Kuku was Pres., Afr. Acad. of Sciences, Nairobi, Kenya (2014-2017), and is a Distinguished Prof. of Math. National Mathematical Centre, Abuja, Nigeria.. He was Prof at ICTP, 1995-2003 and retired in 2003, then served as Vis. Prof., U. of Iowa; Ohio State U., Columbus, USA ; Max-Planck-Inst. für Math. Bonn,; IHES, Paris; Member, Inst. for Adv. Study, Princeton NJ, USA; Vis. Res. Prof., MSRI, Berkeley,USA; Distinguished Vis. Prof., Miami U., Oxford, OH; William W.S. Claytor Prof. of Math., Grambling State U., LA,USA. Before joining ICTP, he was also Prof. and Head of Maths.; Dean, Post-Grad. School, U. of Ibadan, Nigeria; Vis, Prof, Cornell U, Ithaca, NY, USA and Pres., Afr. Math. Union (AMU). He is Foundation Fellow American Math Society; Fellow of Afr. Acad. of Scs; Nigerian Acad. of Sc,., Eur. Acad. of Arts, Sci. and Humanities; Nigerian Math. Soc; Math Asscn of Nigeria; Fellow of Afr. Sc. Inst; For. Fellow, Mongolian Acad. of Scs. Other honours: AMU Medal; Disting. Achiev. Award, US Natl. Assoc. of Mathematicians; Hon. Pres., AMU (for life); Officer, Order of the Niger; Nigerian Natl. Order of Merit. Extensive Res, contrib. to K-theory and non-commutative structures.

Li is E. B. Eddy Chair Professor and Canada Research Chair at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He obtained his PhD at McGill University (1992) and was a NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University (1992-94). He was an Assistant (1994), Associate (1998) and Full Professor (2000) at Tulane University (US). Since 2003, he has been at McGill University. He serves as the Director of NSERC CREATE for Green Chemistry and the Co-Director of the FQRNT Center for Green Chemistry and Catalysis. Li received a number of prestigious awards/honors worldwide. These include the US NSF’s CAREER Award, a US Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award, the Canadian Green Chemistry and Engineering Award, and the R. U. Lemieux and Alfred Bader Awards of the Canadian Chemical Society, Alexander Humboldt Research Award, and the CIC Medal of Canada. His memberships include the Fellows of the RSC (Canada), RSC (UK), the AAAS, the CIC, and the ACS.

Agarwal is professor at the Texas A&M U.. He was educated at Banaras Hindu U., India, and the U. of Rochester where he obtained his PhD in 1969. He retired from Oklahoma State U where he held the regents professorship and Noble Foundation chair. His previous positions include dist. scientist and director of the Physical Res. Lab. in Ahmedabad; Indian Natl. Science Acad. Albert Einstein research professor; and professor (1977-95), School of Physics, U. of Hyderabad. His awards include Bhatnagar Award; Max Born Award of the Optical Soc. of America; GD Birla award; RD Birla award; Humboldt Research award, Eminent Faculty award of Oklahoma State U and TWAS Physics Prize. His fellowships include: The Royal Society, UK; 3 science academies of India; American Physical Soc.; Optical Soc. of America. He is also the recipient of honorary doctorates. He is the author of nearly 700 research publications, edited books and monographs. His recent text book "quantum optics" was published by the Cambridge University Press. He is an authority in quantum optics as well in nano photonics and plasmonics.

Padrón work started at Cambridge´s MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Padrón founded I.V.I.C.´s Center of Structural Biology, where he was an International Research Scholar of Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His group found by cryo-electron microscopy that in thick filaments of tarantula muscle the two heads form the myosin interacting-heads motif (IHM), where both ATPases were inhibited explaining relaxation (Nature 436: 1195, 2005). Their showing that IHM is conserved since before the origin of animals revealed IHM importance as a relaxation ATPase inhibition and ATP energy-saving mechanism. They proposed a cooperative phosphorylation activation mechanism that explains potentiation and post-tetanic potentiation on tarantula contracting muscles. They found that hypertrophic cardiomyopathy mutations cluster on IHM intramolecular interactions accounting for hypercontractility, reduced relaxation, and increased energy consumption of this pathogenesis. Honors: 1991 Polar Prize, 2008 Science and Technology National Prize of Venezuela. Elected Member of the Latin-American Academy of Sciences in 2002 and International Member of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. in 2018.

Paul Teng is Managing Director and Dean at the National Institute of Education International Pte. Ltd., Singapore; and concurrently senior fellow (food security), Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU. He also holds honorary appointments as Adjunct Professor, Murdoch University and Senior Fellow, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Research & Graduate Studies in Agriculture. He is Chair, board of trustees, International Service for Acquisition of Agribiotech Applications (ISAAA) and chairman of the board, Asia BioBusiness Pte. Ltd.. He graduated from Lincoln University, New Zealand, with a BSc in agricultural science (first class honours, 1972) and PhD in 1978. His honours include: CGIAR Excellence in Science Award, 2001; Outstanding Scientific Article; Eriksson Prize for Plant Pathology, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; Fellow, American Phytopathological Society; Honorary Doctor of Science, Murdoch University, Australia. Current interests are in andragogy, food security, urban agriculture, biotechnology, sustainability and inclusive agribusiness.

Littlewood took a BA in 1976 and a PhD in physics at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge in 1980, with a one-year intermediate sojourn at MIT as a Kennedy Scholar. In 1980 he moved to Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, and remained as a member of technical staff to become head of the Theoretical Physics Research Department in 1992. He returned to Cambridge in 1997 as Professor of Physics, and from 2005 to 2010 he was head of the Cavendish Laboratory. In 2011 he became Associate Laboratory Director at Argonne National Laboratory in the USA, and in 2014 Laboratory Director, retiring in 2017. He is a Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of London, Institute of Physics, American Physical Society, and Trinity College Cambridge. He has extensive collaborations in India, at Bangalore, TIFR, and Kolkata. He has over 200 publications and six patents.

Suresh is President, Nanyang Technological U., Singapore. Previously, he served as Pres., Carnegie Mellon U. (2013-17), Dir., Natl. Science Foundation of the United States (2010-13), and as dean of engineering (2007-2010) and Vannevar Bush prof. of engineering, Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT). He received his bachelor of technology (1977) from Indian Inst. of Technology, Madras; MS (1979) from Iowa State U.; and ScD (1981) from MIT. He is world renowned for his pioneering work on the mechanical properties of engineered and biological materials and for establishing connections between cell mechanics and human diseases. He has authored over 240 research articles, 20 patents and 3 books. A recipient of 11 hon. doctorates, he has been elected to 15 engineering/science academies incl. the US Natl. Acad. of Engineering, Natl. Acad. of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Inventors, and the American Acad. of Arts and Sciences, as well as the French, Chinese and German science academies.

Shukla is Univ. Prof. and founding Dir. of Climate Dynamics, PhD., found chair AOES dept., George Mason Univ. Obtained his BSc, MSc and PhD from BHU, India, and DSc from MIT. Previously, he was: res. assoc., Princeton; vis. assoc. prof., MIT; sr. scientist, GSFC, NASA; prof., Univ. of Maryland; chairman, TOGA Panel, NAS, USA; chairman, Int. Advisory Panel for Weather and Climate, India; Founding dir., Ctr. for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies. Honors and awards include: Honorary member, AMS; Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change, Padma Shri (India, 2012), IMO Prize, AGU Fellow, Rossby Medal, AMS; Walker Gold Medal, IMS; Exceptional Sci. Achiev. Medal, NASA. His membership includes: VA Governor's Commission on Climate; Joint Scientific Comm. and Chair of Modeling Panel, Climate Variability, WCRP; Fellow of IMS and AMS. Contributions include "Predictability in the Midst of Chaos." He is Founder of Gandhi College for the education of rural women in the village of his birth in India.

Roederer (DSc, 1952, U. of Buenos Aires) is prof. emeritus of physics, Geophysical Inst., Univ. of Alaska-Fairbanks, and affiliate prof. University of Colorado. He was prof. of physics at the univ. of Buenos Aires, Denver and Alaska (1959-1993), and distinguished visiting prof., Rhodes University, South Africa (1997). He was dir., Argentine Natl. Ctr. of Cosmic Radiation, and Geophysical Inst. of the U. of Alaska; chrmn., US Arctic Rsrch. Commiss.; and sr. advisor, ICTP, Trieste. He has held chairmanships of ICSU associations and commissions and was former Intl. Sec. of the American Geophysical Union. Awards include: Soviet Acad. Medal, 100 Years of Geophysics; 4 NASA awards for contributions to the Galileo Mission to Jupiter; AGU Flinn Award for unstinting service to the scientific community. He is corr. member, Academies of Sciences of Argentina and Austria, and fell. of IUGG, AAAS, the AGU, the Argentine Physical Assoc. and Argentine Geodesic and Geophysical Association. Roederer is also organist.