Ibrahim Abdulhalim has been a Professor of Electrooptics and Photonics Engineering at Ben-Gurion University since 2005, where he also served as the Head of the Department from 2007 to 2015. He has held positions at several academic institutions and companies, including the OCSC at UC Boulder, the ORC at Southampton University, the Thin Films Center at the University of Western Scotland, KLA-Tencor, Nova, and GWS Photonics. His current research focuses on liquid crystal devices for bioimaging and photonic applications, tunable nanophotonic metamaterials for biosensing and energy conservation, and optical imaging. He has published over 300 articles, authored two books, contributed 12 book chapters, and holds 25 granted patents. Abdulhalim is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (IoP) and SPIE, a Senior Member of OPTICA, and a member of the International Liquid Crystal Society (ILCS). He has served on the editorial boards of several journals and is currently an Associate Editor for the Journal of Sensors and Biosensors and a Topical Editor for Applied Optics. Abdulhalim has supervised over 50 graduate students throughout his career, including M.Sc., Ph.D., and postdoctoral researchers. He is also the founder of two companies: Photonicsys, specializing in miniature plasmonic sensors, and Photoliqsys, which develops advanced liquid crystal devices.

Maria Helena Godinho holds a D.Sc., a Ph.D. in materials science, and a chemical engineering degree. During her Ph.D., she was a NATO/Invotan fellow in France. She is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and serves as the President of the International Liquid Crystal Society. From 2016 to 2020, she was Vice President of the International Liquid Crystal Society. She was honored with the 2023 Lars Onsager Professorship and Medal, awarded by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and in 2019, she received the Freéderiksz Medal from the Russian Liquid Crystal Society. She is a full professor of materials science at NOVA University Lisbon and one of the principal investigators for the recently awarded ERC Synergy Grant 2024 (ALCEMIST). Her research mainly focuses on functional liquid crystalline materials inspired by nature, particularly liquid crystalline polysaccharides.

Iam-Choon Khoo is currently William E. Leonhard Professor of Electrical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. A Fellow of four technical societies: IEEE, OPTICA (formerly OSA), UK Inst. of Phys, Electromagnetic Academy, he authored/co-authored 8 books, including two widely cited books on optics, nonlinear optics and photonics of liquid crystals, 3 patents, 14 book chapters, and 294 publications and has given over 430 presentations (including 234 Invited and 36 Keynote/Plenary) at international conferences sponsored by IEEE, OSA, SPIE, The Electromagnetic Academy, and several European and Asian-Pacific organizations. His research programs/interests are on nonlinear optics/photonics and optical physics of liquid crystalline materials, nonlinear fiber arrays for eye/sensor protection and tunable plasmonic and meta-nanostructure. He is the adviser/mentor of 33 Ph.D. graduates and has served as an external Ph.D. examiner for several oversea universities, including Trinity College in Ireland (2001), Chalmers University in Sweden (2002), Cambridge University in UK (2005), The University of Wollongong in Australia (2013) Tampere University of Technology in Finland (2018). He is the recipient of the 2024 SPIE Maria Goeppert Mayer Award in Photonics.

Oleg D. Lavrentovich has been the Trustees’ research professor at Kent State University, Ohio, USA, since 2011. He received his Ph.D. and Doctor of Science degrees in Physics and Mathematics from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. In 1992, he joined the Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State and served as the director of the Institute from 2003 to 2011. He has held positions at academic institutions in various countries, including the Institute of Physics, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Université Paris-Sud, Université Denis-Diderot, and Université Pierre et Marie Curie in France, Korea University, Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge University, U.K., Ljubljana University, Slovenia, and the University of Warsaw, Poland. His current research focuses on ferroelectric nematics, electro-optics, topological defects, and liquid crystals as an environment to control living matter. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of SPIE, and an Honored Member of the International Liquid Crystal Society. He serves as the Editor of the Liquid Crystals Reviews. He has published over 300 articles and a textbook Soft Matter Physics: An Introduction (Springer, 2003).