Chen is a professor of Physics at University of Science and Technology of China, where he received his PhD in 1992. He is also an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the director of the Key Laboratory of Strongly Coupled Quantum Materials of Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research is focused on high-temperature superconductors, strongly correlated electronic materials and other quantum materials. He has received several distinguished awards, including the First Prize of State Natural Science Award of China, the Bernd T. Matthias Prize in International Superconducting Materials and TWAS Prize in Physics. He has been an Advisory Board of Solid State Communications and Science Bulletin, and an associate editor of Science China Materials.

Deen is a Distinguished University Professor, Senior Canada Research Chair in Information Technology and Director of the Micro- and Nano-Systems Laboratory at McMaster University, Canada. His current research interests include nano-/opto-electronics, nanotechnology and data analytics and their emerging applications in health and environment. His research records include more than 600 peer-reviewed articles and two textbooks “Silicon Photonics-Fundamentals and Devices” and “Fiber Optic Communications-Fundamentals and Applications”. He was awarded four honorary doctorate degrees in recognition of his exceptional research and scholarly accomplishments, exemplary professionalism and valued service, especially to the developing world. He is elected to Fellow status in twelve national academies and professional societies including the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences – India, IEEE, ECS and APS. He served as the elected President of the Academy of Science, RSC from 2015 to 2017. Most recently, he was elected to the Order of Canada (July 2018), the highest civilian honor awarded by the Government of Canada.

Erra-Balsells (PhD, 1979, University of Buenos Aires, UBA, Argentina) is consultant full professor, Departemento de Quimica Organica, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, UBA and visiting prof. Faculty of Agriculture, Ehime University, Japan, and investigator (superior), Argentine National Research Council. She is member of the IMSF office board, representative of Central and South America. She was: vice-president and president, Argentine Society of Mass Spectrometry; secretary, vice-president and president, Argentine Organic Chemistry Society; editor and editor-in-chief, Journal of the Argentine Chemical Society (AQA). Her awards and honors include: AQA, Dr. P.A. Berdoy prize; AQA, Dr. L.C. Guglialmelli prize; Institute of Ibero-American Culture & Ministry of Education of Spain; V Centenary 1492-1992 Award; Japan Society for Promotion of Sciences, international research fellow; Konex foundation (Argentina) Konex Diploma in Organic Chemistry. She is fellow of the Latino-american Academy of Sciences (ACAL). Research interests: chemistry and photochemistry of MALDI matrices. Design of new MALDI matrices for biosystems analysis. Intact single cell MS analysis, at real time.

Specializing in metabolomics, natural products chemistry, and plant biochemistry, Farag completed his PhD at Texas Tech University, USA, in 2003. In 2005, after spending time as a postdoctoral fellow at The Samuel Noble Foundation, USA, and the James Graham Brown Cancer Center, USA, he became assistant professor in 2005 at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University, Egypt. Since 2009, Farag has been working as a part time visiting professor at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, to participate in teaching plant metabolomics and chemomterics modelling for master students, and in 2009–2010 he held the Alexander von Humboldt fellowship in Germany. Farag now works full time as a professor at the American University in Cairo (AUC) where his research work focuses primarily around applying innovative biochemical technologies (metabolomics) to help answer complex biological questions in medicine, herbal drugs analysis and agriculture. For his highly cited publications of close to 5000 citations and an H index of 32, Farag was selected as a top researcher in the field of plant biology in Africa by the American society of plant biology, United States.

Garcia (Ph.D. 1990, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is a Professor at the Department of Clinical and Toxicological Analysis at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. A member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and São Paulo State Academy of Sciences. She is a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow and an editor at Current Opinion in Microbiology, Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology, Methods X, Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry, Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences and Associate Editor of Current Research of Microbial Sciences ( 2020- ). Integrated several committees in Brazilian funding agencies and is a consultant of several international agencies such as Welcome Trust, European Research Council, US-Israel Binational Science Foundation, Medical Research Council. Chair of the International Affairs Committee at The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) and a collaborator of the Provost of Post-Graduation at the University of São Paulo.

Gray is President/CEO of the South African Medical Research Council, Research Professor in Paediatrics at the University of the Witwatersrand, and Member (Professor) in the Vaccine & Infectious Disease Division at the Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center, in Seattle. A Medical Doctor, specialising in Paediatrics, she started her research career in the field of preventing mother to child transmission of HIV-1 (PMTCT). She was awarded a Fogarty Fellowship to study clinical epidemiology at Cornell and Columbia Universities (1999), enabling her to broaden her investigative interests to include: clinical trial design; vaccine. She developed her research in post-natal transmission, focusing on breast-feeding, infant survival and post-exposure prophylaxis. Gray collaborated in multi-country efforts to find short-course and affordable antiretroviral interventions for PMTCT. She co-founded with James McIntyre the Perinatal HIV Research Unit (PHRU) at Baragwanath Hospital, which is now a world-renowned research unit focused on HIV prevention and treatment with grants awarded through competitive international processes from the NIH, USAID, amongst others, amounting to over R120 million pa.

Holden earned his PhD in mathematics from the University of Oslo in 1985, and is Doctor honoris causa, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Hanoi. Since 1986 he has been working at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, where he became a full professor in 1991. He is Secretary General of the International Mathematical Union (2015–2022); Vice-president of the European Mathematical Society (2007–10) and Secretary (2003–06). Holden is an elected member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters (President 2014–16), the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences, the Academia Europaea, the European Academy of Sciences. He is Fellow of the American Mathematical Society and of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics too.

Jahiruddin (PhD, 1986, Aberdeen University) is a Professor of Soil Science, former Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and former Associate Director of Central Laboratory at Bangladesh Agricultural University. He obtained BAS Gold Medal Award 2009, Global Research Impact Award 2017, BAAG Gold Medal Award 2018 and Soil Care Award 2018. He is a Fellow of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS). Professor Jahiruddin has a very high record of research publications in relation to Micronutrient problems, arsenic contamination and conservation agriculture. He worked as a team leader for research priority setting in agriculture and development of vision document -2030 and beyond in Bangladesh: Land and Soil Resource Management.

Lu, Ph.D. from Columbia University, worked at AT&T Bell Labs; later joined the Electronics Research and Service Organisation (ERSO) of Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to lead Taiwan’s National Submicron Project. He is the Chairman and CEO of Ardentec Corp., and serves as the President and CTO of Macronix International. He has published more than 500 technical papers and has been granted 160 patents. Lu has been elected as an IEEE Fellow, American Physical Society Fellow, Fellow of National Academy of Inventors, and ITRI Laureate. He has been awarded the IEEE Third Millennium Medal; the IEEE Frederik Philips Award; and the 2013 Presidential Science Prize, the highest award in Taiwan. In 2018, Lu was elected as an Academician of Academia Sinica, the first CEO from industry to have been honored by Academia Sinica.

Mayor is an Indian cell biologist. After studying chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, he was awarded his PhD in life sciences from The Rockefeller University, New York, and worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University. In 1995, he joined the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, a centre of TIFR where he has been studying the fine structure and the function of the membrane of living cells using methods derived from biology, chemistry, and physics. He has been elected as a Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian Science Academy, a Foreign Fellow of National Academy of Sciences (USA), and European Molecular Biology Organization. He has been awarded the TWAS Prize in Biology and the Infosys Prize in Life Sciences. He serves as Director of NCBS, and was Director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem) at Bangalore, and is founding director of Centre for Cell and Molecular Platforms (CCAMP), a technology enabler and biotech start-up incubator; together these make up the Bangalore Life Science Cluster, a multi-institutional organization that he has driven since 2015.

Lynn Morris was appointed as the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation at Wits University from 1 April 2021. Her previous positions include Interim Executive Director of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and Principal Medical Scientist and head of the HIV Virology Section at the NICD, Johannesburg, South Africa. She holds a joint appointment as Research Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and an Honorary appointment as a Senior Scientist at CAPRISA. She completed her undergraduate studies at Wits University and obtained a DPhil from the University of Oxford in 1988. Lynn is an NRF A-rated researcher (leading international scholar) who has made significant contributions to our understanding of how the antibody response to HIV develops and her laboratory conducts validated end-point assays for HIV vaccine clinical trials. She has been recognised through several national and international awards including the Wits Vice Chancellor’s Research Award and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Prize in Medical Sciences. She has supervised 30 PhD and MSc students, has published over 270 papers holding a current author H-Index of 63

Ngila (PhD,1996, University of New South Wales) holds MSc in Chemistry (1992), Bachelor of Education in Science (1986), Kenyatta University (KU). Her research is in water quality monitoring and nanotechnology for water treatment. She taught at KU (1989-1997); University of Botswana (1998-2006); University of KwaZulu Natal (2006-2011); and University of Johannesburg (2011-2017) as a Full Professor of Analytical/Environmental Chemistry. She was Head of Applied Chemistry Department (2013- 2016) and Ag. Director of the Water Node of the Nanotechnology Innovation Centre (2015) at the University of Johannesburg; Deputy Director at Morendat Institute of Oil and Gas, (April 2017- Feb 2020) and Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Riara University, Kenya (Feb 2020-current). She has over 200 journal articles. She trained over 30 Doctoral Students, 33 Masters and 22 Honours Students and 18 Postdoctoral Research Fellows. Awards include 2017 African Union Kwame Nkrumah and 2016 South Africa Distinguished Women in Science. Member of Academy of Science of South Africa; African Academy of Science. Currently Co-Chair of the 2021 Commonwealth Science Conference hosted by Royal Soc. and AAS.

Savino was graduated in Biological Sciences at the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (1974), got his MSc degree in Histology and Embryology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (1979), PhD degree in Cell and Tissue Biology at the University of São Paulo (1982), and had a post-doc training in Cellular Immunology at Necker Hospital, Paris (1983-1985). Presently, he is full researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation. He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences; Editor-in-Chief of the journal NeuroImmunoModulation and Associated Editor of Frontiers in Immunology. He received international awards, namely the title of Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques (France), Doctor Honoris causa by Sorbonne Université (France), the Luis Federico Leloir Medal (Argentinian government), Guest of Honor (National University of Rosário, Argentina) and Eduardo Charreau Award (Argentinian Government). His research is focused in cellular immunology, with emphasis in cell migration in the hemopoietic system; neuroimmune interactions; cell therapy and immunotherapy in neuromuscular diseases.

Serwadda is a leading scientific expert in Africa's HIV response since early 1980's. Current research focuses on evaluation of population based HIV intervention and strengthening provision of comprehensive HIV services in Uganda. Previous roles included head of Department of Disease Control and Environmental Health, dean of School of Public Health and executive director of Rakai Health Science Program. He is a Fellow of the Uganda National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Medicine, US. He received a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from Makerere Medical School, Masters in Public Health and an honorary doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. Currently he is a professor in Department of Disease Control, Makerere University School of Public Health. He chairs and serves in a number of boards, and is also on a number of editorial boards.

Ben Zhong Tang is Distinguished Presidential Chair Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-SZ). He is interested in materials science, macromolecular chemistry and biomedical theranostics. Tang received BS and PhD degrees from South China University of Technology and Kyoto University, respectively, and carried out postdoctoral research at University of Toronto. He joined the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology in 1994 and moved to CUHK-SZ as Dean of School of Science and Engineering in 2021. He was elected to Chinese Academy of Sciences, Royal Society of Chemistry, and World Academy of Sciences for the Advancement of Science in Developing Countries. Tang has published >1,600 papers, with >125,000 citations and an h-index of 158 (Google Scholar, 08/08/2021). He has been listed by Clarivate Analytics as a Highly Cited Researcher in both areas of Chemistry and Materials Science since 2014. He received National Natural Science Award (1st Class) from the Chinese Government in 2017. He is serving as Editor-in-Chief of Aggregate published by Wiley.

Ticianelli obtained his BSc degree in 1976 and his PhD in 1985 in Physical Chemistry at University of São Paulo. He developed his full academic carrier at the Institute of Chemistry of São Carlos (IQSC) and in November 2003 reached the category of Full Professor. Ticianelli was head of the Department of Physical Chemistry of Institute of Chemistry of São Carlos for four years and the Director of this Institute from 2006 to 2010. He is member of the São Paulo Academy of Science and of the Brazilian Academy of Science. He collaborated in the writing of two textbooks in the Electrochemistry area. Publication of scientific research includes 220 scientific papers in journals listed in several indexing platforms. He has given several plenary conferences and has presented tenths of invited lectures and keynotes in national/international scientific meetings. He has acted as advisor for over 50 MSc and PhD theses in the Post-Graduation programmes at the Institute of Chemistry of São Carlos. He is an expert in fuel cells, particularly the proton exchange membrane alkaline and solid oxide systems.

Villa is an Associate Professor at the Department of Radiology and Oncology of the Faculdade de Medicina of the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) and Head of the Innovation in Cancer Research of the Center for Translational Research in Oncology of the Instituto do Câncer do Estado de São Paulo (ICESP), São Paulo, Brazil. She graduated in Biological Sciences, USP and has a PhD in Sciences from the Institute of Chemistry of USP (1978). She was a researcher at the São Paulo branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research from 1983 to 2011, and was its director from 2006 to 2010. She is a full member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. In 2018 she received the Biology Prize from The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in Trieste, Italy. Her research involves studies about human papillomavirus (HPV), cervical cancer, anogenital cancer, head and neck cancer, HPV infections in women and men, prophylactic HPV vaccines. As of end-2019, she had published 334 scientific articles (h-index: WOS 60). She made more than 500 presentations as invited speaker in meetings throughout the world. She has mentored 13 MSc, 20 PhD students and 8 Pos-Doctoral fellows.

Wu (PhD, 1993, Zhejiang University) is president and professor, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou; fellow, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, IEEE, China Computer Federation, Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence, Chinese Association of Automation. He was: joint PhD student, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI); visiting professor, the University of Arizona. His prizes include: IEEE/Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Best Paper Awards; Distinguished Young Scholars of National Science Foundation of China (2005); Second Prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award (2010); the HLHL Science and Technology Innovation Award of the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation (2011); Second Prize of National Technology Invention Award (2014); First Prize of Innovation Award of Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence (2016); Top-10 Achievements in Science and Technology in Chinese Universities (2016).

Yang (PhD) is a professor, Institute of Psychology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She has been working on psycholinguistics and comparative studies between language and music processing, with over 200 papers published on journals in the fields of psychology, linguistic sciences and cognitive neurosciences. She is a member of Standing Committee, and Fellow, Chinese Psychological Society; member of Division of Phonetics, Chinese Society of Linguistics; President, Society of Neurolinguistics, Society for Chinese Language Modernization (2020-2022). She was Director, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1997-2006; President of Chinese Psychological Society, 2009-2013; Chief-editor for Acta Psycologica Sinica, 2006-2009, and Advances in Psychological Sciences, 1997-2006. She received awards: National Excellent Scientist from China Association of Science and Technology, 2014; Life span achievements, 2015, and Achievements in academic development, 2016, from Chinese Psychological Society.

Zaritzky has received the degree of Chemical Engineer, Faculty of Engineering, University of La Plata, (UNLP) Argentina in 1971 and PhD degree in Chemical Sciences from the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina), in 1984. She has carried out an extensive original work of scientific research and technological development in Food and Environmental Engineering, and is internationally considered among the core of recognized specialists, reaching the highest research category in Argentina (Superior Researcher of the Scientific and Technological National Research Council, CONICET). Full Professor of Transport Phenomena- Chemical Engineering Department - UNLP, she also specialized in Food Preservation. Professor Emeritus since 2016, Zaritzky has focused her research interests in the application of Chemical Engineering principles to the design and optimization of food processing and preservation, and waste-water treatments. Author of 247 publications in international peer-reviewed journals and 50 book chapters, she has also 6 approved patents. She participated in more than 70 technical works contributing to technology transfer.

Armienta is a senior researcher at the Geophysics Institute of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Her investigations have unraveled groundwater contamination sources and determined the geochemical processes involved in the environmental mobility of arsenic and heavy metals. She developed methods to remediate contaminated water with native rocks. Results of her studies were applied by authorities to solve pollution problems. She identified chemical species in water related to the activity of hazardous volcanoes, to be used for volcanic risk assessment. Armienta is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of Popocatépetl volcano. She has authored more than 180 scientific publications in international journals and books. She was the Mexican coordinator of the Iberoarsen network aimed to solving arsenic problems in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. She is a National Research Level III (highest) by Mexican National Science Council; she was awarded Juana Ramírez de Asbaje merit by UNAM, Academic and Research Trajectory recognition by the Mexican Association of Geohydrology, and Earth Sciences Teacher of the Year award by the Mexican Geophysical Union.

Babalola (Pr.Sci.Nat, MASSAF, FTWAS, FAS, FAAS, FISC) is the Vice President of the Org. for Women in Sci. for the Developing World. Baba, a National Research Foundation-rated scientist with MBA, sits on several editorial boards and acts as an International Advisor to a few others. She was with Int. Inst. of Tropical Agric (Nigeria), ICIPE (Kenya), Weizmann Inst. of Sci. (Israel), Univ of the Western Cape, and now North-West Univ (South Africa). She has 21 years of rhizosphere research experience. She is passionate about capacity building & has trained 35 PhDs & 25 MScs. Many of her PhD. products are in academics in the UK, Italy, America, Canada, Australia, Sweden, & Africa. She authored 400 publications. She is an AAAS-TWAS Science diplomacy alumnus, impacting the world in policymaking, diplomacy, and diplomatic engagement. Her international experience spans the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania. She enjoys global partnerships, and her efforts have received many awards, including the finalist, GenderInSite 2020, Clarivate 2022 & 2023, SAWISA 2024. Baba has an H-index of 71, 23,997 citations & 56 professional certificates. She is #1 in Africa for Soil Science and Plant Nutrition

Bauzer Medeiros is Full Professor at the Instituto de Computação of Unicamp, the Universidade Estadual de Campinas, in Brazil. She earned her MSc in 1979 from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, and her PhD in Computer Science in 1985 from the University of Waterloo, in Canada. She received Brazilian and international awards for research, teaching, and work in fostering the participation of women in information technology. Her research is centred on the managing scientific data, including handling very heterogeneous data sources. She coordinated large transdisciplinary and multi-institutional projects in agro-environmental planning, biodiversity and health, involving, among others, sensor data streams, satellite images, photos, videos, sound, clinical data and all kinds of textual sources. As the President of the Sociedade Brasileira de Computação (2003–2007), she launched some of the first countrywide initiatives to attract women to computing. She is recognized in Brazilian and international forums for initiatives associated with public policies in science and technology and in open data, and coordinates open science activities at the Brazilian Acad

Beraldo is professor of chemistry at Departamento de Química, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil. She obtained her PhD degree (Docteur d’État ès Sciences Physiques) from Université Paris VI (1984). She spent one year as senior intern at the Chemistry Department, Illinois State University (1996), and was invited professor at Université Paris XIII (1993, 1999, 2010). Beraldo is interested in inorganic chemistry and medicinal inorganic chemistry. She supervised 11 postdoctoral interns, 24 PhD dissertations and 12 master theses. She has published 146 articles and 3 book chapters. Her h-index is 43 in Google Scholar and 38 in Web of Science. Beraldo was lecturer in the opening lecture at the 2016 Annual Congress of the Brazilian Chemical Society. She has received the top scientific rank awarded by the Brazilian Research Council (CNPq), and was coordinator of the CNPq Chemistry Advisory Committee (2012-2013). Beraldo is a Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. She was awarded the medal of the National Order of Scientific Merit from the Brazilian Government (2018) and the Simão Mathias Medal from the Brazilian Chemical Society (2016).

Prof. Agnès Binagwaho, MD, MD (Ped), PhD, is pediatrician and the founding, retired vice-chancellor of the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) in Rwanda. She previously worked as the executive secretary of Rwanda National AIDS Control Commission, as permanent secretary of the Ministry of Health, and as the Minister of Health. She served as a senior advisor to the Director General of the World Health Organization. She is a senior lecturer at UGHE, at Harvard Medical School, and adjunct clinical professor at Dartmouth College, in the Unites States. She is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and the World Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the African Academy of Sciences. She is an Emerson Elder and has published over 250 peer-reviewed articles and was named among the 100 Most Influential African Women for 2020 and 2021.

Buschiazzo holds a BSc degree in Biology (Universidad de La Plata, Argentina), and a PhD degree in Chemistry (1999, Institute Leloir, Universidad de Buenos Aires). He later specialized in protein crystallography as a postdoc at the Institut Pasteur (IP) in Paris (Department of Structural Biology and Chemistry), where he obtained a tenured position in 2003. Since 2006 he has been head of the Lab of Molecular and Structural Microbiology at IP Montevideo (a member of the IP International Network) in Uruguay. Maintaining this double appointment, in 2016 he was promoted to associate professor in the Department of Microbiology (IP, Paris). His science is focused on microbiology, aimed at understanding molecular mechanisms of key proteins. A special interest is dedicated to pathogenicity determinants in Leptospira and other bacterial pathogens. Buschiazzo leads a team with strong expertise in the structural biology and biochemistry of bacterial signaling systems. His lab has uncovered how proteins change their shape and conformation in very specific ways, enabling bacteria to sense their environment and internal milieu, and trigger adaptive responses.

Cai (PhD, 1995, Fudan University, China) is professor and director, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); president, Gravity and Relativistic Astrophysics Division of the Chinese Physical Society; vice-president, Gravity, Cosmology and Astrophysics Division of the Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies (AAPPS); president, BRICS Association of Gravity Astrophysics and Cosmology. His prizes include the second place of National Natural Science Prize of China, Thomson Reuters global highest citation prize, the first place of Chongqing Natural Science Prize. He is a member of CAS. His research field is gravity and cosmology. In black hole physics, holographic properties of gravity, inflation model, dark energy, and gravitational wave physics, he has published more than 300 papers, these works received more than 20,000 citations and his h-index is 77.

Djimde received a pharmacy doctoral degree from the Ecole Nationale de Médecine et de Pharmacie of Bamako, Mali in 1988. He conducted post-doctoral research at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) under the supervision of Thomas E. Wellems in the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases. While at the NIH, he started new training under the supervision of Christopher V. Plowe for a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, USA, which he obtained in 2001. During his PhD project he conducted seminal studies describing the first reliable molecular marker for chloroquine resistance and proposing a model for field monitoring of drug resistance using molecular markers, resulting in first-author publications on the New England Journal of Medicine and on The Lancet. He returned to Mali to start his own laboratory at the Malaria Research and Training Center (MRTC-Parasito), at the University of Science, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako, Mali. The primary goal of his research is antimalarial drug resistance, genetics, antimicrobial resistance and clinical drug development. With his team and collaborators he conducts field and laboratory based studies.

Aster Gebrekirstos (PhD, Gottingen University, Germany, 2005) is senior scientist and head of the dendrochronology lab, World Agroforestry (ICRAF), Nairobi, Kenya, and affiliated with Erlangen University, Germany. Her research is in the area of forest ecology, dendroclimatology, climate change, applications of stable isotopes, land restoration. She led and participated in research projects across Africa and Asia. She set up dendrochronology labs in Ethiopia (2009) and in Nairobi (2013). She taught at Alemaya and Wondo Genet University, Ethiopia; as visiting professor at WASCAL, and Dresden University in Germany. She trained 20+ PhD students, published 80+ journal articles and book chapters. Her awards include: African Climate Award for excellence in climate change research (2014), Special Award for Groundbreaking Science (2009). Fellow of African Academy of Science (AAS), International Academy of Wood Science, conferred Eleonore Trefftz Visiting Professorship Dresden University. She is a vice-president of International Union of Agroforestry, chair of Environment Committee at AAS, member of science leadership at Past Global Changes (PAGES) and Mountain Research Institute (MRI).

Gonzales has been professor for 42 years of the Faculty of Sciences and Philosophy of the Peruvian University Cayetano Heredia (1979-2021) with a wide and recognized scientific career at national and international level from 1977 to the present day. Physician and biologist by profession, he is the first Doctor of Science at the Peruvian University Cayetano Heredia (1985) and also holds a PhD in Medicine (1999) with a post-doctorate at Monash University, in Melbourne, Australia (1987-1988). He is an Academic of Number at both the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. During his 44 years of scientific life, he has devoted himself to research on the endocrine aspects of adaptation to high altitude, in particular to the hormonal mechanisms that regulate erythropoiesis. In Peru, residents above 2000m account for 30% of the Peruvian population. Gonzales is the author of 355 scientific publications, including 12 books and 14 book chapters. He has received 72 national and international awards during his scientific career. He is a referee of more than 60 international journals. He has advised 30 Bachelor's, 19 Master's and 8 Doctor´s thesis.

Goswami (PhD University of Calcutta, 1996) is currently a senior professor in the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, India. Her topic of research is neutrino physics and physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. She is a member of the India-Based Neutrino Observatory collaboration. She has received several awards including the Humboldt fellowship from Alexander-von-Humboldt foundation, P. Sheel Memorial Lecture Award for women scientists from the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI), Allahabad, India, the C .V. Raman Mahila Vijnana Puraskara from Swadeshi Vijnana Andolana, Karnataka, and the J.C. Bose National fellowship of Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), India. She is an elected fellow of all the three science academies in India.

Hutz graduated in biology from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in 1973 and obtained her PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology from UFRGS in 1981. She was postdoctoral fellow at the Division of Pediatric Genetics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (1982-1983); professor at the Department of Genetics at UFRGS. She was vice-president and president of the Brazilian Society of Genetics. Hutz has more than 270 published articles and an ISI h-index of 40. Her research field and experience is in genetics, with emphasis on human and medical genetics. In 2010, she received the SCOPUS-Brazil award and her PhD students obtained the CAPES Thesis Award by the Brazilian Ministry of Education, and Honorable Mention of same award in 2011 in the area of biological sciences. She was appointed as a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences in 2011. Hutz was honored at the 60th Brazilian Congress of Genetics for her relevant contribution to the field. Her research aims to the diversity of the human genome and its effects on susceptibility to multifactorial diseases, and pharmacogenomics mainly of psychiatric disorders and infectious diseases.

Joshi, an internationally acclaimed scientist, was a senior professor in the department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, before joining Charotar University of Science and Technology (CHARUSAT) as their provost, and founding director for the International Center for Cosmology (ICC). He is regarded as a scholar, physicist, and an expert on cosmology. Joshi’s research interests are general relativity and cosmology. He has made fundamental contributions in black hole physics and gravitation theory. His extensive analysis of general relativistic gravitational collapse has been widely recognized as providing significant insights into final fate of massive collapsing stars in the universe, formation of space-time singularities, and cosmic censorship. His research which mainly revolves around Cosmology and Gravitation Physics, has been reported in more than 200 research papers in international journals of repute, and also in monographs from Oxford University Press (OUP), Cambridge University Press (CUP) and other books on the subject. He has held visiting faculty positions in several countries doing research, lecturing on these topic.

Karunaweera is the chair, senior professor of parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and honorary visiting fellow at the School of Public Health, Harvard University, USA. Trained as a medical parasitologist she has extensive teaching and research experience in tropical diseases, with special emphases on vector-borne diseases. Elected Fellow of National Academy of Sciences of Sri Lanka, she is the first Sri Lankan elected as an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and as a Distinguished International Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. She received several research grant awards, both international and local, including Tropical Medicine Research Centre Award, by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Health, US. Fellowship awards received include Harvard University’s Senior Research Scholar Award (2005/6); Fulbright Advanced Research and Lecturing Award (2005). She is the founder president of Sri Lanka National Chapter of Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) and current president of Sri Lanka College of Microbiologists.

Mamun obtained his BSc (Honours) and MSc (Thesis) from Jahangirnagar University, and secured 1st class 1st position in both the examinations. He received his PhD degree from the University of St. Andrews (UK) under the Commonwealth Scholarship. Mamun was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship (Germany), the Commonwealth Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship (UK), the Max Planck Research Fellowship (Germany), among others. Mamun received the AvH the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award in 2009. He was awarded the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences Gold Medal in 2004, the TWAS Prizes for Young Scientists in Developing Countries in 2006, among other recognitions. He has published over 400 research articles in peer-reviewed international journals, and has written a textbook published by the Institute of Physics (London).

McManus, BSc from University College Dublin (1987), MSc from University of Edinburgh (1988) and PhD from University of Oxford (1991), received a post-doctorate scholarship at the University of Sydney (2002). She is full professor of Universidade de Brasilia and CNPq scholarship holder (1A). She has experience in animal genetics and breeding, in conservation of animal genetic resources and landscape genetics. McManus has published more than 400 articles in peer reviewed journals with editorial board, 24 book chapters, more than 550 abstracts in conferences, and supervised more than 200 student. She participates in joint projects at the United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Council of South Africa and Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA), France, among others. She is a reviewer for 38 national and international journals, and 11 development agencies as well as associate editor for Tropical Animal Health and Production. She was director of international affairs for CAPES/Ministry of Education, Brazil. McManus is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Science and commander of the National Order of Scientific Merit.

Musoke (MBChB, PhD) is a professor, pediatric infectious diseases specialist in the department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Makerere University, and has carried out research with the Makerere University-Johns Hopkins University research collaboration since 1995. She has conducted multiple perinatal HIV prevention clinical trials with US National Institute of Health Division of AIDS network (HIVNET/HPTN/IMPAACT), including the landmark HIVNET012 (Ugandan vice-chair), single dose nevirapine (NVP) to mother and infant for prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV, which have informed WHO guidelines for PMTCT. She has also conducted pediatric HIV treatment clinical trials to improve antiretroviral therapy for children in resource-limited settings, and pediatric TB diagnostics and treatment. In 1999, she received the Recognition Award, for outstanding contributions to advancing the prevention of perinatal HIV transmission, Canada, and in 2017 the National Bioethics Award, Uganda National Council for Science and Technology, Uganda. Musoke is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and in 2016 she was appointed fellow of the Uganda Academy of Sciences.

Paz got his PhD from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), Argentina, and held a postdoctoral position both at the Universtity of Maryland and at the Los Alamos National Lab (LANL), United States, where he was also a staff member. He is a leader in quantum information. He made major contribution to the theory of quantum open systems and to the study of the process of decoherence. He contributed to the theory of quantum error correction and to design new quantum algorithms for physics simulations. He played a key role to establish a strong experimental basis for quantum technologies in Argentina. As a director of the Physics Department of UBA he played a key role to position it as a leading institution in the region. He is plenary full professor at UBA, superior investigator at CONICET and since December 2019 has been the vice-minister of Science in Argentina. Paz received the 2015 Argentinian Presidential Prize in Science, the TWAS Prize in Physics, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the W. Bessel Prize; and the Bunge and Born, and Konex prizes in Argentina.