Antonio M. Echavarren was born in Bilbao (Basque Country, Spain) and obtained his PhD at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (UAM) in 1982 with Prof. Francisco Fariña. After a postdoctoral stay in Boston College with Prof. T. Ross Kelly, he joined the UAM as an Assistant Professor (1984-86).

Following a two years period as a NATO-fellow in the group of Prof. John K. Stille in Colorado State University, he joined the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the CSIC (Spanish Research Council) in Madrid where he stayed until 1992. That year he returned to the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid as a Professor of Organic Chemistry. He is also Professor of Research of the CSIC since 2004.

He was appointed in 2004 as Group Leader at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) in Tarragona.

His research interests center on the development of new catalytic methods based on the organometallic chemistry of transition metals as well as the synthesis of natural products and polyarenes.

He received the 2004 Janssen-Cylag (Organic Chemistry) award of the Real Sociedad Española de Quimica (RSEQ) and has been Felix Serratosa Lecturer (Barcelona 2005), 2006 Liebig Lecturer (Organic Division of the German Chemical Society), Lilly-IQOG Lecturer (Madrid, 2006) and Abbot Lecturer (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaing, 2009). In 2010 he received the Golden Medal and the Research Award of the RSEQ.

He is a member of the Editorial Board of ChemCatChem (2009-) , the International Advisory Board of the European Journal of Organic Chemistry (2006-), ChemSusChem (2007-), Organic Biomolecular Chemistry (2008-), Chemical Society Reviews (2009-) and Advanced Synthesis and Catalysis (2011-)

  Josep Samitier is Full Professor in the Physics Faculty (Electronic Dep.) University of Barcelona. From March 2001 to June 2005 Prof. Samitier was Deputy Head of the Barcelona Science Park (PCB). From February 1984 to June 1985 he was visiting research fellow at the Philips Electronic Laboratory, Paris, France. Prof. Samitier is the coordinator of the Spanish Platform on Nanomedicine. He received the Barcelona city Prize for the 2003 of the Barcelona Council in the area of technology

  Philip Moriarty is a Professor of Physics and an Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Fellow in the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham. His research interests span a number of topical themes in nanometre scale science with a particular current focus on single atom/molecule manipulation. He has coordinated a number of multi-partner European networks (including, most recently, ACRITAS), and is currently Chair of the Institute of Physics Nanoscale Physics and Technology Group committee, a member of the Science Board of the Institute of Physics, and was a member of the EPSRC Strategic Advisory Team for Physics from 2005 - 2006.

Moriarty has a keen interest in outreach activities and both science and higher education funding policy. In addition to participating in a number of research council-funded public engagement projects (including Giants of the Infinitesimal), and his membership of the Steering Committee of the Council for the Defence of British Universities, he has interacted with national and international media (including The Independent, The Guardian, Times Higher Education, BBC Radio 4, Die Zeit, and The Economist) on these issues. He is also a regular contributor to Nottingham's Sixty Symbols YouTube project which has, as of December 2012, attracted a little over 15 million views (across 200 videos).

Although he does not share his infamous namesake's fascination with the binomial theorem, in his spare time Moriarty enjoys exploring the relationships between mathematics/physics and music.

  Larysa Baraban studied Physics at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Ukraine) from 1999 to 2005. She got there her Master of Science degree on the "Calculation of optical properties of the thin films" with Prof. Valeri Lozovski.For her PhD she joined the group of Prof. Paul Leiderer at the University of Constance. There she worked on the systems of magnetic colloidal particles for the modelling of the condensed matter phenomena. In January 2009, after defending her PhD thesis, she joined the group of Prof. Jerome Bibette at the Ecole superieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris as a Post Doc. There she was working on the development of an innovative millifluidic platform for microbiological assays. In February 2011 she moved to the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden (director Prof. Oliver Schmidt), where she worked on the integration of magneto-resistive sensors into microfluidic lab-on-a-chip systems for biodetection. In October 2011 she started her work in the group of Prof. Cuniberti. Here she plans to work on the development of silicon nanowires based biosensors with "InnovaSens" group.

  Gabriel Gomila has a PhD in Physics from the University of Barcelona (1997) with a thesis based on the theoretical modelling of electron transport at semiconductor interfaces. Later on, he was postdoctoral researcher at three different universities in Italy, France and Spain where he specialized in the theoretical modelling of nanoscale electronic devices. In 2001 he moved to the Department of Electronics at the University of Barcelona thanks to a Ramon y Cajal fellowship, where he expanded his research interests towards the merge of electronics and biological fields, thus focusing on microsystems for biological applications on-a-chip and on Atomic Force Microscopy for the electrical study of biological samples. Since 2005 he has been Associate Professor at this department. His current research interests are centred on the understanding of bioelectrical phenomena at the nanoscale. He combines the research activities with teaching on Nanobiotechnology, Scanning Probe Microscopy, Bioelectricity and Nanomedicine at the University of Barcelona.

  Hernan Miguez - Doctor in physics by the Autonomous University of Madrid (2000). From 2000 to 2002 worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the Chemistry Department of the University of Toronto, Canada, where he was appointed a honorary professorship position.
Since 2004 he is a member of the permanent research staff of the Materials Science Institute of Seville (ICMS) (joint centre of the Spanish Research Council and the University of Seville). He leads the research group of Multifunctional Optical Materials, an interdisciplinary team composed by chemists, physicists and materials engineers. His research activities have been mainly focused on the design, preparation, characterization and modelling of optical nanomaterials for applications in photovoltaics, sensing and radiation protection.
He is author or more than 100 papers in International Journals, 12 internationalized patents, and numerous scientific presentations including about 20 invited lectures in International symposia and in Industry or University centres. He has leaded numeorus research projects financed by both national programs and privately owned companies. His patents leaded to the founding of a two technology based companies, the Canadian Opalux, devoted to the development of tuneable photonic displays, and the Swedish NLAB Solar, focused on the integration of photonic crystals in solar cells to achieve boost the light harvesting efficiency

  Eva Campo is a faculty member at the School of Electronic Engineering at Bangor University. Priorly, she served as Education Director at the Laboratory for the Research on the Structure of Matter at the University of Pennsylvania, fostering national and international research and education initiatives; with a strong emphasis on undergraduate research. During her tenure as Assistant Professor at CNM-IMB in the Spanish Research Council, she was the leading PI during the solicitation phase of NOMS, where she currently serves as PI's asistant. NOMS is a highly-ranked multidisciplinary project, awarded 2.5M euro by EU NMP-FP7 in 2008(www.noms-project.eu), aiming at the production of a tactile display for the visually impaired based on photomechanical actuators.

Dr. Campo completed her M.S. in Theoretical Physics at Complutense University in Madrid (Spain) and her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering at Lehigh University, Bethlehem (PA). She did research as a post-doctoral scientist at the Center for Optical Technologies in collaboration with the US Army Research Labs (ARL). Her experience includes project conception, execution, and production of deliverables in projects at both national and international level. She serves as referee to peer-reviewed journals and founding agencies, and was admitted to the prestigious IESE`s executive program on IP optimizing resources for better management and result efficacy. She is a senior SPIE member, belonging to the organizing committee of SPIE SCANNING MICROSCOPY, having been the chair coordinator of the NOMS Session at the 2011 Optics+Photonics SPIE conference. She is the leading organizer of the upcoming MRS Education Symposium S-2013 under the call "Towards a lab-to-classroom Initiative" and is a guest editor at the special issue in the Journal of Nanotechnology on "Photomechanical Materials, Sensors, and Actuator Technologies"

Dr. Campo has funded the Laboratory for Matter Dynamics at Bangor University, under the Lectureship of Opto-Nano-Mechanics, where she will pursue her research interests in the realm of atomistic phenomena behind smart composites and behind growth of III-V's. She is also interested in the development of novel materials and devices in biomedicine.

  Brigitte Voit is head of the IPF Institute Macromolecular Chemistry and Managing Director/Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of the ''Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung e.V.'' Dresden. Brigitte Voit is also member of the Faculty Natural Sciences /Department of Chemistry at the Technische Universitat Dresden and heads the chair of ''Organic Chemistry of Polymers''. She has been actively participating in the DFG collaborative research centre 287 ''Reactive polymers in non-homogeneous systems, in melts and at interfaces'' and in the EU Network of Excellence NANOFUN-POLY ''Nanostructured and functional polymer-based materials and composites''. She is principle investigator in the "European Centre for Emerging Materials and Processes Dresden" (ECEMP) and the "Centre for Regenerative Therapies Dresden" (CRTD) as well as faculty member of the "Dresden International Graduate School for Biomedicine and Bioengineering" (DIGS-BB), demonstrating the close cooperation with the TU Dresden in the frame of "DRESDEN concept".

  Zhong Lin (ZL) Wang received his PhD from Arizona State University in transmission electron microscopy. He now is the Hightower Chair in Materials Science and Engineering, Regents' Professor, Engineering Distinguished Professor and Director, Center for Nanostructure Characterization, at Georgia Tech. Dr. Wang has made original and innovative contributions to the synthesis, discovery, characterization and understanding of fundamental physical properties of oxide nanobelts and nanowires, as well as applications of nanowires in energy sciences, electronics, optoelectronics and biological science. His discovery and breakthroughs in developing nanogenerators establish the principle and technological road map for harvesting mechanical energy from environment and biological systems for powering a personal electronics. His research on self-powered nanosystems has inspired the worldwide effort in academia and industry for studying energy for micro-nano-systems, which is now a distinct disciplinary in energy research and future sensor networks. He coined and pioneered the field of piezotronics and piezo-phototronics by introducing piezoelectric potential gated charge transport process in fabricating new electronic and optoelectronic devices. This breakthrough by redesign CMOS transistor has important applications in smart MEMS/NEMS, nanorobotics, human-electronics interface and sensors. Dr. Wang’s publications have been cited for over 57,000 times. The H-index of his citations is 117. Dr. Wang was elected as a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2009, member of European Academy of Sciences in 2002, fellow of American Physical Society in 2005, fellow of AAAS in 2006, fellow of Materials Research Society in 2008, fellow of Microscopy Society of America in 2010, and fellow of the World Innovation Foundation in 2002. He is an honorable professor of over 10 universities in China and Europe. He received 2012 Edward Orton Memorial Lecture Award from American Ceramic Society, 2011 MRS Medal from the Materials Research Society, 1999 Burton Medal from Microscopy Society of America, 2001 S.T. Li prize for Outstanding Contribution in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, and the 2009 Purdy Award from American Ceramic Society.

  Jong Min Kim is Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Oxford since March 2012.  Before holding this position he was Samsung Group Fellow, Senior Vice President at Samsung from 2003 to 2011.  He joined Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology in 1994.  Professor Kim has won numerous awards including Best Paper Award (Science Magazine) by Samsung Electronics in 2008 and “Scientist of The Month” Award by Minister of Science & Technology of Korean Government in 2000. He has authored or co-authored more than 250 publications and conference contributions; and possesses more than 250 patents.  World’s first inventions include carbon nanotube field emission HDTV; graphene transparent and flexible electrode; quantum dot LED and displays.

  Amaia Zurutuza obtained her PhD in Polymer Chemistry from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow (UK) in 2002. During her PhD she worked in the research of novel polymers for biomedical applications. After completing her PhD she did two post-doctoral fellowships working within two European projects in the field of molecularly imprinted polymers. At the beginning of 2004, she joined Controlled Therapeutics Scotland Ltd. (UK) where she was a Senior Polymer Scientist working in the R&D of new controlled drug delivery systems. Her research contribution in Controlled Therapeutics lead to the publication of 3 patents in novel biodegradable and biostable polymers for controlling drug delivery. In April 2010 she joined Graphenea as the Scientific Director.

  Qiu Cheng Wei received the B.Eng. degree from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2003, and the Ph. D. degree from the Joint Ph. D. Program between the National University of Singapore, Singapore and SUPELEC, France in 2007. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Physics Department of Massachusetts Institute of Technology till the end of 2009, and in December 2009, he joined ECE Department of NUS as an Assistant Professor. He was the recipient of the SUMMA Graduate Fellowship in Advanced Electromagnetics in 2005. He was also the recipient of the IEEE AP-S Graduate Research Award in 2006. In 2007, he received a Young Scientist Travel Grant of ISAP in 2007, URSI Young Scientist Award in 2008, and NUS Young Investigator Award in 2011. His research interests are in the areas of electromagnetic wave theory of complex media (e.g., chiral, anisotropic, and bianisotropic materials), invisibility cloaks, surface plasmonics and nanophotonics. He has published over 60 journal papers and one book chapter, with media coverage by Science Magazine and Straits Times. He has also been invited to give invited talks at international conferences, and serving as Associate Editor for the Advanced Electromagnetics Journal.