Swaminathan is a pediatrician and a globally recognized expert in tuberculosis and HIV research, who recently served as the first chief scientist of the World Health Organization. Previously she served as director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research, and secretary of the Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India (2015–2017). She is the principal advisor to the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme and serves as the national science chair of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation, Government of India. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society, National Academy of Medicine (USA) and Academy of Medical Sciences, UK. She has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Karolinska Institutet (Sweden), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, McGill University, and the University of Guelph, Canada. She co-chairs the global commission Our Common Air and serves on the boards of the National University of Singapore, Alliance Bioversity International. Her current research interests focus on the health impacts of climate change and the delivery of comprehensive primary health care.

Singh earned his PhD in 1986, from Punjab Agricultural University Ludhiana, India. He is a distinguished researcher, educator, and Fellow of leading scientific academies, including the American Society of Horticultural Science, the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Indian Academy of Horticultural Science. With over three decades of achievements, he has advanced horticultural research, innovation, and capacity building, particularly in developing countries. His work has earned numerous national and international honours, including recognition from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, UNESCO, and the International Society of Horticultural Science. Also, he has been named Western Australian Innovator of 2017. His research has enhanced crop productivity, reduced postharvest losses, and contributed to global food security. Singh has worked across institutions in Australia, the UK, Italy, and India, publishing 468 papers, developing industry-relevant technologies, and inventing two ethylene antagonists. A strong advocate for global collaboration, he has led major initiatives to strengthen scientific capacity worldwide. His work has received 11,426 citations.

Singh is a food scientist with more than 38 years of experience in teaching, research, and academic leadership. He holds a BSc in agriculture, an MSc, and a PhD in food technology from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, and currently serves as vice-chancellor of Graphic Era (deemed to be University). His expertise lies in cereal, pulse, and plant-based food chemistry, with a focus on starch structure–function relationships, grain processing, and advanced analytical techniques. He is a Fellow of several prestigious academies and the recipient of numerous honors, including the J.C. Bose National Fellowship and the Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award. With more than 440 publications, 39,000 citations, and an h-index of 102, he has supervised more than 35 PhD students and contributed extensively to global food science research and academic publishing.

Arun Shukla studied biotechnology at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, and earned a PhD at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt, Germany, under the supervision of 1988 Nobel Laureate Michel Hartmut. Then, he moved to Duke University (North Carolina, USA) to carry out his postdoctoral research with 2012 Nobel Laureate Robert Lefkowitz, in close collaboration with Brian Kobilka, a 2012 Nobel Laureate, at Stanford University. Shukla later moved to Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur to establish a cutting-edge research program focused on the structure and function of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), the largest class of cell-surface receptors in the human genome and important therapeutic targets. The long-term goal of his research is to understand the fundamental principles of GPCR activation, signaling, and regulation, to design novel therapeutics with less side effects for various human disorders. He has pioneered research in membrane protein structural biology in India, and his sustained advocacy at multiple levels has been instrumental in establishing and strengthening the infrastructure and research focus in this field in the country.

Rao obtained her PhD in particle physics from Stony Brook University (USA) in 1983, after completing her master's degree at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Following postdoctoral appointments at Fermilab and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she returned to India in 1987 to join the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, as a faculty member. In 1995, she joined the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad (Prayagraj), where she served as a professor until 2021. She subsequently moved to the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Bengaluru. Rao has made seminal contributions to high-energy physics and condensed matter physics. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India, the Indian Academy of Sciences, and the American Physical Society. Rao was also among the initiators of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) International Conference on Women in Physics and has played an important role in the global effort to improve the representation and participation of women in physics.

Mudali is the vice-chancellor of the Homi Bhabha National Institute, a deemed-to-be university under the Department of Atomic Energy, Mumbai, India. He served as vice-chancellor of Vellore Institute of Technology Bhopal University (2021–2023), honorary professor of practice at IIT Madras (2021–2022), and chairman and chief executive (2017–2020) of the Heavy Water Board (HWB), Mumbai, a flagship industrial unit of the Department of Atomic Energy. At HWB, Mudali demonstrated outstanding leadership, overseeing the production of strategic heavy water and specialty materials, while managing seven plants located across different parts of the country. He was associated with the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam (1984–2017), where he served as director of the materials chemistry and metal fuel cycle group. A distinguished alumnus of IIT Bombay and Peelamedu Samanaidu Govindaswamy College of Technology, Coimbatore, he is an internationally renowned expert in metallurgy and corrosion science and has made significant contributions to the fields of advanced materials and coatings, surface engineering and modification, and corrosion science, technology, and engineering.