Ghosh is Distinguished James McGill Prof. and Macdonald Prof. of Education, McGill University, Montréal, Canada. Dean of Education (1998-­‐2003), she is Fellow, Royal Society of Canada (chaired the Standing Committee: Advancement for Women in Scholarship for two terms); Member, Order of Canada (2000); Officer, Order of Quebec (2005); and Full Member, European Acad. of Sciences, Arts and Letters, Paris (1999). A recipient of several national and international awards she is past pres., American Comparative and International Education Society (2011-­‐12) and former pres., Shastri Indo-­‐Canadian Institute (1988-­‐90). Her research spans Asia, Africa, Latin America and Canada. Author of several books including Education and the Politics of Difference (2004, 2013), Redefining Multicultural Education (1996, 2004, 2014), on editorial boards of several international journals, and was featured in Time Magazine, Canadian Ed., (13.10.2003) in an article on 'Canada's Best in Education'. Her current research on the role of education in countering violent extremism (religious and right-wing) has resulted in several important publications, grants, conference presentations and keynote speeches.

Jagadish is a distinguished professor and the head of the Semiconductor Optoelectronics and Nanotechnology Group at the Australian National University. In 2021, he has been appointed president of the Australian Academy of Science, the latest of a long list of prestigious leadership activities. He has covered important editorial position in over 10 scientific journals. He published more than 650 journal papers, holds five US patents, and contributed, as co-author or co-editor, to over 15 books. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science; a distinguished Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; a visiting professor at Oxford University, UK; a distinguished chair professor for research at the National Taiwan University, among many other positions. Among his awards are: the Lloyd Rees Memorial Lecture by the Australian Academy of Science (2020); the Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal by the Australian Academy of Science (2019); and UNESCO Medal for contributions to the development of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (2018). In 2025, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (UK).

Raghavendra obtained his PhD in 1975 (Sri Venkateswara University). He has held a number of research, teaching and administrative positions at institutions including the Central Plantation Crops Research Inst., Sri Venkateswara Univ., and the Rubber Research Inst. of India. He is professor of plant sciences and JCBose National Fellow at the School of Life Sciences at the Univ. of Hyderabad. He has been awarded: Indian National Science Academy Young Scientist Medal; AP Academy of Sciences Young Scientist Award; UGC Career Award; National Academy of Agricultural Sciences Recognition Award; AP Scientist of the Year; and Indian National Science Academy Professor TS Sadasivan Lecture. His membership includes the Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Sciences India, Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and AP Akademi of Sciences.

Sukumar (PhD, 1985) is professor of ecology, Indian Institute of Science. His work originally focused on the behaviour and conservation biology of elephants, expanding later to tropical forest ecology and climate change. Sukumar is Fellow of: Indian Acad. of Sciences; Indian Natl. Science Academy; Natl. Acad. Sci. India. He has held visiting positions at Princeton Univ., Columbia Univ. and Kyoto Univ. He has contributed extensively to Indian government policy on nature conservation, and has been a member of the Indian Board for Wildlife and the Project Elephant Steering Committee. He was Chair, IUCN/SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group (1997-2004). He is the author of four books and over 200 scientific papers, and the recipient of several awards, including: Presidential Award, Chicago Zoological Soc. (1992); Order of the Golden Ark (1997); Whitley Gold Award for Internatl. Nature Conservation (2003); Internatl. Cosmos Prize (2006); JC Bose Natl. Fellowship (2011). He contributed to the work of the Intergov. Panel on Climate Change that shared the Nobel Peace Prize (2007).

Chakrabarti is senior professor, Department of Biochemistry, and Bioinformatics Centre, Bose Institute, Kolkata. He obtained his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science (1981), did postdoc. research at ETH, Zürich, Purdue Univ., UCLA and Caltech, USA, then worked at the National Chemical Lab., Pune (1990-97). Finding patterns in sequence and structure and deriving the underlying factors stabilizing the native fold of proteins and macromolecular interactions have been the hallmark of Chakrabarti’s work, which spans biophysics and bioinformatics. He is also involved in structural studies on proteins from Vibrio cholera, and the understanding the biological activity of nanoparticles. He is a fellow of all 3 science academies of India, and recipient of the JC Bose Fellowship. He is the President (2013-16) of the Asian Crystallographic Association.

Sur is Newton Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Simons Center for the Social Brain at MIT. He studies the cerebral cortex of the brain, and has discovered fundamental principles by which cortical circuits are wired during development and change during learning. He received his BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and his PhD from Vanderbilt University, Nashville. His awards include: Charles Judson Herrick Award, American Association of Anatomists; A.P. Sloan Fellowship; McKnight Neuroscience Development Award; Sigma Xi Distinguished Lectureship; Distinguished Alumnus Award, IIT, Kanpur; Distinguished Alumnus Award, Vanderbilt University. He has been elected to the Royal Society, UK; National Academy of Medicine, USA; American Academy of Arts and Sciences; National Academy of Sciences, India; Indian National Science Academy; Neurosciences Research Program, USA; and Rodin Academy, Sweden.