Ermias Dagne is Prof. of Chemistry and Dir., African Laboratory for Natural Products (ALNAP). He is founding member, Natural Products Research Network for Eastern and Central Africa (NAPRECA). His main research area is natural products chemistry. He has more than 90 publications, mainly on the isolation and structure elucidation of natural compounds. His research was supported by grants from the Internatl. Foundation for Science, ISP-IPICS and Sida-SAREC (Sweden) and fellowships from the Humboldt Foundation (AvH, Germany) and Fulbright (USA). He is recipient of IFS/DANIDA (1997) and IOCD Pierre Crabbe (2003) awards. With his wife Tadelech he manages a natural products business Ariti Herbal (www.aritiherbal.com) and has created a versatile plant species-based database for African plants available on the web at www.alnapnetwork.com.

Prof. Ganeev is a Chief Researcher at Institute for Advanced Studies, New Uzbekistan University, Uzbekistan. He has obtained his PhD in 1987 and DSc in 1999 at the Institute of Electronics, Uzbekistan. He has served as a visiting professor at Standards and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia, Centre for Advanced Technology, India, Institute for Solid State Physics, Japan, International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Italy, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Canada, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, Saitama Medical University, Japan, Changchun Institute for Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, China, American University of Sharjah, the UAE, University of Latvia, Latvia. Prof. Ganeev is the author of 10 monographs and 500 papers published in peer-reviewed journals. His awards include the ICO Galileo Galilei Medal and the Khwarizmi International Award. He has made important contributions in the fields of high-order harmonic generation in laser plasma and nonlinear optical characterization of various media.

Lee is Dist. Res. Fellow, Inst. of Information Sci., Academia Sinica, Taiwan, (1998- ), and was Dir. of IIS (1998-08), and Pres. of Natl. Chung-Hsing U. (2011/8-2015/7). He is also Dist. Res. Chair Prof. of computer science, Natl. Taiwan U., and Chair Prof., Natl. Taiwan Tech and Natl. Chung-Hsing U.. He was Professor of computer science, Northwestern U. (1978-98) and was Program Dir., CISE, Natl. Science Foundation (1989-90). He is editor of Algorithmica, Intl. J. Information and Computer Security; Co-Editor-in-Chief, Intl. J. Computational Geometry and Applications; and editor, Lecture Notes Series on Computing, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore. He is Fellow of IEEE and ACM; Academician, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, recipient of the Humboldt Research Award, Germany, and Dist. Educator Award and Illini Comeback Guest Award, U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA.

Long is a professor at Chern Institute of Mathematics, Nankai University, China, where he was previously assistant lecturer, lecturer, and associate professor (1981-83, 1988-90). He has made fundamental contributions to Hamiltonian dynamics. In particular, he is acknowledged for his index iteration theory for symplectic paths and for his deep studies on periodic solution orbits of Hamiltonian systems including closed characteristics and geodesics. His awards include: Prize in Math., TWAS (2004); National Natural Scientific Awards (second class), State Council of China (2004); Yangzi River Prof., Education Ministry of China (2003); S. S. Chern Prize and L. G. Hua Prize, Chinese Math. Soc. (1998, 2017), Excellent Young Researcher Awards, Hong Kong Qiushi Foundation (1997), Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress, Ho Leung Ho Lee foundation (2012). He was an invited speaker of Inter. Congress of Math.-2002. He is a member of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Math. Society, and a fellow of American Math. Society.

Meng is a professor of Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. He obtained his bachelor degree in 1983 at Southwestern Agricultural University, China, and PhD in 1991 at Nottingham University, UK. He was director of the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) (2008-2012). He is an elected fellow of CAS. He has been working mainly on maternal factors related to regulation of cell lineage, body axis determination, and germ layer formation and patterning using zebrafish and mouse models. His representative work include: 1) revealing the role of Dpr2/Dact2 in mesoderm induction by antagonizing Nodal signaling (Science, 2004); 2) discovery of the maternal factor Huluwa as the key organizer determinant in the zebrafish embryo (Science, 2018); 3) Discovery of the second polar body's role in preimplantation cell fate determination and postimplantation development of the mouse embryo (National Science Reviews, 2022); 4) demonstration of regulation of zygotic genome activation by maturity of nuclear pole complexes in the zebrafish (Cell, 2022).

Morel is director, Centre for Technological Development in Health (CDTS), Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), Rio de Janeiro. A molecular biologist and medical doctor, he received his MD from the Medical Faculty, Federal Univ. of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil, and completed PhD work at the Biophysics Inst., Federal Univ. of Rio de Janeiro, and Molecular Biology Dept., Swiss Cancer Inst., Lausanne. He has led research projects in molecular parasitology and collaborated with others on neglected diseases and capacity building. He was previously: Professor, UnB; president, FIOCRUZ; and director, UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, Geneva, where he moved WHO forward in areas such as the unveiling of genomes of parasites and vectors, and establishing relationships with product-development partnerships and global ventures in public health.

Mu (Phd 1985, Fudan U.) is an academician and researcher, working in the Key Laboratory of Ocean Circulation and Waves (KLOCW) – Inst. of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS). He worked as a postdoctorate researcher at Inst. of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). His main contributions are on predictability of weather and climate and stability of geophysical fluid motions. He proposed and applied a new method called CNOP to study predictability, ensemble forecast and adaptive observations of ENSO, thermolhaline circulation of oceans, tropical cyclone, blockings, Kuroshio etc. He established a series of nonlinear stability criteria of atmospheric and oceanic motions. He is a member of CAS (2007); First Class Prize of Nature Scientific Award, CAS (2001); Natl.-wide Excellent Post Doc, Ministry of Personnel (2005); and Ho Leung Ho Lee Sc. and Tech. Prize (2010).

Pena is professor of biochemistry at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Brazil, where he graduated in medicine in 1970. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada in pediatrics in 1975 and obtained his PhD in human genetics at the University of Manitoba in 1977. He is member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and received the Great-Cross of the National Order of Scientific Merit of Brazil in 2006. is currently a member of the National Council of Science and Technnology of Brazil. Among other honours, he was awarded the 2007 TWAS Prize in Medical Sciences. He was president of the Brazilian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and member of the Council of the Human Genome Organization (HUGO). He created and directs the Danilo Pena Foundation, which grants scholarships to poor students with high intellectual potential.

Ramaswamy obtained his PhD in 1978 at Princeton University and worked at the Jawaharlal Nehru University between 1986 and 2018. He has made fundamental contributions in the study of nonlinear dynamical systems, particularly on the control and synchronization of chaotic and stochastic systems. His interests also extend to genomics and biological physics, in particular to nonequilibrium processes at the cellular and subcellular level. His membership includes the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, and he has served as Vice Chancellor of the University of Hyderabad between 2011 and 2015. He was President of the Indian Academy of Sciences in the period 2016-2018.

Wang is Vice President of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and chair professor of physics and President Emeritus of Peking University, China. He was the Provost and Executive Vice President of Peking University, the director of the Institute of Physics, CAS and the Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics; and executive president of the Graduate University, CAS. He obtained his PhD in 1990 at Peking University. He has served in various international physics committees, professional advisory committees and editorial boards. His awards include: Humboldt Research Award; TWAS Prize in Physics; IBM Faculty Awards; Achievement in Asia Award; Tan Kah Kee Science Award; Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement Prize, CAS; and Distinguished Young Research Awards, Hong Kong. His membership includes: CAS, American Physics Society, and UK Institute of Physics.

Yang is the Co-Founder and Chair of BGI-China. He and his partners have made a significant contribution to the international Human Genome Project, the HapMap Project, and the project referred to as G1K, with many publications in internationally prestigious journals, such as "Science" and "Nature", among others. Yang obtained his PhD from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and had postdoctoral trainings in France and the US. In 2006, he became Associate Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization; in 2007, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; in 2008, TWAS Fellow; in 2009, 2012 and 2014, Foreign Associate of the national academies of India, Germany and of the US, respectively. Since its inception in June 2021, Yang chairs TWAS Advisory Committee on COVID-19.

Abdool Karim is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in South Africa, and Director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa. In the Unites States, he is a Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, at Columbia University and an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Cornell University. He obtained his medical degree in 1983 and his PhD in 1999 from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His scientific contributions are in HIV prevention (microbicides and vaccines) and AIDS treatment, including tuberculosis co-infections. His awards include the 2008 TWAS Prize in Medical Sciences; the 2011 Science-for-Society Gold Medals of the Academy of Science of South Africa; the 2015 African Union’s "Kwame Nkrumah Continental Scientific Award”, 2020, he received the Maddox Prize for his work defending science during both the HIV and Covid-19 pandemics, and the 2021 Special VinFuture Prize for Developing Country Innovators. He is a member of the World Health Organization Strategic and Technical Committee on HIV and Viral Hepatitis, the Academy of Science of South Africa, the African Academy of Science, the US National Academy of Medicine, among others.

Abidi is Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He received his BSc in electrical engineering from Imperial College, London, UK, in 1976, and his MS (1978) and PhD (1981) in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He has also served in many other capacities including: Member, technical staff, Advanced LSI Development Laboratory, Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, 1981-84; visiting faculty researcher, Hewlett Packard Laboratories, 1989; and editor, IEEE Journal of Solid-state Circuits, 1992-95. He has received several honours including the IEEE Donald O. Pederson Solid-State Circuits Award; Lockheed-Martin Award for Excellence in Teaching, UCLA; IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits Best Paper Award; IEEE Millennium Medal; and membership in the US National Academy of Engineering and IEEE. He specializes in the design of analog integrated circuits, and is credited with single-chip CMOS radios. Abidi is the inaugural holder of the Abdus Salam Chair at LUMS, Lahore, Pakistan.

Artaxo is a professor of environmental Physics at the Institute of Physics, University of São Paulo (USP). He has worked at NASA, Harvard University (USA), the universities of Antwerp, Stockholm, and Lund, and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. His primary interests lie in global climate change and research on the Amazon region. He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and the World Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the US AAAS, and a long-time member of the IPCC. He is the vice president of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Sciences. He has been honored with numerous prizes, including the Doctor of Philosophy Honoris Causa title from the University of Stockholm in 2009 and the 2024 PIFI Award from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He published 519 scientific works and presented more than 1200 papers at international conferences. He has 83,701 citations in Google Scholar, with an H-index of 131, and 61,071 citations for his work on ResearchGate, with an h-index of 125. He has published 36 papers in journals in the Science and Nature groups. He is the Director of the Center for Sustainable Amazon Studies (CEAS) at the University of São Paulo.

Founding Executive Director, University of California, Davis; President Emeritus, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, MO; Professor, Department of Biology, Washington Univ., St. Louis. Former director Natl. Inst. of Food and Agriculture, US Dept. of Agriculture. Education: BA in biology (1966) Goshen College, Indiana; PhD in plant pathology (1973) Michigan State Univ., East Lansing. Previous academic positions: Washington Univ., St. Louis, Missouri; Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA. Member, US National Academy of Science; Fellow, AAAS and Academy of Microbiology; Foreign Fellow, National Academy of Sciences of India and Indian National Science Academy. Awards include the Wolf Prize in Agriculture; Dennis Robert Hoagland Award, American Society of Plant Biologists; Scientist of the Year, R and D Magazine; and Ruth Allen Award, American Phytopathological Society.

Cerda is prof. at the College of Business Administration, U. de Talca, Talca, Chile. He obtained his PhD (1991), MSc (1989), and MBA (1991) at Oregon State U., USA. At the U. de Talca, he is Director of The Graduate School (University of Talca) and former dean of Faculty of Economic and Business Administration and served as dir. of the Entrepreneurial Development Center. He was also head of the Department of Economics and director of the Center of Resource Economics and Master Degree Program on Environmental and Resource Economics at the Univ. de Concepción, Chile. He is the leading environmental and resource economist in Latin America. His work on the theory and practice of valuation of environmental and econometrics is world class. He has also been instrumental in building capacity in environmental economics in Latin America and was president of the Latin American and the Caribbean Assoc. of Environmental and Natural Resources Economics (2007-09).

Prof. Chaibi (PhD Agriculture Engineering and Climate Technologies, Swedish U. of Agriculture Sciences) is Research Dir., Natl. Research Inst. for Agricultural Engineering, Water and Forestry in Tunisia. His major accomplishments include the development of autonomous and integrated complex systems for supporting sustainable livelihood in areas poor in fresh water, thus providing communities with basic needs such as water food and energy. He was appointed in 2015 as GIZ senior advisor for the academic affairs and International affairs, and from 2008 to 2015 to serve the African Union in developing and coordinating processes in science, technology and innovations policy in Africa. He was elected Member, Governing Council, African Acad. of Sciences (AAS) representative of North Africa Region (2010), Fellow, AAS (2006), Fellow; IAS (2017). He served in various capacities as associate member of the Environmental Security panel under the NATO Science for Peace and Security and the EC Frameworks Programs.

Chandrasekhar is the Director of the National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneshwar, India. He is on a deputation from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He obtained his PhD in 1982 at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He investigates main-group organometallic chemistry, inorganic rings, metal clusters and cages. He also works on materials with emphasis on catalysis, magnetism and photophysical properties. He is a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, Indian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of India. His honours include the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi, the Friedrich Wilhelm-Bessel Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany, the JC Bose National Fellowship by the Dept. of Science and Technology, New Delhi and the SASTRA-CNR Rao award.

Coutsoudis is a public health scientist and a Professor in the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, at the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. She obtained her PhD in 1993 from the same university, and made important contributions on child nutrition, breastfeeding and prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS. Her awards include: the 2004 Nutrition Society of South Africa Award for her contribution to nutrition research in South Africa; the 2005 Amnesty International South Africa for protecting human rights in South Africa; the 2006 Convocation of University of KwaZulu-Natal for her outstanding contribution to medical science and society; and the 2009 Science for Society Gold Medal of the Academy of Sciences of South Africa, of which she is a Fellow. She is also a Fellow of of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In 2000, she established the first community-based breastmilk bank in South Africa to provide donor breastmilk to AIDS orphans, and was one of the founding members of the Human Milk Banking Association of South Africa, which she chairs. She is involved in putting in place low-cost technology for human milk banks.