Verma obtained his MSc in 1966 from Lucknow University, India and his PhD in biochemistry at The Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel. He is professor in the Laboratory of Genetics at The Salk Institute in La Jolla, California; adjunct professor in the department of biology at UC San Diego; Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA). His honours include: Medal of Outstanding Scientist, North American Scientists of Indian Origin; NIH Merit Award; NIH Outstanding Investigator Award; and the American Cancer Society Professor of Molecular Biology. His membership includes: National Academies of Sciences, USA; Institute of Medicine; American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the Indian National Science Academy; and the American Philosophical Society.

Sreenivasan is professor of physics, mathematical sciences and engineering at New York U. and pres. and dean of its Polytechnic School. He taught at Yale for 22 years where he was the Harold W. Cheel prof.; dist. u. prof. and dir., Inst. of Physical Science and Tech., U. Maryland; and Abdus Salam professor and dir. of the Intl. Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste. He is a member of the US Natl. Acad. of Sci.; US Natl. Acad. of Eng.; Accademia dei Lincei; American Acad. of Arts and Sci.; Indian Acad. of Sciences; Indian Natl. Science Acad.; Indian National Acad. of Eng.; and African Acad. of Sciences. His honours include the Guggenheim Fellowship; Otto Laporte Award and Dwight, American Physical Society; Distinguished Alumnus Award, Indian Inst. of Science; Intl. Panetti-Ferrari Prize and Gold Medal, Torino Acad. of Sciences; and Natl. Order of Scientific Merit, Brazil.

Patel (PhD, Electr. Engg., Stanford, 1961) is Em. prof. of physics and astronomy, electrical engineering and chemistry, UC Los Angeles. University Distinguished Professor, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL; He is also President and CEO of the Board, Pranalytica, Inc. In 1961, he joined Bell Laboratories where he managed all research in physics and materials science and engineering. In 1993 he joined UC Los Angeles as vice chancellor for research and assumed his present positions in 2000. He has received many scientific society prizes including the highest prizes of the IEEE (Medal of Honor) and the Optical Society of America (Ives Medal) and the Natl. Medal of Science awarded by the US President (1996). He was elected to the Natl. Acad. of Sciences, the American Acad. of Arts and Sciences and the Natl. Acad. of Engineering. In 2013, he was inducted into the Natl. Inventors Hall of Fame. He was pres., American Physical Society (1995) and Sigma Xi (1993-95).

Maji is a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, India. He earned his PhD from the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, in Kolkata (2002). His research focuses on the design and functionalization of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and porous organic polymers (POPs), of which he explores the applications in energy storage and conversion, and cost-effective adsorptive separation and purification of feedstocks. He developed MOFs and POPs for CO2 capture, and photo and electrocatalytic conversion of CO2 to fuels and green H2 production by water splitting. His research also extends to metal-organic “soft” materials for catalysis and optoelectronics, and his achievements are well reflected in the more than 285 publications to his credit. Maji is a recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in chemical sciences (2019), the Scopus Young Scientist Award, and the Senior Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (Germany). His accolades include the Bronze Medal from the Chemical Research Society of India and the Materials Research Society of India. He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of Chemistry.