Plenary Speakers

Prof. Fei Wu is Associate Professor with Tenure and Deputy Director of the Department of Physical Education and Research at Peking University, China. She currently serves as Vice Chair of the ITTF Umpires and Referees Committee (URC) and is an International Elite Referee of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF).

Over the past decade, Prof. Wu has been deeply involved in international sport governance, major event operations, and the implementation of competition rules at the highest level of world table tennis. She has participated in the Olympic Games, World Championships, World Cups, and WTT Grand Smash events in multiple officiating and governance roles, including serving as Deputy Referee at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. She is widely recognized as one of the leading representatives of Chinese international technical officials in global sport governance.

Her research focuses on international sport governance, officiating systems, technology-assisted decision-making, competition management, and the institutional operation of sport rules. In recent years, she has conducted extensive studies on technology governance and rule implementation in elite table tennis, particularly regarding the Table Tennis Review (TTR) system and international officiating standards. Some of her research findings were referenced by the ITTF Umpires and Referees Committee during the revision process of the 2026 Handbook for Match Officials (HMO).

Prof. Wu has also worked closely with the Chinese National Table Tennis Team for many years, contributing to Olympic preparation through technical and tactical analysis, competition intelligence, and rule-related research. Her policy research on China's participation in international sport organizations and global sport governance has been adopted by internal reference reports of People's Daily and received attention at the national policy level in China.

At Peking University, Prof. Wu teaches and supervises graduate students in the areas of sport governance, competition organization, and physical education. She actively promotes interdisciplinary approaches combining sport, governance, digital technology, and education, and has published extensively in leading Chinese and international academic journals.

Prof. Liu is Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the School of Sports Engineering, Beijing Sport University, and Chairman of Beijing Noitom Technology Co., Ltd. He received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 2003. With a career spanning both academia and industry, Prof. Liu has built a distinguished profile in interdisciplinary integration, bridging motion capture, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, sensor technologies, and computational mechanics.

Over the past two decades, Prof. Liu has focused on translating cutting-edge research into practical impact. He led the development of MEMS inertial sensor-based motion capture technology that has been adopted by users in over 50 countries and has earned extensive professional recognition. In virtual reality, he directed the creation of a fully immersive interaction system that achieved multiple innovations and was applied to several nationally significant simulation projects of strategic importance. His work consistently sits at the intersection of sports science, engineering, and healthcare.

Prof. Liu's research concentrates on intelligent technologies for health, with particular emphasis on smart training and digital medicine. He has published widely across sports science, computer science, engineering, and clinical medicine, and holds nearly 100 patents. His contributions have been recognized with numerous honors, including the National Thousand Talents Plan Expert, National Distinguished Expert, Beijing Distinguished Expert, the First Prize of the Beijing Science and Technology Invention Award, and the First Prize of the China Invention Association Invention Award.

Since joining Beijing Sport University in 2017, Prof. Liu has been instrumental in building the School of Sports Engineering, which now offers undergraduate and master's programs in Intelligent Sports Engineering and Data Science and Big Data Technology. He teaches and supervises graduate students, actively fostering interdisciplinary approaches that combine digital technology, sports, and health, and remains committed to advancing innovation for societal benefit.

Prof. Wang is Vice-Dean of the School of Exercise and Health at Shanghai University of Sport and Director of the Shanghai University of Sport Orthopedic Hospital. He has long been engaged in research on sports rehabilitation, sensorimotor control, and rehabilitation treatment of sports injuries, and possesses extensive experience in research, teaching, and clinical practice in the fields of sports medicine, sports rehabilitation, and the integration of sports and medicine.

Prof. Wang's research mainly focuses on sensorimotor control, sports injury rehabilitation, neuromuscular function regulation, and sports health promotion. He has led a number of national and provincial-level research projects funded by the National Social Science Foundation of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. His research has made important contributions in sports injury prediction, rehabilitation assessment, fall-risk evaluation in older adults, and exercise-based health promotion. In recent years, he has also been involved in interdisciplinary research integrating biomechanics, rehabilitation science, and wearable sensor technologies.

Prof. Wang has published numerous academic papers in high-impact international and domestic journals and has authored books including "Sports Injuries and Rehabilitation". He also serves as Associate Editor for SCI-indexed journals such as "Research in Sports Medicine" and "Journal of Exercise Science and Fitness". In addition, he holds several important academic positions in national professional societies related to sports rehabilitation and sports health. He has received honors including the Shanghai Talent Cultivation Award and is widely recognized for his academic contributions and leadership in the field of sports rehabilitation and sports health in China.

Professor Ukadike Chris Ugbolue is a Biomedical Engineer, Biomechanist, Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (FIMechE), and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). He is a Lecturer in Biomechanics at the University of the West of Scotland, where his research focuses on sports biomechanics, clinical biomechanics, rehabilitation engineering, human movement analysis, and performance optimisation.

His research integrates advanced biomechanical assessment techniques including three-dimensional motion capture, electromyography, wearable sensing technologies, force measurement, musculoskeletal modelling, and data analytics to investigate movement efficiency, injury mechanisms, rehabilitation outcomes, and elite sports performance. He has established an international research profile through collaborations with universities, healthcare providers, sporting organisations, and elite athletes.

Professor Ugbolue has made significant contributions to the fields of golf biomechanics, movement analysis, and musculoskeletal health. His recent work has expanded into tennis biomechanics, applying translational principles from golf and other precision sports to better understand serve mechanics, athlete development, injury prevention, and performance enhancement. He has published extensively in leading international journals, supervised numerous doctoral researchers, and presented his work at major international conferences, including the World Congress of Biomechanics.

Prof. Zoran Djokic holds a Ph.D. in Table Tennis from the Faculty of Sport and Physical Education at the University of Novi Sad. He is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Sport and Psychology, EDUCONS University, Serbia. He is also involved as a lecturer at several universities, with a primary focus on table tennis. His academic roles include teaching at the University of Pécs Faculty of Health Sciences in the MSc in Sports Coaching program with a table tennis specialization, and at the University of Split Faculty of Kinesiology, where he contributes to the University Degree Study in Sports Coaching in cooperation with the ITTF and ETTU. Furthermore, he contributes to various associations, including the ITTF Education program's webinar series "Table Tennis at your Fingertips" and "Hopes Around the Clock," and is currently active in the ETTU Coach Education System, developed in collaboration with the ASCENT Academy.

He is a leading expert in the theory and methodology of sports training and table tennis, as well as one of the top European experts in strength and conditioning. He teaches across all academic levels, from bachelor's to doctoral studies, and has supervised and mentored numerous elite athletes and coaches pursuing bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. Additionally, he collaborates with national associations worldwide to deliver coach education seminars that bridge scientific innovation with practical training assessment.

He has participated as a researcher and lecturer in all table tennis and racket sport science congresses from 1999 to the present. He possesses extensive research experience in competitive sports performance assessment, sports biomechanics, sports training, and training optimization. He has published over 60 papers in SCI-indexed and international journals and serves as a distinguished reviewer for high-impact journals in table tennis science.

Prof. Djokic's extensive coaching career includes serving as head coach and coach for numerous national table tennis teams and international clubs (Yugoslavia, Serbia, India, Montenegro, FC "Saarbrucken", ASC TT Grünwettersbach, Alexandria Sporting Club). He has served as a member of the Olympic Committees of Montenegro, Jordan, and Serbia, and as an expert coach for the European Table Tennis Union. He also collaborated with the US Olympic Committee and the US Table Tennis Association in preparation for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and he has been involved with the US National Training Center since 2025. He served as the personal coach for many leading European table tennis players, including the world-class Vladimir Samsonov.

Additionally, he has worked with various national teams, providing individualized specific strength, conditioning, and rehabilitation programs for high-performance athletes in basketball (EC, WC and Olympic Games medalists) and other sports.

Lin Wang is a former member of the Chinese National Badminton Team and a world badminton champion. She previously served as Head Coach of the Zhejiang Women's Badminton Team and is currently Director of the Physical Training and Research Center at Zhejiang College of Sports. During her athletic career, she won several major titles, including the BWF World Championships, the National Games of China, the BWF World Junior Championships, and the Asian Junior Badminton Championships. During her coaching career, the athletes she coached won two Olympic gold medals and one Olympic silver medal, achieving a historic breakthrough by securing Zhejiang badminton's first Olympic gold medal.

Currently, Lin Wang serves as Director of the Physical Training and Research Center at Zhejiang College of Sports. She actively promotes the deep integration of scientific research resources with frontline training practice, advances the development of scientific, refined, and data-driven training support systems, and provides practical support for elite athletes in their competition preparation and performance enhancement.

Goran Munivrana is an associate professor at the Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Split, Croatia, internationally recognised in the field of racket sports science and coaching. As a former national team table tennis player and coach, he has successfully combined a scientific approach with the practical aspects of coaching and training in racket sports.

His main research focuses on multidisciplinary aspects of performance in racket sports, with several scientific papers published in leading WoS and Scopus-indexed sports science journals (Q1–Q2). He also serves as a reviewer for some of the foremost sports science journals, such as "Journal of Sports Sciences", "European Journal of Sport Science", "PLOS ONE", "PeerJ", "Journal of Human Kinetics" and "International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching", and has been a member of the editorial boards of several internationally recognised scientific journals, including the "International Journal of Racket Sport Science", as well as of numerous scientific conferences and congresses related to racket sports science. He was also a long-term member of the ITTF Sports Science and Medical Committee.

In the field of coach education, he has served as a lecturer at numerous coach education training courses, and as organiser and Head of the Bachelor's degree course in sports coaching for table tennis coaches and players at the Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Split, organised in cooperation with ITTF and ETTU. He is also the founder and executive director of the ASCENT Academy (Academy for Sports Coaching Excellence Networking & Training), which organises coach education and training courses, sport camps, and international sports and sport science-related events.