Mischa Bonn is a research director at the Max-Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPIP), Mainz, Germany. He works on label-free (ultrafast) vibrational spectroscopy and microscopy of biomolecular systems and water in such systems. He received his PhD in 1996 from the University of Eindhoven for research performed at the FOM-Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics AMOLF in Amsterdam. After postdoctoral research at the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin and Columbia University in New York, he worked at Leiden University from 1999 as an assistant professor, and from 2002 as associate professor. In 2004 he became a group leader at the FOM-Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics AMOLF. In 2011 he joined the MPIP. His research interests are the structure and dynamics of molecules at interfaces, and electron transfer across interfaces. Mischa has won several prizes and awards and has published over 500 research articles.

Ping-Heng Tan is Director of Institute of Semiconductors (IOS), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He holds BS and PhD degrees in physics from Peking University and University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Following a postdoc fellowship at Walter Schottky Institute, Technical University of Munich, he joined IOS, CAS in 2003 as an associated professor and was promoted to full professor in 2009. He visited University of Cambridge as KC Wong Royal Society Fellow from 2006 to 2007. His current interests include low-wavenumber Raman spectroscopy, resonance Raman spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy of two-dimensional materials, and development of various modern Raman techniques. He was awarded distinguished young scholar fund by NSFC, published over 200 papers in English. He was awarded Kun Huang prize in Physics, Dayawati Rastogi Lecture Award and highly cited researcher by Web of Science, Clarivate Analytics in 2018-2022. Tan was the chairperson of the Chinese Light Scattering Committee in 2018-2022. Tan is a member of the International Steering Committee of ICORS and Asian Spectroscopy Conference, and is currently Member of CPS council and organizing committee of CPS Fall Meeting. Tan is an advisory board member of the Journal of Raman Spectroscopy and member of editorial boards of journals such as The Innovation, npj 2D Materials and Applications, Semiconductor Science and Technology, IOP SciNotes, Journal of Semiconductors and Journal of Light Scattering.

Vasant Sathe is a faculty scientist at UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research, Indore (India) since 2000. Presently he is the Centre-Director of the Indore Centre of UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research. He was visiting scientist at ELETTRA Synchrotron, Trieste Italy. Member of the Editorial board of Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics. Dr. Sathe’s expertise is within the condensed matter physics field, and in particular he studies the structure and functions of single crystal, polycrystalline and thin films of perovskites and transition metal oxides mainly using Raman spectroscopy along with a wide variety of other supporting experimental disciplines. In 2011 his pioneering Raman study on CaCu3Ti4O12 was selected in annual research highlights of Journal of Physics Condensed Matter. Recently, he has invented a novel protocol to trace Femto-meter scale displacements in single crystals and epitaxial films using polarized Raman spectroscopy. For the first time he has demonstrated the power of polarized Raman spectroscopy and Raman tensors in unearthing extremely small atomic displacements at the scale of femto-meter. This important work has helped in understanding multi-ferroelectric behavior shown by CuO and other compounds. Dr. Sathe has published more than 280 papers in peer-reviewed international Journals, chapter in a Book, and he has delivered more than 100 invited lectures at National/International Conferences and Universities. He is a recipient of Materials Research Society of India (MRSI) medal 2021 for his significant contribution in materials science.

Philippe Colomban is CNRS Research Director Emeritus at Sorbonne Université. After an MSc in Ceramics, Glass & Cement Engineering at ENSCI-Sèvres in 1975 and a MSc in Solid State Physics at Université Pierre-et-Marie Curie (Paris) in 1976, Philippe Colomban obtained in 1979 the Ph.D. Hab. degree (Docteur es-Sciences Physiques) from the Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie. He was one of the firsts in the world to develop Sol-Gel routes for advanced optoelectronic PLZT ceramics. He prepared (single crystals and ceramics) and studied then superionic conductors’ structure and ion and proton mobility. From 1989 to 1993 he was in charge of the new research projects at the Materials Department of ONERA, the French Establishment for Aerospace Research and Development (materials for rockets and missiles, aircraft engines, Sol-Gel routes, ceramic- or polymer-matrix composites, fibres, nanoparticle- based microwave absorbing materials and Functionally Graded composites…) and worked as Consultant at the ONERA for 10 further years. From 1994 to present, as CNRS Research Professor his research interests include Materials Science and Raman, IR and neutron spectroscopy (in situ analysis, fuel cells, electrolysers, fibres/composites…). Attention is paid to the correlation between Raman parameters and mechanical and electrical (ionic, electronic) properties…as well to the identification of the technology used in ancient ceramics, glasses, paintings and building. Ph. Colomban published three books, more than 500 peer-review papers, many book chapters and applied 10 patents; he presented more than 100 invited talks and was visiting professor in Japan, Korea, South Africa, and Tunisia. He is Associated Editor of the Journal of Raman Spectroscopy and member of several Editorial Boards of journals devoted to Spectroscopy, Materials Science or Archeometry.

Chandrabhas Narayana is currently the Director, Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology. He was the Dean, Research and Development, the Chairman, Chemistry and Physics of Materials Unit and the Dean, Fellowships and Extension Programmes at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. His group is a pioneer in the use of Raman spectroscopy in a) drug-protein interaction, for drug screening applications and b) diagnostic applications. Many of his work in these areas are trendsetters in the inter-disciplinary research. He is coordinator for the two major Synchrotron projects for India, namely, The Indian beamline at the Photon Factory, KEK, Tsukuba, Japan and the PETRA III, Hamburg, Germany. This program permits researchers in India to perform various experiments using synchrotron, fully funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. He has been awarded the Material Research Society of India bronze medal in 2007, Sir C.V. Raman Young Scientist Award (Karnataka Government) in 2008, C.N.R. Rao Oration award in 2009, Sheikh Saqr RAK-CAM Senior Fellow in 2016, MRSI-ICSC Super Conductivity and Materials Science Senior Award in 2017, Mizushima-Raman Lecture Award in 2018, Platinum Jubilee Lecture Award of the Indian Science Congress in 2020, for his research contributions. He is a Fellow of National Academy of Science, India, Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry and Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences. He has published over 190 research papers in International Journals and 4 Chapters in Books and has an H-index of 39. He was a visiting Professor at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA from 2001 to 2007 and at Institute of Mineralogy and Physics of Dense Matter, University of Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris, France from 2008 to 2016. He is also one of the editors of the International Journals: Journal of Applied Physics (American Institute of Physics), High-Pressure Research (Taylor and Francis Publishers), The Journal of Biomaterials and Nanobiotechnology. He is the member of the Corporate Advisory Board of REVA University, Bangalore, Governing Body of The Government Science College, Bengaluru and is the member of the Board of Studies for Department of Chemistry, St. Joseph’s College of Arts and Science, Department of Chemistry, Christ University, Department of Physics, M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Department of Physics, REVA University and was a member of the Board of Studies for Department of Nanotechnology at Calicut University.

V. Ara Apkarian is a distinguished professor of chemical physics at the University of California, Irvine and Director of the NSF Center for Chemical Innovation on Chemistry at the Space-Time Limit (CaSTL). He holds BS and PhD degrees in chemistry from USC and Northwestern. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell, he joined the chemistry faculty at UCI, where he has served as Department Chair and as the founding co-Director of the Chemical and Materials Physics (ChaMP) program. His principle scientific contributions are in photophysics, ultrafast molecular and quantum dynamics in condensed matter, nonlinear optics, spectroscopy, and spectromicroscopy in the atomistic near-field. Apkarian is a Foreign Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, a Fellow of APS, AAAS and SPIE, and has been recognized with awards in teaching, service and research, including the Dreyfus Award (1983), Sloan Fellowship (1990), Humboldt Prize (1996), UCI Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching (2006), USC Distinguished Alumnus Award (2007), Charles Bennett Award for service (2008), the ACS Award in Experimental Physical Chemistry (2014), and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland (2016).

Siva Umapathy is the current Director of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal. He is an Indian laser spectroscopist and was the Chair of the Department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry and a Professor of Instrumentation and Applied Physics at the Indian Institute of Science. Prof. Umapathy did a PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Otago, New Zealand. Obtaining a research fellowship from Science and Engineering Research Board, he did his post-doctoral studies at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and University of York. On his return to India, he joined the Indian Institute of Science where he is a professor of the Department of Instrumentation and Applied Physics and the chair of the Department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry. He heads Laser Spectroscopy Group at IISc where he hosts a number of doctoral and post-doctoral scholars. He has also served as a visiting faculty or fellow at various institutions such as Kanagawa Academy of Science and Technology, University of Groningen, Institute of Molecular Science, University of Tokyo, Imperial College of Science and Technology and University of Nottingham. Prof. Umapathy is known for his studies of molecular dynamics using Raman spectroscopy and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and also The National Academy of Science of India, The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2004, for his contributions to chemical sciences.

Aleksei Zheltikov received his PhD, as well as his Doctor of Science degree from M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University. He has been a full professor at M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University since 2000. He served as a group leader at the Russian Quantum Center, head of the Laboratory of Neurophotonics at Kurchatov Institute, and head of Laboratory of Fiber Optics for Quantum Technologies at A.N. Tupolev Kazan Technical University. Since 2010, he is a professor at Texas A&M University. His research is focused on ultrafast nonlinear optics and biophotonics. He is a winner of the Russian Federation State Prize for young researchers (1997), Lamb Award for achievements in quantum electronics (2010), Shuvalov Prize for research at Moscow State University (2001), and Kurchatov Prize for achievements in neurophotonics (2014).