of thin films, Metastable materials, Electrolytes for SOFCs and Mechanical characterization of thin films (depth sensing indentation).

Luleå University of Technology, Sweden

Roland Larsson

Prof. Roland Larsson is the acting chair professor at the Division of Machine Elements, the tribology research group at LTU since 2009. The group includes 15 senior researchers and 20 PhD-students. Roland Larsson has supervised 20 PhD-students to their doctoral degree and he has published 96 journal papers in peer-reviewed international journals. All in the field of tribology. Roland Larsson has 25 years of experience in teaching on the master level. Courses he has taught are tribology, machine components, dynamics, hydraulics, and engineering teamwork project courses. Recently he made pedagogical development of one of his courses by introducing a combination of the Flipped classroom concept and Continuous assessment. Roland Larsson has, furthermore, long experience of academic leadership and administration. He is currently the Dean of the Engineering Faculty at LTU.

Nazanin Emami

Prof. Nazanin Emami has multidisciplinary education background in Dentistry (1994), Material science (2004) and Docent in Tribology (2011). She leads own research group (3 MsC & 4 PhD candidates, 2 postdocs, 2 guest Prof). Based on her main research field she established design and processing of multifunctional polymer composites laboratory at LTU in 2009 with main activities in the field of Biotribology. She published >35 peer-reviewed journal papers and participated in > 40 conferences. She is the program leader for TRIBOS program at LTU and director of the national research school in Tribology (2011-). Since 2011 she is active as teacher repetitive in University Appointment Board. She is teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate courses: biotribology, polymer composites, manufacturing and processing of the polymeric materials, biomaterials.

Braham Prakash

Prof. Braham Prakash is working in field of tribology for >40 years both in academia and industry. He has been fellow of Japan Society for Promotion of Science, Visiting Professor and Researcher at Tokyo University of Science, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar and Tokyo Institute of Technology. His research interests are: high temperature tribology; friction and wear of various materials; boundary lubrication and solid lubricants; surface engineering and tribology of machine components. He supervised 16 and co-supervised 5 PhDs. He published 93 international journal papers. He is teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels: tribology, surface engineering, machine components, failure analysis, friction and wear, materials for tribological applications, design of lubricated contacts and advanced topics on friction and wear.

Visiting scholars

The following list includes all scholars which had participated and supported the programme so far, as well as the year of their visit.

TRIBOS Master programme:

2016

Prof. P. Ferreira, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Dr. S. Muhl, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico
Prof. J. Zhongmin, University of Leeds, UK
Prof. A. Rizkalla, University of Western Ontario, Canada
Prof. A. Rota, Unimore University of Modena, Italy
Assoc. Prof. B.V. Manoj Venkata, Institute India, India
Dr. M. Devlin, Afton Chemical, USA
Dr. E. Tomanik, Mahle Metal Leve S.A., Brazil

2017

Assoc. Prof. C. Muratore, University of Dayton, USA
Prof. M. Kumar Banerjee, Malaviya Institute of Technology Jaipur, India
Dr. P. Marques, Aveiro University, Portugal
Dr. J. Blaker, Manchester University, UK
Prof. S. Zelenika, University of Rijeka, Croatia
Prof. K.Holmberg, VTT Technical Research Centre, Finland
Dr. M. Fillon, University of Poitiers. France
Prof. Z. Dimkovski, Halmstad University, Sweden

2018

Dr. G. Ramirez, Bruker Nano Surfaces, USA
Dr. L.A. Rocha, Universidade Estadul Paulista, Brazil
Dr. M. Gresil, University of Manchester, UK
Prof. Y. Sawae, Kyushu University, Japan
Prof. B. Basu, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, India

2019

Prof. L. Slemenik Perše, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Dr. X. Wang, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Dr. A. Beadling, Institute of Functional Surfaces, UK
Dr. L. Yang, University of Leeds, UK
Dr. A. Patnaik, Malaviya Institute of Technology Jaipur, India
Prof. J.F. Pierson, University of Lorraine, France

TRIBOS+ Master programme:

2020