Zhi Ning Chen

Zhi Ning Chen, respectively received his two Ph.D degrees, both in Electrical Engineering, from the Institute of Communications Engineering, China in 1993 and the University of Tsukuba, Japan, in 2003. Dr Chen is a Provost’s Chair and Professor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the founder and Director of Advanced Research and Technology Innovation Center at National University of Singapore. In addition to concurrent guest professorships at various universities, he has provided technical consultancy service to twelve local and overseas companies as Technical Advisor, Guest Professor, and Chief Scientist. He is the founding General Chairs of Marina Forum in 2021, International Workshop on Antenna Technology in 2005, and Asia-Pacific Conference on Antennas and Propagation in 2012. He has published over 730 academic papers and six books with citations g34,000 and h-100. He is holding 35 granted and filed patents and has completed 43 licensed deals. He is a pioneer in developing small and ultra-wideband antennas, wearable and implanted antennas, package antennas, near-field antennas and coils, three-dimensional integrated LTCC arrays, lens antennas, microwave metamaterial-metasurface antennas. Currently, He is more interested in the translational research of electromagnetic metamaterials and the application of algorithms, specifically prior-knowledge-guided deep learning-enabled optimization and generative methods to antenna design. Dr Chen is the recipients of IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society John Kraus Antenna Award in 2021 and Europe Association on Antennas and Propagation Antenna Award in 2025. He was elevated the Fellow of the Academy of Engineering, Singapore in 2019, the IEEE Fellow for his contribution to small and broadband antennas for wireless applications in 2007, and Fellow and Vice President of Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association. (www.ece.nus.edu.sg/staff/bio/czn.html).

Giuseppe Leo

Giuseppe Leo, received a Laurea degree (cum laude) in EE at La Sapienza, Rome (1990), and a PhD in Physics at Paris-Saclay University (2001). He was with Roma Tre University as assistant (1992-2002) and associate professor (2002-04), as well as visiting scientist at CSELT (1994-95) and Thomson-CSF (1998). Since 2004 he has been full professor at Université Paris Cité, where he founded and directed the Denis Diderot School of Engineering (2010-22) and has led the Nonlinear Optical Devices group of MPQ since 2007. His research is in nonlinear integrated optics, nanophotonics and metasurfaces. Optica Fellow and Member of Institut Universitaire de France, he coordinates several national and EU research programs. Prof. Leo served as co-chair in SPIE Photonics West and Optica MICS conferences, and he is member of the editorial board of OEA. He published 148 articles, registered 7 patents, and he gave 120 invited conference presentations (with 5 keynote and 1 plenary). Over 6k citations, h-43 (GS).

Enrica Martini

Enrica Martini, received the Laurea degree (cum laude) in telecommunication engineering from the University of Florence, Italy, in 1998. From 1998 to 1999 she worked at the University of Florence under a one-year research grant from the Alenia Aerospazio Company, Rome, Italy. In 2002, she received the PhD degree in informatics and telecommunications from the University of Florence and the Ph.D. degree in electronics from the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, under joint supervision. In 2002, she was appointed Research Associate at the University of Siena, Italy. In 2005, she received the Hans Christian Ørsted Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark, and she joined the Electromagnetic Systems Section of the Ørsted•DTU Department until 2007. From 2007 to 2017 she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Siena, Italy. In 2012, she co-founded the start-up Wave Up Srl, Siena, Italy, of which she was the CEO from 2016 to 2018. From 2019 to 2021 she was an assistant professor at the University of Siena, Italy. She is currently an Associate Professor with the Department of Information Engineering and Mathematics, University of Siena, Siena, Ital Dr. Martini coordinated tasks of various research projects funded by national and international governmental institutions, as well as by industry. Her research interests include metasurfaces and metamaterial characterization, metasurface-based antennas and microwave devices, electromagnetic scattering, antenna measurements and tropospheric propagation. Dr. Martini was a co-recipient of the 2016 Schelkunoff Transactions Prize Paper Award, of the Best Paper Award in Antenna Design and Applications at the 11th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation in 2017, of the Best Poster Award at the Metamaterials Congress in 2019 and of the Best Paper Award in Electromagnetics at the 15th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation in 2021.

Eva Rajo-Iglesias

Eva Rajo-Iglesias, was born in Monforte de Lemos, Spain, in 1972. She received the M.Sc. degree in telecommunication engineering from the University of Vigo, Spain, in 1996, and the Ph.D. degree in telecommunication engineering from the University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain, in 2002. She was a Teacher Assistant with the University Carlos III of Madrid from 1997 to 2001. She joined the Polytechnic University of Cartagena, Cartagena, Spain, as a Teacher Assistant, in 2001. She joined University Carlos III of Madrid as a Visiting Lecturer in 2002, where she has been an Associate Professor with the Department of Signal Theory and Communications since 2004. Since 2018 she is Full Professor in the same department. She visited the Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden, as a Guest Researcher, in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, and has been an Affiliated Professor with the Antenna Group, Signals and Systems Department, since 2009 to 2016. She has co-authored more than 75 papers in JCR international journals and more than 120 papers in international conferences. Her current research interests include microstrip patch antennas and arrays, metamaterials, artificial surfaces and periodic structures, gap waveguide technology and MIMO systems. Dr. Rajo-Iglesias was the recipient of the Loughborough Antennas and Propagation Conference Best Paper Award in 2007, the Best Poster Award in the field of Metamaterial Applications in Antennas, at the conference Metamaterials 2009, the 2014 Excellence Award to Young Research Staff at the University Carlos III of Madrid and the Third Place Winner of the Bell Labs Prize 2014. She is currently an Associate Editor of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine and has served as Associate Editor of the IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters (2011-2017).

Vladimir M. Shalaev

Vladimir M. Shalaev, Scientific Director for Nanophotonics at Birck Nanotechnology Center and Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University, specializes in nanophotonics, plasmonics, optical metamaterials and quantum photonics. Prof. Shalaev has received several awards for his research, including the APS Frank Isakson Prize for Optical Effects in Solids, the Optica (formerly, Optical Society of America) Max Born Award for his pioneering contributions to the field of optical metamaterials, the Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, IEEE Photonics Society William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award, Rolf Landauer medal of the ETOPIM (Electrical, Transport and Optical Properties of Inhomogeneous Media) International Association, the UNESCO Medal for the development of nanosciences and nanotechnologies, and the OSA and SPIE Goodman Book Writing Award. Prof. Shalaev is recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher in physics by the Web of Science Group for 7 consecutive years, in 2017-2023. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, APS, SPIE, MRS and Optica.

Andrea Alù

Andrea Alù is a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York (CUNY), the Founding Director of the Photonics Initiative at the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center, and the Einstein Professor of Physics at the CUNY Graduate Center. He received his Laurea (2001) and PhD (2007) from the University of Roma Tre, Italy, and, after a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania, he joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin in 2009, where he was the Temple Foundation Endowed Professor until Jan. 2018. Dr. Alù is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the Materials Research Society (MRS), Optica, the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) and the American Physical Society (APS). He is the President of Metamorphose, a Highly Cited Researcher since 2017, a Simons Investigator in Physics, the director of the Simons Collaboration on Extreme Wave Phenomena Based on Symmetries, and the Editor in Chief of Optical Materials Express. He has received several scientific awards, including the NSF Alan T. Waterman award, the Blavatnik National Award for Physical Sciences and Engineering, the IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award, the ICO Prize in Optics, the OSA Adolph Lomb Medal, and the URSI Issac Koga Gold Medal.

Alexandra Boltasseva

Alexandra Boltasseva is a Ron and Dotty Garvin Tonjes Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering with courtesy appointment in Materials Engineering at Purdue University. She received her PhD in electrical engineering at Technical University of Denmark, DTU in 2004. Boltasseva specializes in nanophotonics, quantum photonics, and optical materials. She is the 2023 recipient of the R.W. Wood Prize (Optica, formerly Optical Society of America), 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, 2018 Blavatnik National Award for Young Scientists Finalist and received the 2013 Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Photonics Society Young Investigator Award, 2013 Materials Research Society (MRS) Outstanding Young Investigator Award, the 2011 MIT Technology Review Top Young Innovator (TR35), the 2009 Young Researcher Award in Advanced Optical Technologies from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, and the Young Elite-Researcher Award from the Danish Council for Independent Research (2008). She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), MRS, IEEE, Optica, and SPIE. She served on MRS Board of Directors and is former Editor-in-Chief for Optical Materials Express journal.

Lorenzo Crocco

Lorenzo Crocco is a Research Director at the Institute for the Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment of the National Research Council of Italy (IREA-CNR). His scientific activities mainly concern diagnostic and therapeutic uses of electromagnetic fields, through-the-wall and ground penetrating radars. He has published more than 120 papers, given keynote talks and lectures, and edited two books on medical applications of electromagnetic technologies. Since 2021, he is listed in the World's Top 2% Scientists database. He is in the Scientific Board of the Italian Electromagnetic Society (SIEm) and a member of the Italian URSI Commission (International Union of Radio Science). He is in the Scientific Board of the Engineering Department (DIITET) of CNR. He is member of IEEE MTT-28 Biological Effects and Medical Applications Committee and of IEEE EMBS Technical Community on Therapeutic & Diagnostic Systems and Technologies. Since 2014, he is Board Member at European School of Antennas (ESOA). Since 2024, he is member of EurAPP Delegate Assembly as representative of Italy, San Marino and Vatican City. Within EurAAP, he has promoted the institution of the working group ELSA on Electromagnetic Technologies for Life Science Applications (ELSA). Lorenzo Crocco is IEEE Senior Member and URSI Senior Member.

Andrea Di Falco

Andrea Di Falco leads the Synthetic Optics group in the School of Physics and Astronomy, in St Andrews. His research focuses on the development of versatile multi-material platforms for the control of light behaviour at the nanoscale in time and space, for applications including biophotonics, imaging, augmented reality, and optical neural networks.

Mauro Ettorre

Mauro Ettorre received a Laurea degree “summa cum laude” in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. degree in Electromagnetics from the University of Siena, Italy, in 2004 and 2008, respectively. Part of his Ph.D. work was developed at the TNO, the Netherlands. Since 2023, he has been a Professor at Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA. Previously, he was a Research Scientist at CNRS, IETR laboratory, France. From 2014 until 2020, he co-led the multi-beam antenna activity for satellite applications in the joint laboratory between IETR and Thales Alenia Space, France. From 2016 until 2021, he was a member of the French National Committee for Scientific Research, CNRS, France. From 2016 until 2021, he led the mm and sub-mm waves team at IETR, and co-chaired from 2021 until 2023 the department ADH (Antennas and Microwave Devices Department) at IETR.

Dr. Ettorre’s research interests include the analysis and design of quasi-optical systems, periodic structures, wideband arrays, millimeter-wave antennas, non-diffractive radiation, and localized waves. He has authored over 90 journal papers and 210 conference communications and holds 14 patents (2 licensed) on millimeter-wave antenna technology. Dr. Ettorre is a Fellow of IEEE. Since 2017 and 2023, he has served as Associate Editor and Track Editor for the IEEE Transaction on Antennas and Propagation, respectively. Dr. Ettorre is the 2024 IEEE MTT-S and AP-S Inter-Society Distinguished Lecturer. The research activities of Dr. Ettorre have been recognized with several prizes, including the 2009 French Ministry of Research award for the most innovative project in all natural sciences, the Young Investigator Award from the French National Research Agency in 2014, the Innovation Award at the 2018 ESA Antenna Workshop in the Netherlands, the Best Paper ‎Award in Electromagnetics and Antenna Theory at EuCAP 2018, UK, the Best Antennas Paper Award at EuCAP 2021, Germany and Best Paper Award at the iWAT 2023, Denmark.

Anthony Grbic

Anthony Grbic received the B.A.Sc., M.A.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto, Canada, in 1998, 2000, and 2005, respectively. In 2006, he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, where he is currently the John L. Tishman Professor of Engineering. His research interests include engineered electromagnetic structures (metamaterials, metasurfaces, frequency selective surfaces, photonic bandgap structures), antennas, microwave circuits, time varying and space-time varying electromagnetic systems, cylindrical vector beams, wireless power transmission, and analytical electromagnetics/optics. Dr. Grbic is a Fellow of the IEEE. He was an IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society Distinguished Microwave Lecturer from 2022-2025 and an Associate Editor for IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters from 2010 to 2015. He was the recipient of an AFOSR Young Investigator Award, NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. He also received an Outstanding Young Engineer Award from the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society, a Henry Russel Award from the University of Michigan, and a Booker Fellowship from the United States National Committee of the International Union of Radio Science.

Ortwin Hess

Ortwin Hess currently holds the Chair Professorship of Quantum Nanophotonics and an SFI Research Professorship in the School of Physics and the CRANN Institute of Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Ireland. He is Editor-in-Chief of the gold open-access journal APL Quantum. Ortwin is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP), a Fellow of Optica (formerly OSA) and a Professorial Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. Previously, Ortwin held the Leverhulme Chair in Metamaterials in the Blackett Laboratory at Imperial College London, UK. From 2003 to 2010 he was a full professor at the University of Surrey (Guildford, UK) and visiting professor at Stanford University, USA, and at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Germany. Ortwin obtained the Dr.-rer-nat. (PhD) degree from the Technical University of Berlin, Germany in 1993 and the Habilitation (Dr.-habil.) at the University of Stuttgart, Germany in 1997. Ortwin’s research interests bridge quantum nanophotonics with semiconductor and metamaterials physics, laser science and bio-medical photonics. He discovered the ‘trapped-rainbow’ principle, had the idea of stopped-light lasing and made defining contributions to the fields of spatio-temporal dynamics of semiconductor lasers, ultraslow light in metamaterials, complex quantum dot photonics and photonic crystals and strong coupling in nanoplasmonics. Ortwin pioneered active nanoplasmonics and optical metamaterials with quantum gain for which he has been awarded the Royal Society Rumford Medal.

Stefano Maci

Stefano Maci received the Laurea Degree cum Laude at University of Florence in 87 and from ‘97 is a Professor at the University of Siena. His research interest includes high-frequency and beam representation methods, computational electromagnetics, large phased arrays, planar antennas, reflector antennas and feeds, metamaterials and metasurfaces. Since 2000 he was member the Technical Advisory Board of 12 international conferences, member of the Review Board of 6 International Journals. He organized 25 special sessions in international conferences, and he held 10 short courses in the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) Symposia about metamaterials, antennas and computational electromagnetics. In 2004-2007 he was WP leader of the Antenna Center of Excellence (ACE, FP6-EU) and in 2007-2010 he was International Coordinator of a 24-institution consortium of a Marie Curie Action (FP6). He has been Principal Investigator from 2010 of 6 cooperative projects financed by European Space Agency. In 2004 he was the founder of the European School of Antennas (ESoA), a post graduate school that presently comprises 34 courses on Antennas, Propagation, Electromagnetic Theory, and Computational Electromagnetics and 150 teachers coming from 15 countries. Since 2004 is the Director of ESoA.

Professor Maci is IEEE Fellow since 2004, he has been a former member of the AdCom of IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S), associate editor of AP-Transaction, Chair of the Award Committee of IEEE AP-S, and member of the Board of Directors of the European Association on Antennas and Propagation (EurAAP). From 2008 to 2015 he has been Director of the PhD program in Information Engineering and Mathematics of University of Siena, and from 2013 to 2015 he was member of the National Italian Committee for Qualification to Professor. He has been former member of the Antennas and Propagation Executive Board of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET, UK). He is presently the director of the consortium FORESEEN, presently involving 48 European Institutions, and principal investigator of the Future Emerging Technology project “Nanoarchitectronics” of the 8th EU Framework program. He was co-founder of 2 Spin-off Company. He is a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S), and recipient of the EurAAP Award in 2014, of the IEEE Shelkunoff Transaction Prize 2015, and of the Chen-To Tai Distinguished Educator award 2016. In 2020 he was the TPC Chair of the METAMATERIAL conference. In the last ten years he has been invited 25 times as key-note speaker in international conferences. The research activity of Professor Maci is documented in 150 papers published in international journals, (among which 100 on IEEE journals), 10 book chapters, and about 400 papers in proceedings of international. These papers have received around 6800 citations with h index 41.

Marin Soljačić

Marin Soljačić is a Professor of Physics at MIT. He is a founder of a few companies, including WiTricity Corporation (2007) and Lightelligence (2017). His main research interests are in artificial intelligence as well as electromagnetic phenomena, focusing on nanophotonics, non-linear optics, and wireless power transfer. He is a co-author of more than 300 scientific articles, more than 100 issued US patents, and he has been invited to give more than 100 invited talks at conferences and universities around the world. He is a recipient of the Adolph Lomb medal from the Optical Society of America (2005), and the TR35 award of the Technology Review magazine (2006). In 2008, he was awarded a MacArthur fellowship “genius” grant. He is an international member of the Croatian Academy of Engineering since 2009. In 2011 he became a Young Global Leader (YGL) of the World Economic Forum. In 2014, he was awarded Blavatnik National Award, as well as Invented Here! (Boston Patent Law Association). In 2017, he was awarded "The Order of the Croatian Daystar, with the image of Ruđer Bošković", the Croatian President’s top medal for Science. In 2017, the Croatian President also awarded him with "The Order of the Croatian Interlace" medal. He has been recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher by Web of Science for six consecutive years: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. In 2023, he was awarded Max Born award of Optica.

Francesca Vipiana

Francesca Vipiana received the Laurea and Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering from the Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy, in 2000 and 2004, respectively, with doctoral research carried out partly at the European Space Research Technology Center, Noordwijk, The Netherlands. From 2005 to 2008, she was a Research Fellow with the Department of Electronics, Politecnico di Torino. From 2009 to 2012, she was the Head of the Antenna and EMC Laboratory, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Torino. Since 2012, she has been an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Politecnico di Torino, where she has been an Associate Professor since 2014 and a Full Professor since 2021. Her main research activities concern numerical techniques based on integral equations and method of moments, with a focus on multiresolution and hierarchical schemes, domain decomposition, preconditioning and fast solution methods, advanced quadrature integration schemes, and glide-periodic structures. Moreover, her research interests include the modeling, design, realization and testing of microwave imaging and sensing systems for medical and industrial applications. She received the Lot Shafai Mid-Career Distinguished Award from the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) in 2017, she was an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation (2018-2024) and the founder and responsible of the Women in Engineering Column in the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine (2019-2024). She is a member of the EurAAP Board of Directors and the Vice-Chair of the IEEE AP-S Expanding Collaboration & Engagement (ECE) committee.