Chandrasekaran is a INSA Senior Scientist at the Department of Organic Chemistry , Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India. He is also a Honorary Professor of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Jakkur, Bangalore. He was previously lecturer, assistant professor and professor of the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India from 1978-89. He is a synthetic organic chemist who is internationally recognized for his contributions to methodology development. His work has included the study of chemistry of Mo-S systems, organic-inorganic hybrid materials as catalysts for asymmetric synthesis, synthesis of peptides and synthesis of thiosugars as glycosidase inhibitors. He has been awarded the SS Bhatnagar Prize, CSIR, New Delhi and JC Bose National Fellowship of DST. He is a fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy.

Padmanabhan, Distinguished Professor at IUCAA, Pune, has authored about 270 research papers and eleven books including eight graduate-level textbooks published by Cambridge University Press. His research, providing an alternative perspective of gravity, in which gravity arises as an emergent phenomenon has far reaching implications for quantum gravity and has won prizes six times from the Gravity Research Foundation, USA including the First Award in 2008. He is an elected Fellow of all the three Academies of Science in India. He was the President of the Cosmology Commission of the International Astronomical Union (2009-2012), Chairman of the Astrophysics Commission of International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (2011-2014) and a Sackler Distinguished Astronomer of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. The national and international awards received by him include, the Presidential medal of honor, Padma Shri (2007), Inaugural Infosys Prize in Physical Sciences (2009), TWAS Prize in Physics (2011), Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award (1996), INSA Vainu-Bappu Medal (2007), Millennium Medal (2000), J.C.Bose Fellowship (2008-), Miegunah Award of Melbourne University (2004).

Balakrishnan (PhD 1979, Indian Inst. of Science, Bangalore, India) is an Hon. Professor, at the Supercomputer Education and Res. Centre, Indian Institute of Science (IISc). He was Associate Director IISc (2005-2014). He has made important contributions to Aerospace Electronics, Computational Electromagnetics, Language Technologies, Information Security, and Information and Communication Technologies. His awards include: Padmashree, Pres. of India; Prof SN Mitra Memorial Award, IETE Diamond Jubilee Medal; Jawaharlal Nehru Lectureship of INSA; JC Bose National Fellowship; Hari Om Prerit Dr. Vikram Sarabhai Res. Award; and JC Bose Medals of Inst. of Electronics and Telecommunication Eng. for best papers. He is a Fellow of: TWAS, Indian Natl. Acad. of Eng.; Indian Acad. of Sciences; Indian Natl. Science Acad.; National Acad. of Sciences; Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Eng..

Jha (PhD 1965, Stanford U.) is Honorary Professor at DAE-UM Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, U. of Mumbai. He completed postdoctoral work at Harvard and the IBM Research Centre in Yorktown heights, NY, and then returned to the Faculty of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). He retired in 2002 as distinguished professor of physics and as its director, a position which he had held since 1997. He was honorary professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai (2003-08), and a distinguished guest professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (2002-12). His honours include: SS Bhatanagar Award; SN Bose INSA Medal for Theoretical Sciences; CV Raman Birth Centenary Medal; and the Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary INSA Lecturership. He is a fellow of all major science academies in India as well as the American Physical Society.

Ashutosh Sharma was Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Science and Technology (January 2015-August 2021) where he initiated several new policies and programs. He is an Institute Chair professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, India and the elected President of INSA (2023-25). He obtained his BTech from IIT, Kanpur in 1982, MS at the Pennsylvania State University and PhD from State University of New York at Buffalo in 1988. He has received several honors including the Infosys Prize, TWAS Science Prize in Engineering, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Award of the Humboldt Foundation, J. C. Bose National Fellowship, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, The Syed Husain Zaheer Medal of INSA, Distinguished Alumnus Award of IITK and SUNY Buffalo and the Life-time Achievement Award of the Indian Science Congress and several honorary doctorates including from SUNY Buffalo and Jadavpur University. He is a fellow of INSA, the Indian National Academy of Engineering, Indian Academy of Sciences and a member of several editorial boards including an Associate editor of ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.

Rao served as the Director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology(CCMB) in Hyderabad, India. He is CSIR-Distinguished Scientist and Sir JC Bose National Fellow. President of Society of Biological Chemists (India); President of the Telangana Academy of Science. He obtained BSc from Osmania University; MSc in physical chemistry from Kakatiya University; PhD in Chemistry from University of Hyderabad. Later, he joined CCMB and initiated intact lens spectroscopic investigation. He has developed Red Edge Excitation Shift (REES) for intact biological material. His main research interest is small heat shock proteins, specially αB-crystallin, in health and disease. His research interests include molecular diagnostics, microfluids, nano biology, cell cycle, differentiation and apoptosis. He had visiting positions in USA, Japan and Australia. He is Fellow of all 3 national science academies of India, and has won the Bhatnagar, Ranbaxy and Sreenivasayya Awards of India, and the Rohto Award. Distinguished Alumni of the University Of Hyderabad,

Dasgupta is professor in the Department of Physics at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India. He did doctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania, postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Diego, and Harvard University. Afterwards, he taught at the University of Minnesota for a few years before joining IISc in 1987. He has made important contributions in the theory of phase transitions, statistical mechanics of disordered systems, kinetics of surface growth and fluctuations, and dynamics of supercooled liquids near the glass transition. His awards include: Fellowship of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the DAE-Raja Ramanna Prize and the J.C. Bose National Fellowship. His memberships include all three science academies in India.

Sahni (PhD, Minnesota) is professor emeritus, Panjab University, and (retd.) INSA senior scientist at the Centre of Advanced Study in Geology, Lucknow University, India. He has combined with ease and success the subdisciplines of paleontology, sedimentology and geochronology. Using this three-fold approach, Sahni has been able to highlight the uniqueness of the Indian geological record in terms of the India/Asia collision, duration of the Deccan Trap activity and the Cretaceous/Eary Tertiary microvertebrate paleontology. He has also discovered the bones of a stocky, carnivorous dinosaur with an unusual head crest, named Rajasaurus narmadensis, belonging to a significant line of predatory dinosaurs known from the southern continents. He is a fellow of all the science academies of India, and an honorary member of the American Society for Vertebrate Paleontology.

Ajmal is Distinguished National Professor of the Institute of Sustainable Halophyte Utilization, University of Karachi (UOK), Pakistan. After his PhD (Ohio University) and postdoctoral work (Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah), he returned to Pakistan in 1985 and has worked at UOK and other institutions. His research has had important practical applications in the production of high quality forage, fodder, edible oil and bio-fuel in areas that cannot sustain conventional agricultural crops due to high soil salinity and poor quality of irrigation water. He is the recipient of Presidential Award of Pride of Performance (2001); Presidential Award of Sitara-e-Imtiaz (2007); Distinguished National Professor (2004), PAS Distinguished Scientist of the Year 2008, Meritorious Professor (2011) and D. Sc. from University of Karachi (2011). He is an elected fellow of PAS (2001) and IAS (2011).

Sood is the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India (PSA to GoI) since April 2022. He is also the Chairperson of the Prime Minister’s Science, Technology & Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC). Sood is also a Distinguished Year of Science Professor at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore. He had also served as a Member of Scientific Advisory Council (SAC) to the Prime Minister of India from 2009-14. Sood has a doctorate in Physics from IISc Bangalore. His research interests include the physics of nanosystems and soft matter. He has published more than 450 papers in peer-reviewed journals and holds several patents. His work has been recognised by many awards, including the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India; President of the Indian National Science Academy (2017–19); President of the Indian Academy of Sciences (2010–12); and Secretary-General, TWAS, (2013–18). He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, UK (FRS) in 2015. He has received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the G.D.Birla Award for Scientific Research, TWAS Prize in Physics and Homi Bhabha Medal of Indian National Science Academy.