Chakravarty is professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He obtained his PhD in 1982 from Calcutta University working at IACS (Kolkata) and did his postdoctoral studies at Texas A and M University prior to joining IISc in 1985 as assistant professor. He has made important contributions in bioinorganic chemistry towards developing the chemistry of bio-essential first-row transition metal-based synthetic photo-chemotherapeutic agents that are active in visible light in different types of cancer cells. His awards include: SS Bhatnagar Prize in 1998; CSIR, New Delhi; CRSI Silver Medal in 2007; JC Bose national fellowship of DST, Govt. of India; and Alexander von Humboldt fellowship, Germany, in 1994. His membership includes: Indian National Science Academy (FNA) in 2006 and Indian Academy of Sciences (FASc) in 1995.

Shyamasundar is senior professor and JC Bose Natl. Fellow, Faculty of Technology and Computer Science, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India. He obtained his BE in electrical engineering at Mysore U. in 1970, ME in electrical engineering (1972) and PhD in computer science (1975) at the Indian Inst. of Science, Bangalore. He worked under legendary Prof. E.W. Dijkstra at Eindohoven and has held various postions in PennState, UCSD, UIUC, SUNY Alabany, INRIA, JAIST, Max Planck Institute, IEEE Standards etc. He is the founding Dean of Technology and Computer Science at TIFR, and founding president of the India Association for Research in Computer Science. He is a fellow of IEEE USA, fellow Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) USA, the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, Indian National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Chandrima Shaha is a biologist, currently, JC Bose Chair Distinguished Professor at the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata. She is the immediate past President of the Indian National Science Academy and Former Director of the National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi. Her research interests center around the elucidation of the processes that influence cell death programs under varying physiological conditions in diverse organisms. She is an elected fellow of the World Academy of Sciences, the Indian Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology. She served as Vice-President of International Affairs of the Indian National Science Academy and as a member of the Councils of all three National Academies. Notable awards include the Ranbaxy Science Foundation Award for basic sciences; the J.C. Bose National Fellowship; the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Medal of INSA, Shakuntala Amir Chand Award of the Indian Council of Medical Research, Prof. Archana Sharma Memorial Award of the National Academy of Sciences, Life Time Achievement Award of Biopharma Honors and the Chandrakala Hora Memorial Medal and others.