Prof. Daniela Rus is the Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT. Her research interests are in robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, and their applications toward a better world. Rus is a senior visiting fellow at MITRE Corporation, a MacArthur Fellow, a fellow of ACM, AAAI, AAAS, and IEEE, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the recipient of the Engelberger Award for robotics, the IEEE RAS Technical Award, the John Scott Medal, and the IEEE Edison Medal. Rus earned her PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University.

Ana Belén Elgoyhen, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, University of Buenos Aires, School of Medicine and a Senior Scientist and Vice-Director of the Institute for Research in Genetic Engineer and Molecular Biology, National Research Council (CONICET), Argentina. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Pharmacology from the University of Buenos Aires and performed her postdoctoral training in Molecular Neurobiology at the Salk Institute, California.

Her research interest is focused on the genetics, physiology and pathology of hearing at the systems and synaptic level, the mechanisms underlying noise-induced hearing loss and the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms leading to tinnitus.

Prof Elgoyhen has been the recipient of several important awards including: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow (2003, USA), the TWAS prize in Biology (2011), Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Scholar (1997-2011), Latin American Laureate of the L’Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science (2008), Scientist of the Argentine Nation nominated by the President (2012), Fondation Pour L´Audition Grand Prix (2018). She is a member of the World Academy of Science, the Latin American Academy of Science and the Argentine Academy of Science.

AFFILIATION

Meta and New York University, United States

SUMMARY OF WINNING ENTRY

Pioneering Convolutional Neural Networks for Vision

Professor Yann LeCun is honored for his pioneering work in developing convolutional neural networks (CNNs), a key technology in advancing image recognition and deep learning. His work on CNNs in the late 1980s laid the foundation for the automatic learning of hierarchical image features, which has been critical in tasks such as object detection and facial recognition. Professor LeCun’s contributions to deep learning extend beyond CNNs, as he has also advanced unsupervised learning, energy-based models, and efficient backpropagation techniques.

SCALE OF IMPACT

Professor LeCun’s innovations have driven breakthroughs in industries reliant on image processing, from healthcare diagnostics to autonomous driving. CNNs are now a standard in AI applications that billions of people use every day, making them central to the evolution of technologies like facial recognition and medical imaging.

MEANINGFUL CHANGE

Professor LeCun’s work has fundamentally transformed the way machines interpret visual data, enabling more intelligent, adaptive systems. His contributions have made AI systems more effective in tasks such as personalized healthcare, safety improvements, and efficient automation, benefiting society on a global scale.

AFFILIATION

University of Pennsylvania, United States

SUMMARY OF WINNING ENTRY

For Development of CAR T Cell Therapy for Cancer and Other Diseases

Based on Professor Eshhar’s foundational concept of functional chimeric T-cell receptor molecules, efforts by Professors Carl H. June, Michel Sadelain, and others led to a new generation of engineered T cells for a more effective cellular immunotherapy against cancer, especially blood cancers leukemias and lymphomas. The ground-breaking discoveries by Professor June include 1) adopting a lentiviral transduction system based on the knowledge of how HIV infects T cells to allow for more efficient genetic engineering of the T cells and 2) the engineering of a signaling domain that enhances the function of the chimeric antigen-T cell receptor and allows better T cell activation and killing of target cancer cells. Professor June recently reported 10 year survival data for the first treated patients with advanced leukemias. The work of Professor June and his clinical colleagues led to the approval of CAR T cells not only for acute lymphocytic leukemias, but also for lymphomas.

SCALE OF IMPACT

Professor June’s contribution to the use of CAR T cells resulted in clinically effective FDA approved CAR T cells. The clinical success demonstrated by Professor June and his clinical colleagues opened wide interest in broader application of CAR T cells for other medical applications.

MEANINGFUL CHANGE

The development and use of improved CAR T cells by Professor June led to effective clinical cancer treatments and later treatment of an autoimmune disease that otherwise was generally refractory to standard therapy.

AFFILIATION

Stanford University, United States

SUMMARY OF WINNING ENTRY

Pioneering Contributions to Computer Vision and Large-Scale Image Recognition

Professor Fei-Fei Li is recognized for her pioneering contributions to computer vision and the development of the ImageNet dataset. Her leadership of the ImageNet project revolutionized image recognition by creating an extensive, labeled dataset that enabled machines to recognize and classify objects more accurately. ImageNet laid the groundwork for the training of deep learning models and significantly advanced tasks such as object detection, facial recognition, and image classification. Professor Li’s work is an example of the importance of data in training AI systems, influencing how data-driven approaches are used across fields. 

SCALE OF IMPACT

ImageNet has been a driving force behind the progress of computer vision and deep learning. Its adoption by researchers has spurred innovation across industries reliant on visual data. The dataset played an important role in advancing computer vision to embrace deep learning.

MEANINGFUL CHANGE

Professor Li’s contributions have transformed how deep learning systems process and understand visual information, enabling advancements in areas like autonomous driving, healthcare diagnostics, and intelligent security systems. By pushing the boundaries of what machines can see and interpret, her work helped to drive forward computer vision innovation that benefits society.

AFFILIATION

Université de Montréal and Mila – Quebec AI Institute, Canada

SUMMARY OF WINNING ENTRY

Pioneering Neural Networks and Deep Learning Algorithms

Professor Yoshua Bengio is honored for his pioneering work in neural networks, including significant advancements in representation learning and generative models. His development of high-dimensional word embeddings in his 2000 landmark paper, “A Neural Probabilistic Language Model,” has played a central role in natural language processing (NLP) tasks such as translation and question answering. His work also includes fundamental contributions to Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), which have revolutionized computer vision and deep learning. Professor Bengio’s research continues to drive both theoretical advances and practical applications across many industries.

SCALE OF IMPACT

Professor Bengio’s contributions have become integral to modern deep learning systems, particularly in NLP. His advancements have enabled tools used by millions worldwide, including virtual assistants and machine translation services. His work continues to shape deep learning fields, from robotics to personalized medicine.

MEANINGFUL CHANGE

Professor Bengio’s innovations have enabled systems to learn and generate data with remarkable accuracy. This transformation is particularly important for creating AI solutions that can address global challenges, such as improving healthcare delivery and advancing environmental sustainability.

AFFILIATION

NVIDIA, United States

SUMMARY OF WINNING ENTRY

Computational Architectures for Deep Learning and Accelerated Computing

Mr. Jen-Hsun is recognized for his visionary leadership in transforming graphics processor units (GPUs) into powerful tools for deep learning and accelerated computing across the sciences. As the founder of NVIDIA, Huang led the development of the CUDA platform, which enabled GPUs to be efficiently programmed to handle the massive computational demands of deep learning. This breakthrough allowed for the rapid training of neural networks, making accelerated computing an essential technology in AI research and development worldwide. His leadership has empowered countless breakthroughs in fields such as automatic speech recognition, natural language processing, computer vision, simulation, robotics, and autonomous systems.

SCALE OF IMPACT

Mr. Huang’s contributions have made accelerated computing indispensable for modern AI research, accelerating innovation in areas like speech recognition, autonomous vehicles, medical imaging, and language processing. Today, GPU-accelerated deep learning is driving advancements that serve millions of people globally, from industry-leading AI models to healthcare diagnostics.

MEANINGFUL CHANGE

By democratizing access to accelerated computing, Mr. Huang has reshaped the landscape of deep learning research and its applications across industries. His innovations continue to drive solutions for the world’s greatest challenges, enabling researchers and developers to process large datasets with unprecedented efficiency and push the boundaries of AI.

AFFILIATIONS

Columbia University, United States

SUMMARY OF WINNING ENTRY

For Development of CAR T Cell Therapy for Cancer and Other Diseases

Professor Sadelain based upon Professor Esshar’s design of CAR molecules , developed effective CAR T cells towards clinical application. Professor Sadelain reported in 1992 the first successful primary human T cell transduction to express chimeric antigen-T cell receptor molecule. His lab developed novel receptors endowed with both activating and costimulatory domains leading to the second generation of CAR T cells. He focused on the development of CAR T cells targeting CD19, a molecule specifically found on blood-borne cancer or leukemia, leading to the effective treatment in preclinical non-human models and subsequent successful implementation in human clinical studies. The clinical trials led by several groups, including Professor Sadelain’s, demonstrated that adult chronic lymphocytic and childhood acute lymphocytic leukemias could be eradicated with CAR T cells targeting CD19.

SCALE OF IMPACT

Together with the pioneering work of Professor June, the studies of Professor Sadelain and others led to the approval of the first CAR T cell therapy by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2017 for childhood and young adult acute lymphocytic leukemias and is now considered for clinical care world-wide.

MEANINGFUL CHANGE

The foundational work by Professor Sadelain to advance the effectiveness of CAR T cells led to life-saving cellular immunotherapies that now have global reach. Further improvements are expected to make these therapies more economical for global impact.

AFFILIATION

The Weizmann Institute of Science and Sourasky Medical Center, Israel

SUMMARY OF WINNING ENTRY

For Development of CAR T Cell Therapy for Cancer and Other Diseases

Professor Eshhar was the first to genetically engineer T cells and combine the killing potential of T cells with the specificity of the variable part of antibodies, by producing chimeric antigen-receptor (CAR) molecules expressed on T cells. Professor Eshhar’s first proof-of-concept foundational study in 1989 using engineered (CAR) T cells led to an entirely new type of immune therapy to treat cancer and to control autoimmune diseases. Indeed, he and his team demonstrated that the CAR-T-cell receptor chimera enabled T cells to kill target cancer cells. This study enabled subsequent innovations worldwide that ushered in successful clinical applications and stimulated the biopharmaceutical industry. 

SCALE OF IMPACT

Professor Eshhar’s foundational study opened a field based on an entirely new technology on T cells that paved the way to the innovative works of Professors June and Sadelain, to successfully treat cancer patients. The concept of CAR-T cells provided the foundation for the development of T-cell chimera receptor cells using the patients’ own T cells not only for cancer treatment but also now for autoimmune diseases.

MEANINGFUL CHANGE

Professor Eshhar’s vision ignited a revolution in oncology, transforming the field of cancer therapy using a “living drug” which has proven very efficient to save lives of cancer patients. It is fair to say that Professor Eshhar pioneered an active biomedical research field and a now vibrant biopharmaceutical industry that already prove to save lives and hold hope for additional biomedical applications. Further innovations are expected to provide treatments in an economically affordable manner for worldwide benefit.

AFFILIATION

University of Toronto, Canada

SUMMARY OF WINNING ENTRY

Pioneering Neural Networks and Deep Learning Algorithms

Professor Geoffrey Hinton is awarded for his leadership and foundational work in neural network architectures. His 1986 paper with David Rumelhart and Ronald Williams demonstrated distributed representations in neural networks trained by the backpropagation algorithm. This method has since become a standard tool in AI, contributing to advances in image and speech recognition. Professor Hinton’s contributions also include his work on Boltzmann Machines and the improvement of convolutional neural networks (CNNs), particularly in collaboration with his colleagues in both speech recognition and the ImageNet competition, which significantly advanced the field of automatic speech recognition and computer vision.

SCALE OF IMPACT

Professor Hinton’s innovations have revolutionized deep learning, enabling the development of neural networks that power technologies such as speech recognition, and computer vision. These systems have been widely adopted, influencing billions of users across the globe.

MEANINGFUL CHANGE

By refining the architecture of deep neural networks and enabling them to learn from large datasets, Professor Hinton’s work has unlocked new possibilities for AI-driven research and applications. His contributions have paved the way for advances in productivity agents and autonomous systems.

Professor Hans Joachim (‘John’) Schellnhuber studied physics and mathematics at the University of Regensburg, where he also completed his doctorate in quantum physics. Following a postdoctoral position at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara, he held full professorships at the Universities of Oldenburg and Potsdam, as well as at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. Additionally, he was engaged in numerous visiting professorships, including positions at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Oxford University, Stockholm University, and the Santa Fe Institute. Schellnhuber received honorary doctorates from the University of Copenhagen (2011), the Technical University Berlin (2012), and the University of Exeter (2022). He has published some 300 scientific articles and books in fundamental physics, complex systems analysis, climate change research, sustainability science, and more. Schellnhuber is listed as a Highly Cited Researcher (Cross Field) by Clarivate.

Since December 2023, Schellnhuber has been appointed as the twelfth Director General of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria. Before this, Schellnhuber led the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) from 1992 to 2018 as their founding director and also served as research director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Great Britain from 2001 to 2005.

Since 2019, Schellnhuber has been focusing his scientific work and communication skills on the transformation of the built environment, with a specific emphasis on the climate restoration potential of regenerative architecture. In this context, he established Bauhaus Earth as a not-for-profit company and became a member of the High-Level Roundtable of the New European Bauhaus initiative.

Schellnhuber is member of numerous learned societies, including the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the German National Academy Leopoldina, the US National Academy of Sciences, the Academia Europaea, and the Academy of Athens. Throughout his career, Schellnhuber has received several notable awards, such as the German Environmental Prize (2007), the Volvo Environmental Prize (2011), the Blue Planet Prize (2017), and the Ratio et Spes Prize (2021). In 2022, Schellnhuber was also awarded the Honorary Edition of the German Sustainability Prize for his “enormous influence on science, politics, and business by developing and communicating sustainable solutions to the global environmental crisis”.

Schellnhuber acted as a scientific advisor to a number of eminent public and religious leaders, including the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Commission Presidents José Manuel Barroso and Ursula von der Leyen, and Pope Francis. For 28 continuous years, he has served as a member and chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) since its establishment in 1992. He contributed in various ways to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

In recognition of his achievements, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber received several prestigious honors, including being named a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II (2004). He was also awarded the Order of Merit of the State of Brandenburg (2008), the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2011) and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, of the Japanese Government (2020). In 2021, Schellnhuber received the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany from President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and became Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur of the French Republic.

Professor Fiona Watt obtained her first degree from Cambridge University and her DPhil, in cell biology, from the University of Oxford. She was a postdoc at MIT, where she first began studying differentiation and tissue organisation in mammalian epidermis. She established her first research group at the Kennedy Institute for Rheumatology in London and then spent 20 years at the CRUK London Research Institute. She helped to establish the CRUK Cambridge Research Institute and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research and in 2012 she moved to King’s College London to found the Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine. From 2018 to 2022 she was on secondment as Executive Chair of the Medical Research Council. In 2022 she moved to Heidelberg where she runs a lab at EMBL and is EMBO Director.

Prof. Dr. Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter is Chair of the Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology at the University of Würzburg, Germany. He studies the impact of global environmental change on biodiversity and ecosystem services. His expertise covers biodiversity – ecosystem functioning relationships, pollinator ecology, crop pollination services, biological pest control, tropical agroforestry systems and landscape ecology. It is his ambition to lay the scientific ground for sustainable landscape management and agri-environmental schemes shaping the transition to future climate-resilient, adaptive and biodiverse ecosystems.

He has extensive experience as coordinator and partner in several international, African, European and national research projects and a long-lasting track record of successful inter- and transdisciplinary cooperation. He has published more than 300 peer reviewed articles and currently coordinates the EU H2020 project Safeguard – Safeguarding European pollinators.

Professor Pamela Christine Ronald graduated from UC Berkeley with a Ph.D. in Molecular and Physiological Plant Biology. She was a M.S. student at Stanford University, a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University and joined the faculty of UC Davis in 1992.

She also serves as Investigator, Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley and is coauthor of Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, genetics and the Future of Food.

She was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people in biotechnology by Scientific American. In 2022, Ronald was awarded the Wolf Prize in Agriculture & the VinFuture Special Prize for Female Innovators.

She is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences & the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Professor Susan Solomon currently serves as the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies and Chair of the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.

Previously, she assumed the role of Ellen Swallow Richards Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry & Climate Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Acting Director at the Atmospheric Chemistry Division of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and Senior Scientist and Research Chemist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

She is internationally recognized for her outstanding contributions to the elucidation of Antarctic ozone “hole” and to our understanding of the intricate interaction between atmospheric chemistry and climate change.

With an illustrious career, she received many awards, including the National Medal of Science in 1999, Volvo Environmental Prize 2009, Crafoord Prize of the Swedish Academy of Sciences In 2018, and VinFuture Special Prize for Female Innovators 2023.

Martin Green is Scientia Professor at the University of New South Wales, Sydney and Founding Director of the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics, involving several other Australian Universities and research groups.

His group’s contributions to photovoltaics are well known and include holding the record for silicon solar cell efficiency for 30 of the last 40 years, described as one of the “Top Ten” Milestones in the history of solar photovoltaics.

The PERC solar cell that he invented in 1983 and his team developed to its full potential accounted for 91.2% of worldwide silicon solar module production in 2021 (CPIA).

Major international awards include the 1999 Australia Prize, the 2002 Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize, the 2007 SolarWorld Einstein Award, the 2016 Ian Wark Medal from the Australian Academy of Science, the Global Energy Prize in 2018, the prestigious 2021 Japan Prize, the 2022 Millenium Technology Prize, the 2023 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, the 2023 VinFuture Grand Prize.

Professor Leslie Gabriel Valiant is a British-American computer scientist and computational theorist who is currently the T. Jefferson Coolidge Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at Harvard University.

Professor Valiant is well-known for his work in theoretical computer science. He was awarded the A.M. Turing Award in 2010 for work in machine learning, computational complexity and parallel computation, having been described by the ACM as a heroic figure in theoretical computer science and a role model for his courage and creativity in addressing some of the deepest unsolved problems in science.

Professor Valiant also received the Nevanlinna Prize from the International Mathematical Union in 1986, the Knuth Prize in 1997, and the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science Award in 2008. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1991, and a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 2001.

Professor Valiant was educated at King’s College, University of Cambridge, followed by Imperial College London, and finally at the University of Warwick, where he received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1974. He started teaching at Harvard University in 1982, prior to which he taught at Carnegie Mellon University, Leeds University, and the University of Edinburgh.

Professor Sir Konstantin ‘Kostya’ Novoselov FRS was born in Russia in August 1974 and has dual British and Russian citizenship. He is best known for isolating graphene at The University of Manchester in 2004 and is an expert in condensed matter physics, mesoscopic physics, and nanotechnology.

Every year since 2014, Professor Novoselov has been included in the list of the most highly cited researchers in the world. Kostya holds the position of Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professor at the National University of Singapore. He is also the part-time Langworthy Professor of Physics and the Royal Society Research Professor at The University of Manchester. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010 for his achievements with graphene.

He was awarded with numerous prizes, including Nicholas Kurti Prize (2007), International Union of Pure and Applied Science Prize (2008), MIT Technology Review young innovator (2008), Europhysics Prize (2008), Bragg Lecture Prize from the Union of Crystallography (2011), the Kohn Award Lecture (2012), Leverhulme Medal from the Royal Society (2013), Onsager medal (2014), Carbon medal (2016), Dalton medal (2016), and Otto Warburg Prize (2019) among many others. He was knighted in the 2012 New Year Honours. He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and undertook his PhD studies at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands before moving to The University of Manchester in 2001. Later Professor Novoselov joined the National University of Singapore in 2019.

Professor Novoselov has published more than 400 peer-reviewed research papers.

Professor Daniel Kammen serves as James and Katherine Lau Distinguished Professor of Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley (USA) with parallel appointments in the Energy and Resources, the Goldman School of Public Policy, and the Department of Nuclear Engineering.

He was appointed the first Environment and Climate Partnership for the Americas (ECPA) Fellow by Secretary of State Hilary R. Clinton in April 2010. Professor Kammen is currently on leave from the University of California while serving in the Biden Administration as the Senior Advisor for Energy Innovation at the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

He is a Permanent Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. In the United States, he serves on two National Academy of Sciences boards and panels.

Professor Văn-Chí Đặng received his BS in Chemistry (highest honors) from the University of Michigan and was awarded a Ph.D. in Chemistry (high distinction) from Georgetown University.

He received his MD (inducted to Alpha Omega Alpha and Phi Beta Kappa) and internal medicine residency training at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He trained in hematology-oncology at UCSF, where he did postdoctoral work on the MYC oncogene. Professor Đặng then returned to Johns Hopkins in 1987 where he established the first mechanistic link between a cancer gene (MYC) and cellular energy metabolism, contributing to the concept that genetic alterations in cancers re-program fuel utilization by tumors and render cancers addicted to certain fuel sources. This conceptual framework contributes to strategies for therapeutic targeting of cancer cell metabolism. His current work extends the role of MYC in cancer metabolism and the role of the circadian clock in metabolism and cancer.

He was Director of the Division of Hematology at Johns Hopkins Hospital (1993-2003) and was appointed Johns Hopkins Family Professor in Oncology Research and Vice Dean for Research at Johns Hopkins. In 2011, he became director of the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and on July 1, 2017, he assumed the position of Scientific Director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, overseeing Ludwig branches located in the United States, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of Cancer Research, an AACR journal.

Professor Pascale Cossart is a pioneering cellular microbiologist who has made significant contributions to our understanding of how bacteria both infect, and survive within, host cells. She uses the food-borne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes as a model, with her research paving the way for future therapeutics.

She is currently a Professor and Head of the Unité des Interactions Bactéries Cellules at the Pasteur Institute. She was also a Professor of Biochemistry at the Royal School of Medicine in Vientiane, Laos from 1974 – 1975 before working at Pasteur Institute in Paris from 1988 until the present.

Professor Cossart’s research provides a detailed picture of the factors which make Listeria such an effective infectious agent. She identified different proteins that Listeria uses to enter cells, move, and disseminate in tissues. Through the creation of a transgenic mouse model, she paved the way for in vivo studies. Professor Cossart has also unveiled new regulatory mechanisms in bacteria and is now deciphering how bacteria induce epigenetic changes during infection.

Professor Cossart has received several prestigious awards and recognitions, not only for her research but also for her role as a mentor and promoter of interdisciplinary collaboration. These awards include the Robert Koch Prize for biomedical science in 2007 in Germany, the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine in 2008 in Switzerland, the Balzan Prize in 2013 in Italy, the 2014 FEBS | EMBO Women in Science Award, and most recently, the FEMS-Lwoff Award in 2019 in the UK. She became the Honorary Doctor of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden in 2020.

Professor Sir Richard Henry Friend, FRS holds the Cavendish Professorship of Physics at the University of Cambridge. He is Director of the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability and of the Maxwell Centre. He is also a Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professor at the National University of Singapore and serves as Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Singapore. In addition, he is one of the principal investigators in the new Cambridge-based Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (IRC) on nanotechnology and co-founder of Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) and Plastic Logic.

Owning more than 140 patents and having written or co-authored over 1,100 prestigious scientific publications worldwide, Professor Sir Richard Henry Friend, FRS is one of the most influential physicists in the world. He also serves as a Council member of many prestigious global Prizes.

He and his group have developed polymer-processing techniques for conjugated polymers and demonstrated non-linear electronic excitations through electrical and optical measurements. He is credited for the first construction of MOSFET (Metal Insulator Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) with polyacetylene as the active semiconductor; the demonstration of novel mechanisms of operation with novel behavior; and the first construction of the efficient, large-area, polymeric semiconductor LED’s (Light Emitting Diodes), based on polyphenylene-vinylene. His research on OLED has been used to develop flat screens, scroll screens, and motion screens for the future with the most well-known application of his research being the OLED TV. His work has also been applied to develop polymer field-effect transistors, light-emitting diodes, photoelectric diodes, optical pump-proof tubes, and direct-printed polymer transistors.

With a world-renowned reputation and numerous achievements in both research and teaching, Professor Sir Richard Henry Friend, FRS was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2002. His notable honors and awards include the IEE’s Faraday Medal in 2003, the Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2006, the Institute of Physics Katharine Burr Blodgett Medal, Prize with Dr. David Ffye in 2009, and the Millennium Technology Prize for the development of plastic electronics in 2010. He was knighted for “Services to Physics” in the 2003 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Vivian Yam is the Philip Wong Wilson Wong Professor in Chemistry and Energy and Chair Professor of Chemistry at The University of Hong Kong. She was elected a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, International Member (Foreign Associate) of US National Academy of Sciences, Foreign Member of Academia Europaea, Fellow of TWAS and Founding Member of Hong Kong Academy of Sciences.

She was Laureate of the 2011 L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award. Professor Yam has also received a number of prestigious awards, including the RSC Centenary Medal, RSC Ludwig Mond Award, Porter Medal, FACS Foundation Lectureship Award, APA Masuhara Lectureship Award, JPA Eikohsha Award, JSCC International Award, State Natural Science Award, CCS-China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) Chemistry Contribution Prize, CCS Huang Yao-Zeng Organometallic Chemistry Award, Croucher Senior Research Fellowship, and others.

Her research interests include inorganic/organometallic chemistry, supramolecular chemistry, photophysics and photochemistry, and metal-based molecular functional materials for sensing, organic optoelectronics and energy research.

More information about Prof. Yam can be found at http://web.hku.hk/~wwyam/yam/homepage/

Alta (Aletta E.) Schutte is Professor and Principal Lead of the Cardiac, Vascular and Metabolic Medicine Theme in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, with a joint appointment as Professorial Fellow at the George Institute for Global Health. She is also Extraordinary Professor at the North-West University, South Africa. She has over 350 publications in the field of hypertension and cardiovascular disease. She is involved in numerous international consortia, such as the Global Burden of Disease study (Washington DC), the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (London), May Measurement Month initiative of the International Society of Hypertension, IDACO/IDCARS studies (Belgium), and is an invited author of the Lancet Commission of Hypertension.

She has been acknowledged for her work as winner of the Distinguished Woman Scientist in the Natural, Engineering and Life Sciences award, presented by the South African Department of Science and Technology; the NSTF South 32 TW Kambule Award; the British Association Medal from the Southern Africa Association for the Advancement of Science (S2A3), the Meiring Naude Medal from the Royal Society of South Africa, the AU-TWAS (African Union & The World Academy of Sciences) Award, and the 2019 African Union Kwame Nkrumah Regional Award for Scientific Excellence. She is a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology, the International Society of Hypertension and the Royal Society of South Africa; the Past President of the Southern African Hypertension Society (SAHS); and Immediate Past President of the International Society of Hypertension (ISH).

Professor Ngoc-Minh Do is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and is currently serving as the Vice Provost of VinUniversity.

Since 2002, he has been a faculty at UIUC, where he is currently the Thomas and Margaret Huang Endowed Professor in Signal Processing & Data Science in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and holds affiliate appointments with the Coordinated Science Laboratory, the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Department of Bioengineering, and the Department of Computer Science.

He was previously the Vice editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Image Processing and member of IEEE Technical Committees on Signal Processing. In 2014, he was appointed IEEE Fellow for his contribution in image representation and computerized images. Professor Do believes that modern researchers need to have both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary understanding to develop novel ideas. With this in mind, he has made significant contributions in technology transfer as the Chief Technology Officer of Personify, scientific lead of Misfit, and Beckman Fellow at Center for Advanced Study, UIUC. Prof. Do has a strong research foundation with an H-Index of 60.

In addition to 70 scientific publications and 63 presentations at international conferences, Prof. Do has been honored with prestigious awards such as the NSF Career Award by the National Science Fund; Best Student Paper Award in the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP); Most Innovative Paper Award at IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP); Xerox Award for researching Faculty, Technology University, UIUC and IEEE Best Paper Award.

He is also the recipient of the Best Doctoral Thesis Award from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne in 2001, University Medal from the University of Canberra, Australia in 1997, and Silver Medal in the 32nd International Mathematical Olympiad, Sweden (1991).

Professor Quarraisha Abdool Karim is an infectious disease epidemiologist whose primary research focuses on understanding the evolving HIV epidemic in South Africa and preventing HIV in women.

She is the Scientific Director of CAPRISA and Pro-Vice Chancellor for African Health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, and a Professor in Clinical Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, USA. She is a Fellow of The World Academy of Science; African Academy of Science; Academy of Science of South Africa, Royal Society of South Africa, and elected Member of the US National Academy of Medicine.

She was awarded the inaugural VinFuture Special Prize for Innovators from Developing Countries, in recognition of her ground-breaking research on HIV prevention.

Professor Ermias Kebreab is Associate Dean for Global Engagement in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, as well as Director of the World Food Center. He is a renowned scholar and skilled administrator with extensive experience in sustainable agriculture and animal science.

Professor Kebreab is the Sesnon Endowed Chair in the Department of Animal Science. He has conducted extensive research in developing strategies for using feed additives to reduce methane emissions from livestock and has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications.

He is the Chair of the United Nations FAO Technical Working Group on Feed Additives, a Committee Member for the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Panel on Anthropogenic Methane Emissions in the United States, and also serves on the NAS Committee for Nutrient Requirements of Dairy Cattle. He is a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2019, “Emissions from Livestock and Manure Management.”

Prof. Thuc-Quyen Nguyen is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). She joined the faculty of the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department at UCSB in summer 2004. Prior to that, she was a research associate in the Department of Chemistry and the Nano Center at Columbia University, working with Professors Louis Brus and Colin Nuckolls on molecular self-assembly, nanoscale characterization and devices. She also spent time at the IBM Research Center at T. J. Watson (Yorktown Heights, NY) working with Richard Martel and Phaedon Avouris on molecular electronics.

Her current research interests are electronic properties of conjugated polyelectrolytes, interfaces in optoelectronic devices, charge generation and transport in organic semiconductors, new materials for organic solar cell applications, molecular self-assemblies, materials processing, nanoscale characterization of organic solar cells, and device physics.

Prof. Thuc-Quyen Nguyen is among the Top 1% Highly Cited Researchers in Materials Science and Cross-Field by Thomson Reuters and Clarivate Analytics. In addition, she has received numerous prestigious honors and awards, including: The 2015-2019 World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds; The 2019 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; The 2019 Hall of Fame – Advanced Materials; The 2016 Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry; The 2015 Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Award; and many more.