Professor Marin Alexe has been recently appointed as Chair of Functional Materials at the University of Warwick after spending about 18 year at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics-Halle. His research interest is physics and engineering of complex oxide thins films for information technology and integration of functional materials for oxide electronics. He has published more than 280 papers and 2 books and has an h-index of 41. In the last five years he has given more than 30 invited talks and lectures at international meeting and conferences. He was recently awarded the Wolfson Research Merit Award of the Royal Society.

Enrique Cánovas graduated on Applied Physics at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2002). After that, he realized a two-years Master of Advanced Studies at Universidad de Valladolid working on the spectroscopic characterization of native and operation-induced defects in high power laser diodes. From 2004 to 2006 he made a second Master of Advanced Studies at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Institute of Solar Energy, IES); training focus was on the fabrication, characterization and optimization of solid state solar cells. In 2006 he joined the group of Prof. Martí  and Prof. Luque at IES, where he completed PhD studies on the spectroscopic characterization of novel nanostructures aiming ultra-high-efficiency solar cells. His PhD studies included two placements (covering 9 months in total) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (USA - with Prof. W. Walukiewicz) and Glasgow University (Scotland - with Prof. Colin Stanley). Between 2010 and 2012 he worked as a postdoc at FOM Institute AMOLF (Amsterdam - The Netherlands, Prof. M. Bonn) on the characterization of carrier dynamics in sensitized solar cell architectures. Between 2012 to 2018 he lead the Nanostructured Photovoltaics Group at Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (Mainz, Germany). Since April 2018, Enrique Canovas works at IMDEA Nanoscience where he was appointed Assistant Research Proffesor (tenure-track).  His research interests cover all aspects of photovoltaics, nanotechnology and charge carrier dynamics.

He studied electrical engineering in Stuttgart and started working on Si solar cells in 2004 under the guidance of Uwe Rau at the Institute for Physical Electronics (ipe) in Stuttgart. After finishing his undergraduate studies in 2006, he continued working with Uwe Rau first in Stuttgart and later in Juelich on simulations and electroluminescence spectroscopy of solar cells. After finishing his PhD in 2009 and 1.5 years of postdoc work in Juelich, Thomas Kirchartz started a three year fellowship at Imperial College London working on recombination mechanisms in organic solar cells with Jenny Nelson. In 2013, he returned to Germany and accepted a position as head of a new activity on hybrid and organic solar cells in Juelich and simultaneously as Professor for Photovoltaics with Nanostructured Materials in the department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the University Duisburg-Essen. Kirchartz has published >100 isi-listed papers, has co-edited one book on characterization of thin-film solar cells whose second edition was published in 2016 and currently has an h-index of 38.

Maksym Kovalenko has been a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at ETH Zurich since July 2011 and Associate professor from January 2017. His group is also partially hosted by EMPA (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) to support his highly interdisciplinary research program. He completed graduate studies at Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria, 2004-2007, with Prof. Wolfgang Heiss), followed by postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago (USA, 2008-2011, with Prof. Dmitri Talapin). His present scientific focus is on the development of new synthesis methods for inorganic nanomaterials, their surface chemistry engineering, and assembly into macroscopically large solids. His ultimate, practical goal is to provide novel inorganic materials for optoelectronics, rechargeable Li-ion batteries, post-Li-battery materials, and catalysis. He is the recipient of an ERC Consolidator Grant 2018, ERC Starting Grant 2012, Ruzicka Preis 2013 and Werner Prize 2016. He is also a Highly Cited Researcher 2018 (by Clarivate Analytics).

Federico Rosei has held the Canada Research Chair in Nanostructured Organic and Inorganic Materials since 2003. He is Professor and Director of Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Énergie, Matériaux et Télécommunications, Université du Québec, Varennes (QC) Canada. Since January 2014 he holds the UNESCO Chair in Materials and Technologies for Energy Conversion, Saving and Storage. He received MSc and PhD degrees from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 1996 and 2001, respectively. Dr. Rosei’s research interests focus on the properties of nanostructured materials, and on how to control their size, shape, composition, stability and positioning when grown on suitable substrates. He has extensive experience in fabricating, processing and characterizing inorganic, organic and biocompatible nanomaterials. He has published over 200 articles in prestigious international journals (including Science, Nature Photonics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Advanced Materials, Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed., Journal of the American Chemical Society, Advanced Functional Materials, Nanoletters, ACS Nano, Biomaterials, Small, Physical Review Letters, Nanoscale, Chem. Comm., Applied Physics Letters, Physical Review B, etc.), has been invited to speak at over 200 international conferences and has given over 170 seminars and colloquia and 20 public lectures in 42 countries on all inhabited continents. His publications have been cited over 5700 times and his H index is 41. In 2014, he has been elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is Member of the European Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the American Physical Society, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow of SPIE, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), Fellow of the Institute of Physics, Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Metallurgy and Mining, Fellow of the Institute of Nanotechnology, Senior Member of the IEEE, Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada, Member of the Global Young Academy, Fellow of the Australian Institute of Physics and Member of the Sigma Xi Society. He has received several awards, including the FQRNT Strategic Professorship (2002–2007), the Tan Chin Tuan visiting Fellowship (NTU 2008), the Senior Gledden Visiting Fellowship (UWA 2009), Professor at Large at UWA (2010–2012), a Marie Curie Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the European Union (2001), a Canada Research Chair since 2003 (renewed in 2008 for a second five year term) a Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Award from the Alexander von Humboldt foundation (2011), the Rutherford Memorial Medal in Chemistry from the Royal Society of Canada (2011), the Herzberg Medal from the Canadian Association of Physics (2013), the Brian Ives lectureship award from ASM international / Canada Council (2013), the Award for Excellence in Materials Chemistry from the Canadian Society for Chemistry (2014), the NSERC EWR Steacie Memorial Fellowship (2014), the José Vasconcelos Award for Education from the World Cultural Council (2014), the IEEE NTC Distinguished Lectureship 2015, the Lash Miller Award from the Canada Section of the Electrochemical Society, the Chang Jiang Scholar Award from the Government of China, the Khwarizmi International Award (2nd Prize) from the Iran Research Organization for Science and Technology (IROST) and the Recognition for Excellence in Leadership from the American Vacuum Society.

Laurens Siebbeles (1963) is leader of the Opto-Electronic Materials Section and deputy head of the Dept. of Chemical Engineering at the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands. His research involves studies of the motion of electrons in novel nanostructured materials that have potential applications in e.g. solar cells, light-emitting diodes and nanoelectronics. Materials of interest include organic nanostructured materials, semiconductor quantum dots, nanorods and two-dimensional materials. Studies on charge and exciton dynamics are carried out using ultrafast time-resolved laser techniques and high-energy electron pulses in combination with quantum theoretical modeling.

Peter Strasser is the chaired professor of �Electrochemistry for energy conversion and storage� at the Chemical Engineering Division of the Department of Chemistry at the Technical University of Berlin. Prior to his appointment, he was Professor at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston. Before moving to Houston, Prof. Strasser served as Senior Member of staff at Symyx Technologies, Inc., Santa Clara, USA. In 1999, Prof. Strasser earned his doctoral degree in Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry from the �Fritz-Haber-Institute� of the Max-Planck-Society, Berlin, Germany, under the direction of the 2007 Chemistry Nobel Laureate, Professor Gerhard Ertl. In the same year, he was awarded the �Otto-Hahn Research Medal� by the Max-Planck Society. In 1996, Dr. Strasser was visiting scientist with Sony Central Research, Yokohama, Japan. He studied chemistry at Stanford University, the University of Tuebingen, and the University of Pisa, Italy. Professor Strasser is interested in the fundamental Materials Science and Catalysis of electrified liquid solid interfaces, in particular for renewable energy conversion, energy storage, production of fuels and chemicals.

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Ulrike Woggon studied Physics at the Friedrich-Schiller University Jena and the Humboldt-University in Berlin, Germany. In 1985 she received her PhD in Experimental Physics from the Humboldt-University in Berlin. In 1992 she was awarded with a grant for habilitation by the German National Science Foundation (DFG) and went to the group of Prof. Klingshirn were she conducted research on semiconductor quantum dots using various methods of ultrafast laser spectroscopy and nonlinear optics. In 1995 she got the habilitation from the University of Kaiserslautern with a thesis on "Optical Properties of Semiconductor Quantum Dots" which has been published as a monograph in Springer Tracts in Modern Physics in 1996. From 1993 to 1997 she was in charge of a research group on optical spectroscopy of II-VI quantum dots at the Institute of Applied Physics at the University of Karlsruhe. In 1997 she became a full-time Professor at the Department of Physics in Dortmund, heading a group of about 10 members working on problems of quantum coherence in semiconductor nanostructures, photonic structures and microsphere cavities, single-dot spectroscopy at nanocrystals and quantum dots and quantum-dot based devices. In 2008, she became a Professor at the Institute of Optics and Atomics Physics of the Technical University Berlin (TU). Ulrike Woggon has published more than 190 peer-reviewed journal papers and several book chapters. Her current research interests are focused on ultrafast spectroscopy of semiconductor quantum dots, on nanophotonics, in particular semiconductor nanostructures of mixed 0D-2D dimensionality, and nanoplasmonics with hybrid materials. She is a member and Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), a member of the Material Research Society (MRS), and the German Physical Society (DPG). For OSA she was one of the Program Chairs of the International Quantum Electronics Conference (IQEC), San Francisco 2004 and served several times as committee member in the QELS subcommittee "Nanooptics and Nanoplasmonics" in 2000 (San Francisco), 2001 (Baltimore), 2006 (Long Beach), and 2008 (San Jose).

Celso de Mello Donega is an Associate Professor in the Chemistry Department of the Faculty of Sciences at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. His expertise is in the field of synthesis and optical spectroscopy of luminescent materials. His research is focused on the chemistry and optoelectronic properties of nanomaterials, with particular emphasis on colloidal nanocrystals and heteronanocrystals.

Roel van de Krol is head of the Insitute for Solar Fuels at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin fuer Materialien und Energie (HZB), and professor at the Chemistry Department of TU Berlin. After earning his PhD from TU Delft in 2000 and a postdoctoral stay at M.I.T. (USA), he returned to TU Delft where he was an assistant professor until 2012. At HZB, his research focuses on the development of materials and devices for the photoelectrochemical conversion of sunlight to chemical fuels. Understanding how surface and bulk defects in thin films and nanomaterials affect light absorption, charge transport, recombination and catalytic activity is at the heart of these efforts.