Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Michael Graetzel, PhD, directs there the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces. He pioneered research on energy and electron transfer reactions in mesoscopic systems and their use to generate electricity and fuels from sunlight. He invented mesoscopic injection solar cells, one key embodiment of which is the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC).  DSCs are meanwhile commercially produced at the multi-MW-scale and created a number of new applications in particular as lightweight power supplies for portable electronic devices and in photovoltaic glazings. They engendered the field of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) that turned our to be the most exciting break-through in the recent history of photovoltaics. He received a number of prestigious awards, of which the most recent ones include the RusNANO Prize, the Zewail Prize in Molecular Science, the Global Energy Prize, the Millennium Technology Grand Prize, the Samson Prime Minister’s Prize for Innovation in Alternative Fuels, the Marcel Benoist Prize, the King Faisal International Science Prize, the Einstein World Award of Science and the Balzan Prize. He is a Fellow of several learned societies and holds eleven honorary doctor’s degrees from European and Asian Universities. According to the ISI-Web of Science, his over 1500 publications have received some 230’000 citations with an h-factor of 219 demonstrating the strong impact of his scientific work.

Radiation expert at ONERA since 1989 with first area of research in radiation effect in electronics (testing and prediction approach for single event). Since 2012, leads materials activities which encompass ageing of thermal coatings, optics, PVA materials including solar cells (radiative environment .i.e UV, electrons and protons in synergy with temperature and vacuum), but also erosion by atomic oxygen (testing, modeling and detection).

Contribution to several on-board experiments (MIR, SAC-C, ISS, nanosats …). Principal Investigator of MEDET (ISS/EuTEF module
in 2009-2010, ONERA-ESA-CNES-UoS collaboration).

Author or co-author of over 60 scientific publications (about 40 in peer-reviewed journals)

Salvo Marcuccio, PhD, is Associate Professor of Space Systems and head of the Space Systems Laboratory at the Dept. of Civil and Industrial Engineering, University of Pisa. His main research interests include small and micro-satellite systems design, space mission analysis, electric propulsion and stratospheric platforms. In 1999 he co-founded and managed Alta SpA, an SME dedicated to space propulsion, plasma technologies and space systems, now part of SITAEL SpA. He is member of the board of ToscanaSpazio, the regional association of aerospace companies and reserarch institutions, and member of the scientifc committee of GATE 4.0, the aerospace district of Tuscany.

Tsutomu (Tom) Miyasaka received his Doctor of Engineering from The University of Tokyo in 1981. He joined Fuji Photo Film, Co., conducting R&Ds on high sensitivity photographic materials, lithium-ion secondary batteries, and design of an artificial photoreceptor, all of which relate to electrochemistry and photochemistry. In 2001, he moved to Toin University of Yokohama (TUY), Japan, as professor in Graduate School of Engineering to continue photoelectrochemistry. In 2006 to 2009 he was the dean of the Graduate School. In 2004 he has established a TUY-based company, Peccell Technologies, serving as CEO. In 2005 to 2010 he served as a guest professor at The University of Tokyo.

His research has been focused to light to electric energy conversion involving photochemical processes by enhancing rectified charge transfer at photo-functional interfaces of semiconductor electrodes. He has contributed to the design of low-temperature solution-printing process for fabrication of dye-sensitized solar cells and solid-state hybrid photovoltaic (PV) cells. Since the discovery of the organic inorganic hybrid perovskite as PV material in 2006 and fabrication of high efficiency PV device in 2012, his research has moved to R&Ds of the lead halide perovskite PV device. He has promoted the research field of perovskite photovoltaics by organizing international conferences and by publishing many papers on enhancement of PV efficiency and durability, overall citation number of which is reaching more than 5,000 times. In 2009 he was awarded a Ministry of Science & Education prize on his achievements of green sustainable solar cell technology. In 2017 he received Chemical Society of Japan (CSJ) Award. He is presently directing national research projects funded by Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Professor Peter Müller-Buschbaum carries out research in the field of functional materials, with a particular focus on energy materials, e.g. solar cells and batteries.

He studied physics in Kiel including his doctorate. Then he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the MPI for Polymer Research in Mainz and as visiting scientist at the ILL and the ESRF in Grenoble, France. He acquired his postdoctoral teaching qualification (Habilitation) in 2002 and headed the Chair of Functional Materials at the TUM Department of Physics, before his appointment in 2018 as full professor and scientific director of the Forschungs-Neutronenquelle FRM-II and of the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrums MLZ. Since 2011, he has been the German representative at the European Polymer Federation and, since 2012, Associate Editor of the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. He also heads the Bavarian key laboratory TUM.solar and the Network for Renewable Energies (NRG) of the Munich Institute of Integrated Materials, Energy and Process Engineering (MEP).

Hong Zhang is currently a Senior Scientist in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) at The University of Hong Kong (HKU). He will join the Institute of Optoelectronics at Fudan University as a Professor from September 2022.  He received his Ph.D. in July 2018 from HKU under the supervision of Professor Wallace C.H. Choy on perovskite solar cells. From 2019 to 2021, he worked as a Post-doc with Prof. Michael Graetzel on highly efficient perovskite solar cells. His current research interests mainly focus on the design and synthesis of perovskite and metal oxide inks as well as their application in flexible perovskite solar cells and perovskite photodetectors.