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INVITED SPEAKERS
Plenary Speakers
Keynote Speakers
Plenary Speakers
Plenary Speaker
Mar Combarros
She is a chemical engineer with a PhD in Mechanical and Process Engineering from the Technical University of Braunschweig. She has more than 10 years of experience in the lubricant industry working on the research, design and development of new products across a broad range of applications.
Mar currently works as project manager at IQL, coordinating research and innovation projects related to lubrication and tribology. Her main professional focus is sustainability in lubrication. She approaches sustainability not only from the perspective of lubricant formulation, but also by considering performance, efficiency, durability and overall system impact; with the aim of contributing to a more sustainable future for industrial applications.
Plenary Speaker
Esteban Broitman
Prof. Dr. Esteban Broitman is a materials scientist and translational research leader. He holds a PhD in Physics and a Docent (Habilitation) in Tribology, with more than 20 years of academic and industrial experience in surface engineering. His career includes professorships and senior scientist roles at the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina), Carnegie Mellon University (USA), and Linköping University (Sweden), as well as R&D leadership at SKF (Netherlands) and Sentys (USA).
He has integrated fundamental research on PVD/PACVD coatings, pilot-scale development, coatings nanomechanics and tribology, and commercialization to deliver measurable societal and economic impact. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, holds over 10 patents, and is included on Stanford's World's Top 2% Scientists list. His work focuses on using advanced surface engineering to control friction and wear at the macro, micro, and nano scales.
Keynote Speakers
Keynote Speaker
Borja Armendariz
He is a researcher in the Tribology and Materials Department at Tekniker, where his work focuses on the tribological characterization of gear lubricants and high-temperature tribology, with particular focus on nickel-based materials. His research contributes to the understanding of lubrication mechanisms and material behavior under severe operating conditions, providing improved performance and durability of mechanical components.
He holds a Bachelor's degree in Physics from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and a Master's degree in Advanced Materials Engineering from the UPV/EHU. He is currently a PhD student at UPV/EHU, where his doctoral research is focused on the development of low-viscosity gear lubricants based on the synergistic effect between copper oleate and extreme-pressure (EP) additives.
Keynote Speaker
Sophia Bastidas
Dr. Sophia Bastidas is a senior researcher at Virtual Vehicle Research GmbH, specializing in automotive data science, machine learning, and tribology. Her research combines experimental methods, physics-based modeling, and data-driven approaches, with a particular emphasis on predictive maintenance, anomaly detection, and federated learning with applications to bearings and lubrication systems.
She obtained a PhD in Propulsive Systems in Transportation from the Universitat Politècnica de València and was awarded the highly competitive Margarita Salas postdoctoral fellowship, funded by the European Union's NextGenerationEU program. She is project leader of the EU-funded SoliDAIR project and is involved in multiple national and EU-funded projects.
Keynote Speaker
Marc Vila Forteza
Marc Vila Forteza holds a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering (Mechanics) and a Bachelor of Science in Marine Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Spain). With more than 25 years of professional experience, his career has been dedicated to the reliability and diagnostics of rotating machinery.
He currently works as a Technical Advisor in Rotating Equipment Reliability at the Petronor refinery (Muskiz, Spain), part of the Repsol Group. He is also pursuing a PhD at the Division of Operation and Maintenance Engineering at Luleå University of Technology (LTU), Sweden, focused on remaining useful life prediction of centrifugal pumps through advanced monitoring and predictive maintenance strategies.
Keynote Speaker
Tim Hosenfeldt
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Tim Hosenfeldt is Senior Vice President Central Technologies at Schaeffler AG. He studied production engineering at the University of Bremen and worked as a research engineer at the Leibniz Institute for Materials Engineering. After receiving his doctorate from the University of Bremen in 2000, he joined the Schaeffler Group, where he established the coating and surface technology division.
From 2015 to 2022 he served as Head of Central Innovation, and since 2022 he has led Central Technologies. Since 2016 he has been honorary professor for Engineering Design at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) and is board member of the EU initiative Innovative and Advanced Materials (IAM-I).
Keynote Speaker
Jorge Seabra
Jorge is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering who joined Porto University Engineering Faculty (FEUP) in 1981. He holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering, MSc in Structural Engineering, PhD in Mechanics – Tribology (INSA de Lyon, France, 1988), and "Agregação" in Mechanical Engineering (FEUP, 2005). Research topics include Contact Mechanics, EHD Lubrication, Gears, Rolling Bearings, Lubricants, and Surface Failures.
He has coordinated more than 60 R&D projects financed by the EU, the Portuguese Agency for R&D (FCT), and several industrial companies worldwide. He has supervised 10 Post-Doctoral Fellowships, 17 PhD Theses, and more than 50 MSc Dissertations, and authored more than 120 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. He served as Director of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Porto University (2015–2023) and Director of the Tribology Research Unit (CETRIB) at INEGI (1992–2022).
Keynote Speaker
Cristian Schmid
Cristián Schmid is an Electromechanical Engineer (UTN, Argentina) and holds an MBA from Euncet Business School (Spain), with more than 25 years of experience in industrial maintenance, tribology, and rotating equipment reliability. He currently serves as General Manager of Grupo Sicelub Lubritech, overseeing operations across Latin America and Europe. His professional work focuses on the development and implementation of advanced lubrication engineering solutions aimed at improving reliability, availability, and operational efficiency in sectors such as power generation, Oil & Gas, mining, and steel. He holds international certifications from the International Council for Machinery Lubrication (ICML), including MLT I (Machine Lubrication Technician), MLA II (Machine Lubricant Analyst), and VPR (Varnish Prevention & Removal), with specialization in varnish control in lubrication and hydraulic systems.
He has led applied engineering projects involving technologies such as oil mist lubrication, oil purification, high-velocity flushing, and varnish mitigation in turbomachinery, contributing to improvements in reliability indicators (MTBF) and reduction of operational failures. Since 2025, he has served as President of the Argentine Association of Tribology, promoting technical knowledge dissemination and strengthening the link between industry and academia through conferences, training programs, and technical events. He is a frequent speaker at regional and international technical conferences, with a focus on tribology, predictive maintenance, and asset management.