Raffaella Buonsanti obtained her PhD in Nanochemistry in 2010 at the National Nanotechnology Laboratory, University of Salento. Then, she moved to the US where she spent over five years at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, first as a postdoc and project scientist at the Molecular Foundry and after as a tenure-track staff scientist in the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis. In October 2015 she started as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering at EPFL. She is passionate about materials chemistry, nanocrystals, understanding nucleation and growth mechanisms, energy, chemical transformations.

Joseph M. Luther obtained B.S. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University in 2001. At NCSU he began his research career under the direction of Salah Bedair, who was the first to fabricate a tandem junction solar cell. Luther worked on growth and characterization high-efficiency III-V materials including GaN and GaAsN. His interest in photovoltaics sent him to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to pursue graduate work. He obtained a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado while researching effects of defects in bulk semiconductors in NREL�s Measurements and Characterization Division. In 2005, He joined Art Nozik�s group at NREL and studied semiconductor nanocrystals for multiple exciton generation for which he was awarded a Ph.D. in Physics from Colorado School of Mines. As a postdoctoral fellow, he studied fundamental synthesis and novel properties of nanomaterials under the direction Paul Alivisatos at the University of California and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In 2009, he rejoined NREL as a senior research scientist. His research interests lie in the growth, electronic coupling and optical properties of colloidal nanocrystals and quantum dots.