Seade obtained his BSc from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) in 1976 and his MSc in 1977 and his DPhil in 1980 at the University of Oxford. He is professor at, and currently Director of the Mathematics Institute, UNAM, in Mexico. He is known for his admirable research in the topology of real and complex singularities, either of spaces or of vector fields and foliations. He is a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores.

De Mello obtained his BSc in biochemistry in 1968, MD in 1972, MSc in biophysics in 1973 and PhD in 1980. He is professor of biophysics at the Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas Filho since 1993 and head of the Laboratory of Neurochemistry since 1982. He was previously: Fogarty visiting scientist at the National Institutes of Health from 1973-76; assistant professor, vice director, and director at the Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas Filho between 1978-97; research associate professor at Northwestern University between 1984-86; and Guggenheim fellow in 1984. He was awarded the Gustavo Lessa Award from the Brazilian-American Institute in 1982. He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and the Latin American Academy of Sciences. In April 2015 he became Emeritus Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Jacob began research in Brazil in quasi-free scattering of protons in light nuclei, a field in which his scientific contribution has gained internatl. recognition. He also did research in Quantum Electrodynamics: the electron muon mass ratio. He held vis. positions at Heidelberg, Maryland, Trieste. In acad. and sci. administration he has taken office successively in the positions of dean of research, dean of planning, vice-rector and rector, all at the Federal U. of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), becoming president of the Brazilian National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). Recently, he has done work in science policy, international co-operation, which was started at Münster and resulted in several publications. He has received a number of awards from Brazil, Germany and France. He lately served as an advisory council member for the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.

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.

Cordani is emeritus professor, Institute of Geosciences, University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil. He was trained in geochronology at UC Berkeley (1963) under the guidance of John Reynolds, and obtained his DSc (USP) in 1968. In the 60’s he established a geochronological laboratory that gained international recognition. At the USP he was director of the Institute of Geosciences (1987-1991) and Institute of Advanced Studies (1994-1997). He was president of the International Union of Geological Sciences (1988-1992) and the 31st International Geological Congress (Rio de Janeiro, 2000). He has published ca. 280 scientific articles, and received many awards, among which the Great Cross of Scientific Merit (Brazil), the José Bonifacio Gold Medal (Brazilian Geological Society), and the TWAS medal lecture. He is member of the academies of science of Brazil, Argentina, France and Portugal.

Gambini is professor at the Instituto de Fisica, Facultad de Ciencias, in Montevideo, Uruguay. He is known for his development of non-perturbative techniques for the treatment of gauge theories in terms of Wilson loops, prediction of dispersion effects in the propagation of light due to the quantum structure of space-time, for his consistent discrete quantum gravity approach and for his analisys of the issue of time in quantum gravity. He has recently accomplished the first loop gravity quantization of Black Holes. He is president of the National Academy of Sciences of Uruguay; fellow of the American Physical Society; and member of the Argentinian National Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences and the Latin American Academy of Sciences. He has won the Gravity Research Foundation Prize three times and the TWAS prize in 2003.