In 2019, Robert Alfano received SPIE (Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers) Gold Medal Award, the highest honor bestowed by the society. Robert Alfano is an Italian-American experimental physicist. He is a Distinguished Professor of Science and Engineering at the City College and Graduate School of New York of the City University of New York, where he is also the founding Director of the Institute for Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers (1982). He is a pioneer in the fields of Biomedical Imaging and Spectroscopy, Ultrafast lasers and optics, tunable lasers, semiconductor materials and devices, optical materials, biophysics, nonlinear optics and photonics; he has also worked extensively in nanotechnology and coherent backscattering. His discovery of the white-light supercontinuum laser is at the root of optical coherence tomography, which is breaking barriers in ophthalmology, cardiology, and oral cancer detection (see "Better resolution with multibeam OCT," page 28) among other applications. He initiated the field known now as Optical Biopsy He recently calculated he has brought in $62 million worth of funding to CUNY during his career, averaging $1.7 million per year. He states that he has accomplished this feat by "hitting the pavement"; he developed a habit of aggressively reaching out to funding partners and getting them interested in his work. Alfano has made discoveries that have furthered biomedical optics, in addition to fields such as optical communications, solid-state physics, and metrology. Alfano has an outstanding track record for achievements regarding the development of biomedical instruments. His contributions to photonics are documented in more than 700 research articles, 102 patents, several edited volumes and conference proceedings, and well over 10,000 citations. He holds 45 patents and published over 230 articles in the biomedical optics area alone. His discovery of the white-light supercontinuum laser is at the root of optical coherence tomography, which is breaking barriers in ophthalmology, cardiology, and oral cancer detection (see "Better resolution with multibeam OCT," page 28) among other applications. Alfano has trained and mentored over 52 PhD candidates and 50 post-doctoral students. For the past ten years, he has trained innumerable high school students in hands on photonics. Areas of Expertise/Research Bonding of Tissues with Light Biomedical Optics and Detection of Cancer with Light Spectroscopy Expertise in Properties of Light and Photonics Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers Physics and Electrical Engineering Science and Engineering Find more information at : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Alfano# Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award Charles Hard Townes Medal

Jacques, Steven L. SPIE Membership: 14.2 years SPIE Awards: Fellow status | 2019 SPIE Community Champion SPIE Involvement: Conference Program Committee | Track Chair | Author | Instructor Area of Expertise: Tissue optics, Laser-tissue interactions Steven L. Jacques, Ph.D., received a B.S. degree in Biology at M.I.T., and an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a Ph.D. degree in Biophysics and Medical Physics from the University of California-Berkeley (1984), where he used dielectric microwave measurements to explore the in vivo distribution of water in the stratum corneum of human skin. His postdoctoral work was at the Wellman Center for Photo Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, rising to the position of Lecturer in Dermatology/BioEngineering, Harvard Medical School. His team developed the use of Monte Carlo computer simulations to study optical transport in biological tissues, which is now widely used in the field of BioPhotonics. In 1988, he joined the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer as an Assistant Professor of Urology/Biophysics and established a laboratory developing novel laser and optical methods for medicine, later achieving a tenured position as Associate Professor. He developed a hand-held spectrometer and the analysis software to noninvasively measure hyperbilirubinemia in newborns. This device was patented, licensed, and FDA approved to replace heel stick tests, and is now in practice in neonatal care. As of 2018, over 280 million newborns have been tested with the device. In 1996, he joined the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland where he served 21 years as Professor of Dermatology and Biomedical Engineering. He is currently an Affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Federico Capasso received the doctor of Physics degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Rome, Italy, in 1973 and after doing research in fiber optics at Fondazione Bordoni in Rome, joined Bell Labs in 1976. In 1984, he was made a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff and in 1997 a Bell Labs Fellow. In addition to his research activity Capasso has held several management positions at Bell Labs including Head of the Quantum Phenomena and Device Research Department and the Semiconductor Physics Research Department (1987–2000) and Vice President of Physical Research (2000–2002). He joined Harvard on January 1, 2003. AWARDS: Duddell Medal and Prize (2002) Edison Medal (2004) SPIE Gold Medal (2013) Balzan Prize (2016) Matteucci Medal (2019)

Professor Hielscher leads the recently established Department of Biomedical Engineering and directs research in his Clinical Biophotonics Laboratory (CBL). The mission of the CBL is to establish optical tomography as a viable biomedical imaging modality and transfer this technology into clinical practice. The goal is to develop a patient-centered approach that addresses all aspect of modern precision medicine in state-of-the art healthcare. To this end Prof. Hielscher's team is developing cutting- edge imaging hardware and software that provide 3-dimensional distributions of physiologically relevant parameters such as oxygen saturation or total hemoglobin concentrations and more. This includes the design of wearable devices that allow continuous patient monitoring. The CBL is currently applying this emerging technology in various clinical and preclinical studies that focus on the diagnosis and monitoring breast cancer, arthritis, peripheral artery disease (PAD), and diabetic foot syndrome (DFS). Furthermore, techniques are being developed for real-time monitoring of brain activities.

Heinz Wilhelm Siesler is a Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, with expertise in vibrational spectroscopy in combination with chemometric data evaluation for chemical research, analysis and process control. He has 240+ publications (4 monographs) and presented more than 300 lectures worldwide. Since 2012 he is a Fellow of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy and received several awards (1994 EAS NIR Award, 2000 Tomas Hirschfeld PITTCON NIR Award, and 2003 Buechi NIR Award). Prior to his academic position he gained industrial experience as section head in molecular spectroscopy and thermal analysis in the R&D Department of Bayer AG, Germany. He also worked as lecturer (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa) and Post-Doc (University of Cologne, Germany), after receiving his PhD in Chemistry (University of Vienna, Austria). The test and application of miniaturized handheld vibrational spectrometers is a special research focus over the last ten years.

For more information: https://www.me.gatech.edu/faculty/hesketh Dr. Hesketh's research interests are in Sensors and Micro/Nano-electro-mechanical Systems (MEMS/NEMS). Many sensors are built by micro/nanofabrication techniques and this provides a host of advantages including lower power consumption, small size and light weight. The issue of manipulation of the sample in addition to introduce it to the chemical sensor array is often achieved with microfluidics technology. Combining photolithographic processes to define three-dimensional structures can accomplish the necessary fluid handling, mixing, and separation through chromatography. For example, demonstration of miniature gas chromatography and liquid chromatography with micromachined separation columns demonstrates how miniaturization of chemical analytical methods reduces the separation time so that it is short enough, to consider the measurement equivalent to "read-time" sensing. A second focus area is biosensing. Professor Hesketh has worked on a number of biomedical sensors projects, including microdialysis for subcutaneous sampling, glucose sensors, and DNA sensors. Magnetic beads are being investigated as a means to transport and concentrate a target at a biosensor interface in a microfluidic format, in collaboration with scientists at the CDC. His research interests also include nanosensors, nanowire assembly by dielectrophoresis; impedance based sensors, miniature magnetic actuators; use of stereolithography for sensor packaging. He has published over sixty papers and edited fifteen books on microsensor systems.

Nicolas Javahiraly is an associate professor in physics at the University of Strasbourg, France. He did his PhD in Photonics at the same university on fiber optic sensors. After a post-doc at Harvard University on the interaction between ultra-short laser pulses and matter, he worked as a project manager and expert in the Sagem Defense group in Paris. He joined the University of Strasbourg in 2007 and is currently working on nano-optical sensors and plasmonics for various applications such as gas detection, pollutants detection and photoconversion systems for example.

Dr. Robert A. Fisher is President and Senior Laser Physicist with R A Fisher Associates. Dr. Fisher received his Ph.D., M.A., and B.S. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. Starting in 1971, he worked in the Laser Fusion Group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and he taught graduate courses in nonlinear optics and solid state physics at the University of California, Davis. Joining Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1974, he was affiliated with the laser fusion and laser isotope separation programs. He was a member of seven Red-Blue government panels, and he teaches numerous professional advancement courses. His expertise includes: nonlinear optics, laser technology, carbon dioxide lasers, molecular spectroscopy, x-ray lasers, optical phase conjugation, and modern optics. He has authored over 60 publications. He is the Editor of the book "Optical Phase Conjugation," and he chaired six SPIE Conferences on Nonlinear Optics. He was Associate Editor for the journal "Applied Optics," and and for the journal "Optics Letters." He served on the committees of four international Conferences. For the Journal of the Optical Society of America he was guest Editor of a special issue on Optical Phase Conjugation, and he was a member of the Special Advisory Committee to the Provost, University of New Mexico. He served for three years as a member of the Board of Directors of SPIE, and for three years as Topical Editor of Optics Letters. He serves the legal community as an Expert Witness. He served on the 2003, 2004 and 2005 Nonlinear Optics Subcommittee for the CLEO Conference, and presently serves as the Chairman of that Subcommittee. He served on the OSA's Excellence in engineering award Committee for 2002 and 2003, and as Chair of that Committee in 2004. He served 2002-2004 on SPIE's Scholarship Committee, and now serves on SPIE's Education Committee. Dr. Fisher is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, a Senior Member of the IEEE, and a fellow of SPIE. For those needing further information, his biography appears in Who's Who in America.

Peter J. Delfyett received the B.E.(E.E.) degree from The City College of New York in 1981, the M.S. degree in EE from The University of Rochester in 1983, the M. Phil and Ph.D. degrees from The Graduate School & University Center of the City University of New York in 1987 and 1988, respectively. His Ph.D. thesis was focused on developing a real time ultrafast spectroscopic probe to study molecular and phonon dynamics in condensed matter using optical phase conjugation techniques. After obtaining the Ph.D. degree, he joined Bell Communication Research as a Member of the Technical Staff, where he concentrated his efforts towards generating ultrafast high power optical pulses from semiconductor diode lasers, for applications in applied photonic networks. Some of his technical accomplishments were the development of the world’s fastest, most powerful modelocked semiconductor laser diode, the demonstration of an optically distributed clocking network for high speed digital switches and supercomputer applications, and the first observation of the optical nonlinearity induced by the cooling of highly excited electron-hole pairs in semiconductor optical amplifiers. While at Bellcore, Dr. Delfyett received numerous awards for his technical achievements in these areas, including the Bellcore Synergy Award and the Bellcore Award of Appreciation. Dr. Delfyett joined the faculty at the College of Optics & Photonics and the Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers (CREOL) at the University of Central Florida in 1993, and currently holds the positions of University of Central Florida Trustee Chair Professor of Optics, ECE & Physics. Dr. Delfyett served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics (2001-2006), and served on the Board of Directors of the Optical Society of America. He served as an Associate Editor of IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, was Executive Editor of IEEE LEOS Newsletter (1995-2000) and sits on the Presidential Science Advisory Council of the Orlando Science Center. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, Fellow of IEEE/LEOS, was a member of the Board of Governors of IEEE-LEOS (2000-2002), and is also a member of Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, and Sigma Xi, and SPIE. Dr. Delfyett has been awarded the 1992 YMCA New Jersey Black Achievement Award, the 1993 National Black Engineer of the Year Award – Most Promising Engineer, the University Distinguished Research Award ’99, and highlighted in Design News’ “Engineering Achievement Awards”. In addition, Dr. Delfyett has been awarded the National Science Foundation’s Presidential Faculty Fellow Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, which is awarded to the Nation’s top 20 young scientists. Dr. Delfyett has published over 500 articles in refereed journals and conference proceedings, has been awarded 30 United States Patents, and has been highlighted on ‘C-SPAN’, “mainstreekweek.com” and in “Career Encounters”, a PBS Special on technical careers in the optics and photonics field. Dr. Delfyett was awarded the 1999 University Distinguished Researcher of the Year Award, the 2000 Black Engineer of the Year Award – Outstanding Alumnus Achievement, and the 2000 Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award. He was awarded the University of Central Florida’s 2001 Pegasus Professor Award which is the highest honor awarded by the University. He is also a Founding Member in NSF’s Scientists and Engineers in the School Program, which is a program to teach 8th graders about the benefits of science, engineering and technology in society. In 2003, Dr. Delfyett received the Technology Innovation Award from the Orlando Economic Development Commission. He was selected as one of the “50 Most Important Blacks in Research Science in 2004” and as a “Science Trailblazer in 2005 and 2006” by Career Communications Group and Science Spectrum Magazine. Dr. Delfyett has also endeavored to transfer technology to the private sector, and helped to found “Raydiance, Inc.” which is a spin-off company developing high power, ultrafast laser systems, based on Dr. Delfyett’s research, for applications in medicine, defense, material processing, biotech and other key technological markets. Dr. Delfyett was also elected to serve 2 terms as President of the National Society of Black Physicists (2008-2012). Most recently, he was awarded the APS Edward Bouchet Award for his significant scientific contributions in the area of ultrafast optical device physics and semiconductor diode based ultrafast lasers, and for his exemplary and continuing efforts in the career development of underrepresented minorities in science and engineering. Awards & Honors International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) Fellow American Physical Society (APS) Fellow IEEE Photonics Society Fellow Optical Society of America (OSA) Fellow 2019 Excellence in Graduate Teaching College Award 2014 Florida Academy of Science’s 2014 Medalist 2013 National Academy of Inventors Fellow 2013 Letter of Appreciation – SPIE 2013 Faculty Excellence for Mentoring Doctoral Students 2013 College Research Incentive Award (RIA) 2012 Faculty Excellence in Mentoring Doctoral Students 2012 College Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award 2012 Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award 2011 Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award 2011 APS Edward Bouchet Award 2010 American Physical Society Edward Bouchet Award 2010 IEEE Photonic Society Graduate Student Fellowship 2010 SPIE Educational Scholarship in Optical Science and Engineering 2010 Incubic/Milton Chang Travel Award to attend CLEO 2006 Science Spectrum Trailblazer 2005 District Advocate for the American Physical Society 2005 Science Spectrum Outstanding Black Professional in Science 2003 Technology Innovation Award 2003 UCF Millionaire’s Club 2002 Pegasus Professor Award 2002 UCF Distinguished Research Professor Award 2002 UCF Millionaire’s Club 2001 UCF Nguzo Saba Award 2000 Research Incentive Award (RIA) Research Group Conducting research on ultrafast high power optical pulses from semiconductor diode lasers, for applications in applied photonic networks and laser induced materials modification

Honors & Awards: Fellow, American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering (AIMBE) Fellow, The International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) 2004: Graduate Student Council's Award for Outstanding Faculty Contribution to Graduate Studies, Tufts University 2001: Outstanding Faculty Award, Tufts University BIOGRAPHY Sergio Fantini received his doctoral degree in physics from the University of Florence, Italy, in 1992. His dissertation was based on a Raman scattering study of ceramic superconductors. From 1993 to 1999, Fantini held postdoctoral and faculty appointments at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in the Department of Physics. In 1999, he joined Tufts University as an assistant professor and has been one of the inaugural faculty members of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, which was created at Tufts in 2002.

Boris Gramatikov is an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University, Department of Ophthalmology. He obtained his Dipl.- Ing. degree in Biomedical Engineering in Germany, and his Ph.D. in Bulgaria. He has completed a number of postdoctoral studies in Germany, Italy and the United States. He joined the faculty of the Biomedical Engineering Department of Johns Hopkins in 1996, and has been working in the Laboratory of Ophthalmic Instrumentation Development at The Wilmer Eye Institute since 2000. His areas of expertise include electronics, optoelectronics, computers, computer modeling, signal/image processing, data analysis, instrumentation design, biophotonics, ophthalmic and biomedical optics, and polarization optics, all applied to the development of diagnostic methods and devices for ophthalmology and vision research. His team has developed a series of pediatric vision screeners. He has over 120 publications, 41 of which in high-impact peer- reviewed journals. He serves as a reviewer and editorial board member with a number of technical and medical journals. Boris is the Director for Continuing Education of the Baltimore Section of the IEEE.

Dr. Lingyan Shi’s pioneering work in developing and applying novel optical techniques has led to a number of significant breakthroughs in biophotonics with major implications for the fields of neuroscience and cancer research and is allowing us to visualize the mechanisms underlying everyday processes and disease. One of Dr. Shi’s most significant discoveries has been the development of a new experimental technique that combines heavy water labeling and a relatively new imaging method, stimulated Raman scattering microscopy, to probe the metabolic activities of living tissues at subcellular resolution in situ. This discovery facilitates the visualization of tumor boundaries, embryonic development, and even aging in biological tissue. Another significant scientific contribution is her discovery of the “Golden Optical Window” – a unique band of infrared wavelengths that can penetrate deeper into biological tissues than other wavelengths of light during imaging, thereby dramatically increasing the imaging depth possible in brain tissue by as much as 50%. In addition, Dr. Shi has developed an early-detection spectral technique that could provide doctors with a tool for the early-stage detection of Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Haishan Zeng is a distinguished scientist with the Integrative Oncology Department (Imaging Unit) of the BC Cancer Research Centre and a professor of Dermatology, Pathology, and Physics at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. For over 30 years, Dr. Zeng’s research has been focused on the optical properties of biological tissues, light-tissue interaction, and nanomaterials enhanced light-tissue interaction as well as their applications in medical diagnosis and therapy. His group has pioneered the multiphoton absorption based laser therapy and is at the leading position in endoscopy imaging and Raman spectroscopy for in vivo early cancer detection, and silver/gold nanoparticles based surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy analysis of body fluids for cancer screening. He has published over 170 refereed journal papers, 17 book chapters, and 1 book (“Diagnostic Endoscopy”, CRC Press Series in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering). Dr. Zeng serves as Editorial Board members for the Journal of Biomedical Optics and the recently launched Translational Biophotonics. He is an Executive Organizing Committee member of the annual SPIE International Symposium on Biomedical Optics. Dr. Zeng’s research has generated 28 granted patents related to optical diagnosis and therapy. Several medical devices derived from these patents including fluorescence endoscopy (ONCO-LIFE™) and rapid Raman spectroscopy (Vita Imaging Aura™) have passed regulatory approvals and are currently in clinical uses around the world. The Aura™ device using Raman spectroscopy for non-invasive skin cancer detection was awarded the Prism Award in the Life Sciences and Biophotonics category in 2013 by SPIE - the International Society for Optics and Photonics.

Andrei Afanasev currently leads the physics effort for the GWU energy initiative. He has made significant research contributions in the field of nuclear and particle physics probed with high-power electron accelerators and free-electron lasers. Presently Prof. Afanasev contributes to energy research in three areas: (a) High-power particle accelerators that may serve as drivers for accelerator-driven subcritical nuclear reactors (ADSR), as well as probes of new materials for energy applications; (b) Development of novel techniques in photovoltaics, including nanostructures, quantum dots, and surface acoustic waves; (c) New technologies for non-proliferation of nuclear materials. Prof. Afanasev is the Director of the Photoemission Research Laboratory where new solutions for particle accelerator sources and photovoltaics are being developed and tested.

Wolfgang Osten's research work is focused on new concepts for industrial inspection and metrology by combining modern principles of optical metrology, sensor technology and image processing. Special attention is directed to the development of resolution enhanced technologies for the investigation of micro and nano structures. Ongoing activities are directed to the profound investigation of the institute’s strategic research topics such as multi-scale sensor fusion, computational microscopy, resolution enhancement, model-based reconstruction of measurement data, asphere and freeform metrology, optical systems design, hybrid optics, digital holography, and inverse scattering.

Dr. Zhongping Chen is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the OCT Laboratory at the University of California, Irvine. He is a Co-founder and Chairman of OCT Medical Imaging Inc. Dr. Chen received his B.S. degree in Applied Physics from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1982, his M. S. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1987, and his Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics from Cornell University in 1993. Dr. Chen and his research group have pioneered the development of Doppler optical coherence tomography, which simultaneously provides high resolution 3-D images of tissue structure and vascular flow dynamics. These functional extensions of OCT offer contrast enhancements and provide mapping of many clinically important parameters. In addition, his group has developed a number of endoscopic and intravascular rotational and linear miniature probes for OCT and MPM imaging and translated this technology to clinical applications. He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers and review articles and holds a number of patents in the fields of biomaterials, biosensors, and biomedical imaging. Dr. Chen is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), a Fellow of SPIE, and a Fellow of the Optical Society of America.

Gudrun Kalmbach is a Mathematics Professor, inventor of the educational program MINT (Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaften, Technik), organized for MINT 1985-2002 the Tag der Mathematik Baden-Wuerttemberg and university courses for highschool students (with 11000 highschool sudents participating), and publishes articles and scientific books in mathematics, MINT and quantum structures. She publishes the book series MINT (Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaftler, Technik) and acts as chief editor. She has three more lifetime works: setting up the theory of orthomodular lattices in her 1983 book, organizing for European Women in Mathematics from 1982 to today programs, founded for this the International Emmy Noether Association. Her activities are presented in an Emmy Noether Memorial Room, and a research project with a Tool bag existing in this MINT-Wigris E-Tools museum. She is honored with a public plaque, Engelgasse 4, Ulm, Germany, title H.E., World Laureate of Germany 2000, four medals, Albert Schweizer Medal and two books dedicated to her 60th birthday.

Oomman K. Varghese received Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD), India. He conducted postdoctoral research in the University of Kentucky and the Pennsylvania State University and then worked as a Process Development Engineer in First Solar, USA. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics, University of Houston (UH), Texas. His group’s research is primarily aimed at developing nanoscale materials and heterostructures and investigating their unique properties for solar energy conversion and medical applications. He has contributed to over 100 peer reviewed articles, one book, two book chapters and three patents. His publications have received over 36,000 citations (Google Scholar h-index - 74). In 2011, Thomson Reuters ranked him 9th among ‘World's Top 100 Materials Scientists’ in the past decade. In 2014, 2015 and 2016 he received the title ‘Highly Cited Researcher’ and had his name listed in Thomson Reuters’ World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds. He is a recipient of the UH College of Natural Science and Mathematics John C. Butler Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is among the top 2% of the scientists in the world per the Stanford University Report, 2020.”

Christian Huck obtained his doctorate in chemistry in 1998 from the University in Innsbruck, Austria, where he continued to work as an assistant professor until the habilitation in 2006. In 2013 he received a call as a full professor to the University of Stuttgart, Germany, in 2015 a call for a full professor to the University of Innsbruck, where he is currently vice-head of the Institute of Analytical Chemistry and Radiochemistry and head of the spectroscopy unit. From 2014 until 2017 Christian Huck worked as a visiting scientist with Professor Yukihiro Ozaki at Kwansei-Gakuin University (Sanda, Hyogo, Japan). Christian currently is editor-in-chief for Spectrochimica Acta A (Elsevier) and NIR news (Sage), associate editor for Journal of Near Infrared Spectroscopy (JNIRS, Sage) and several others known journals in the broader field of analytical chemistry. In 2023 he will be chair to host ICNIRS 2023 international conference and is the current vice-president of the Austrian Chemical Society. During the last 15 years Christian received about 15 international awards including Tomas Hirschfeld. Christian has published more than 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts resulting in an h-index of 57 based on more than 12900 citations.

Dr Bruno Wacogne is a CNRS Research Director at the FEMTO-ST Institute (one of the biggest Science and Technologies laboratory in France) where he was the head of the "Photonics for medical instrumentation" team before to join the BioMicroDevices group. He created and is now leading the Biom'@x transversal axis "Science et technology for personalized medicine" within this Institute. In 2010, at the request of Besançon University Hospital, he applied and has been awarded a Translational Research Fellow position from the National AVIESAN Alliance. This is a supplementary position that allows him to be at the interface between the health activities at the FEMTO-ST Institute and the Clinical Investigation Center in Technological Innovation at Besançon University Hospital. At the hospital, he is now the technological supervisor of the institution and the head of "Microsystems and biological qualification" unit. His research interests concern translational research, science and technology for health and more precisely immuno-combined medical devices, biological qualification devices and biomedical optics. He author or co-author of over 230 communications among which about 30 invited conferences and keynote lectures. He is regularly chairman in international conferences. He has been awarded several times: Gold Micron at the International MICRONORA Workshop in 2006, Best Poster Award at the 2nd International Conference on Bio-sensing Technology in 2011, and Best Paper Award at the 13th International Conference on Biomedical Electronics and Devices in 2020.

Niloy Dutta is a professor of physics at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT. He was Director of Optoelectronic Device Research at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ. He is a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical Engineers (IEEE), a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, a Fellow of the International Society of Optical Engineers (SPIE), and, a Member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering. He received the Photonics Society Distinguished Lecturer Award in 1995 and Bell Laboratories President’s Award in 1997

Dr. Binlin Wu is currently an Assistant Professor in the Physics Department at Southern Connecticut State University. Dr. Wu earned his PhD degree from City College of New York. After that, he did two-year postdoc at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Wu’s research is focused on biomedical optical imaging and spectroscopy mainly for cancer imaging and diagnosis. Dr. Wu has expertise in diffuse optical imaging, fluorescence spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, multiphoton imaging, and machine learning.

The author is 71 years old; he is happily married (but also happily separated) with four sons and ten grandchildren. The author discovered the key solution that led to what he only now calls The Gauss-Newton Quantum-Relativity at nine years of age. It was too great a burden for a nine-year-old to deal with and the author decided to leave the issue until later in his life. The author became an electrical engineer with his own company designing and manufacturing highly specialised electronic instruments for the energy industry. In 2007, the author sold his company and at the age of 57, he took up the full-time theoretical work that led, as a mere byproduct of that overall work, to the development of what he now names as The Gauss-Newton Quantum-Relativity.

Prof Dr Vladimir Valentinovich Egorov has his expertise in theoretical molecular and chemical physics. Education: National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, Faculty of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (1966 – 1972), Moscow, USSR. He has completed his PhD from Theoretical Department of Institute of Chemical Physics, USSR Academy of Sciences (1981), and he has completed his Dr Phys&Math Sci degree from Institute of Physical Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences (2004). He is leading researcher at FSRC “Crystallography and Photonics”, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. Prof Egorov is working on the development of a fundamentally new physical theory ‒ quantum-classical mechanics and its applications in physics, chemistry, biology and biomedicin

Nove de Julho University, Brazil

Dr. Viacheslav Artyushenko was born on 02.01.1954 in Stalingrad, Russia, and got his PhD in physics in 1981 at General Physics Institute in Moscow – focused on his pioneering development of polycrystalline fibres for Mid IR-range (3-18µm). He has published multiple papers & patents on fibre technologies & applications in laser medicine, spectroscopy, optical sensing & diagnostics. Since 1987 he joined & organized many SPIE conferences on Infrared Fiber Optics and Laser Medicine. In 1998 he has founded art photonics GmbH in Berlin (www.artphotonics.com) – to develop and produce specialty fiber products for various applications. Now art photonics is one of worldwide leaders in unique fiber optic solutions for a broad spectral range: 0.3-16µm (especially, for Mid IR) and participant of many EU & German projects successfully realized with R&D & industrial partners. V.Artyushenko is a member of SPIE, OSA, SAS, EPIC, Optec-BB, CPACT, Spectaris, CLIRSPEC, etc.

Anthony (Tony) Peters is the CEO and Founder of Iron Strike Engineering, LLC, and has extensive experience in energy and aerospace engineering research. He is an internationally published energy researcher, a Navy Pilot, and Aerospace Engineering Duty Officer. He most recently served as Assistant Professor of Physics at Jacksonville University and is currently conducting research in Gallium Nitride semiconductors and photovoltaics integration and testing at Columbia University.

Rémi Léandre is directeur de recherches in C.N.R.S.at the University of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (Besançon). He has written about 170 papers in various journals and various proceedings about the applications of the Malliavin Calculus, White Noise Analysis and stochastic differential geometry to analysis, geometry and mathematical physics. He received Bronze Medal of C.N.R.S. in 1988 and Rollo Davidson Prize in 1989 for various works on hypoelliptic diffusions. He has organized several conferences in France and published with X. Dai, X. Ma ans W. Zhang two books in honour of Jean-Michel Bismut in Astérisque (French Mathematical Society)

Shanti Bhattacharya obtained her Ph.D. in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 1997. She was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt award in 1998 and worked at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany for several years. She subsequently joined Analog Devices, Cambridge, USA, where she worked as a design engineer. She is currently a Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras. She has served on the board of OSA and is currently an Associate Editor of Optical Engineering. Her current research interests are meta and diffractive optics, optical MEMS, and studies relating to imaging techniques. While she loves her work with light, she also loves her breaks, which more often than not involve escaping to the Himalayas for a while

Prof. Dr Tribelsky received his MS from Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1973, his PhD from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1976, and Dr. of Sci. (habilitation) from Landau Institute in 1985. He received numerous national and international awards: Leninsky Komsomol Prize (1979); COE Professorship, the University of Tokyo, (2006, 2008) and Kyushu University (2007), Japan; Honorary PhD, Yamaguchi University, Japan (2016), etc. Now he heads a laboratory at Lomonosov Moscow State University. His field is theoretical and mathematical physics. Presently, his interest lies in subwavelength optics. He is the author of several books, book chapters, review articles, and more than 100 research papers. • Mobile Number: +7 (915) 197 42 86

Dr Peter Horak is Associate Professor at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton, UK, where he leads the Computational Nonlinear Optics group. He received his PhD degree in Theoretical Quantum Optics from the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and held positions at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, France, and at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK, before joining the ORC in 2001. His research focuses on theory and numerical simulation of nonlinear optics, optical fibers, integrated photonics, and quantum technology.

Ram Mohan Vasu has made significant contributions towards i) the mathematical, ii) computational and iii) experimental aspects of inverse problems of interest in medical imaging, parameter estimation in engineering structures and quantitative flow visualization. He has developed new strategies for solving diffuse optical and photo-acoustic tomography problems (DOT and PAT respectively). For example, he has introduced the ‘frozen Newton scheme’ for DOT reconstruction, which avoids re-estimation of sensitivity matrices leading to recovery of better contrast images. In PAT, a novel handshake strategy has been introduced (between the acoustic wave and the photon propagation models) leading to a non-iterative recovery of the useful imaging parameter, the optical absorption coefficient. He has introduced in tomographic imaging the concept of solution evolving over time (either real or pseudo) which can be asymptotically approached through stochastic filtering strategy. For nonlinear problems, this requires local linearization, which is also achieved bypassing expensive derivative calculation through new methods such as transversal and phase space linearizations. In the dual-modal ultrasound-assisted optical tomography (UAOT), the supplicant has shown, for the first time, local quantitative recovery of both mechanical and optical properties. On the experimental side, imaging setup for DOT, PAT and UAOT are developed and tested on tissue-mimicking phantoms. Ram Mohan has been responsible for the acquisition of the following projects: • Application of non-invasive, NIR and fiber optic techniques for bacteria detection and identification in biofluids and animal products • Measurements of displacements of the order of nanometers with the help of a coherent optical probe • Development of elastographic imaging system for early detection of cancers in the human breast • Non-invasive Imaging of Visco-elastic Inhomogeneities in Breast-tissue Mimicking Phantoms Based on Cosserat Theories and Experimental Verifications • Instrumentation and design of a frequency domain diffuse optical tomography imager for non-invasive, in vivo detection of breast cancer • Development of Multiple optical projection system for checking optical quality of Hawk windscreen transparency. He had guided 16 candidates successfully for Ph D degree and 10 for MS. Three of his past students are teaching in old-time IITs, 2 in new IITs and 2 in IISER. One was till recently the Director of a DRDO lab. Ram Mohan is also involved in teaching courses of Digital Signal Processing and Fundamental of Tomographic Imaging at the Masters level. Membership of Professional Bodies: 1. Life member, Instrument Society of India 2. Life member, Optical Society of India 3. Member, Optical Society of America 4. Member, Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)

Dr. Nitu Borgohain currently working as Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, University of Science & Technology Meghalaya (USTM), India. He received Ph.D. from Department of Physics, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, India (in 2019). He published 11 research papers in peer reviewed international journals, published 18 research articles in conference proceedings, Google Scholar Citations: 122 Google Scholar h-index: 6, Supervised 10 post graduate student projects, Established an Astronomical Observatory in USTM Google Scholar Link: https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=kNhBTmsAAAAJ&hl=en

Dr. A.R. Ganesan obtained his Ph.D. degree from the IIT, Madras in 1989. His areas of research and specialization are Holography, Laser Speckle Metrology, Optical metrology, Adaptive Optics, Fiber Optics & Laser Instrumentation and related fields. He has been the principal investigator for a number of projects sponsored by various organizations in Indian and abroad. Dr. Ganesan has published more than 110 research papers in reputed international journals and Conferences. He has co-authored a book on “OPTICS” with Eugene Hecht. He is a member of many professional societies and a Fellow of the Optical Society of India. He is a reviewer for several international journals.

Dr. D. S. Mehta is currently a Professor at the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Previously, he worked as Associate Professor and Assistant Professor (June 2002 - Dec. 2012) at the Instrument Design Development Centre, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Before Joining the Institute he was JSPS Post Doctoral Fellow (July 2000 - June 2002) at the University of Electro-communications, Tokyo, Japan, Post Doctoral Fellow National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan (Nov. 1999 -– May 2000) Research Associate, NPL, New Delhi, STA Post Doctoral Fellow (June 1997 – May 1998), NIRE, Tsukuba, Japan and UNESCO Research Fellow (Jan. 1996 – Sept.1996), Tokyo Institute of Technology Tokyo, Japan. He has been actively working in the areas of Bio-photonics (Optical Coherence Tomography and Optical Tweezers), Green Photonics (LEDs and OLEDs) and Optical Metrology. He has contributed more than 140 research papers in International Refereed Journals, and more than 160 in International and National Conferences. He has delivered more than 50 Invited Talks/Lectures in various International and National Conferences and Universities. He has supervised 15 Ph. D. students and currently supervising 10 Ph. D. students. He has also supervised more than 50 M. Tech./B. Tech. students major projects. He received Teaching Excellence Awards in 2017 and in 2013 from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. Many of his Ph. D. students and master students has received Best Paper Awards, Best Poster Presentation Awards, and Alumni Association Award in International and National conferences. He has filed 9 patents and one technology transferred to Industry.

Dr. Naveen Nishchal is an associate professor in the department of physics at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Patna. Dr. Nishchal received his Ph.D. degree in physics from IIT Delhi in 2005. He has served Instruments Research and Development Establishment (DRDO), Dehradun as a Scientist ‘C’ during 2004-2007. He also served IIT Guwahati as an assistant professor in the physics department during 2007-2008. He has been a Researcher to the Oulu Southern Institute, University of Oulu, Finland. His research interests include optical information processing and security, digital holography, correlation-based optical pattern recognition, fractional Fourier transform-based signal processing, interferometry, and orbital angular momentum of light. He is a senior member of OSA and SPIE since 2015. He is a life member of Optical Society of India, Indian Science Congress Association, and Lasers and Spectroscopy Society of India. He has authored a monograph Optical Cryptosystems published from IOP Publs., Bristol, UK in 2019. He has authored/co-authored 72 peer-reviewed international journal papers, three book chapters, and 170 papers in various conferences/seminars/symposia. He has supervised six PhD theses and currently two research scholars are pursuing their PhD program under his guidance. Currently, he is an Associate Editor of Optical Engineering (SPIE, USA) and Asian Journal of Physics (India) and Review Editor to the Editorial Board of Optical Information Processing and Holography, Specialty section of Frontiers in Photonics. He served as an Academic Editor to the scientific world journal: signal processing during 2013-2016. He is an active reviewer to the journals published from OSA, SPIE, Elsevier, Springer, IEEE, IEE, IOP, CSIR, Hindawi Publs, and MDPI-online. Dr. Nishchal was selected as outstanding reviewer for the year 2016 for the journal of optics from IOP, UK. Dr. Nishchal received the India Top Cited Author Award-2019 as an author of one of the top 1% most-cited papers in physics published over the period of 2016-2018 by IOP Publs., UK. Recently, his name appeared in world’s top 2% scientists list in optics published by Stanford University, USA (PLOS Biology, Oct. 2020). As per Google Scholar, Dr. Nishchal has more than 2665 citations to his credit. His h-index is 30 and i-10 index is 52.

Elisabetta Primiceri (1982) received her master degree (magna cum laude) in Industruial and Molecular Biotechnology in 2006 at University of Bologna and in 2011 she finished her PhD in “Interdisciplinary Science and Technology” at University of Salento, Lecce – Italy, with thesis entitle “Cell-Chip: new tools for cell biology”. Since 2011 she worked as a post-doc researcher at Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) in Lecce and from January 2019 she is permanent researcher at CNR Institute of Nanotechnology (CNR-Nanotec). Her activities are focused on the development of biosensors (expecially electrochemical and plasmonic detection) and new materials for sensing applications. She is also focused on the development of sensing platforms for cell biology. Her skills include microfabrication techniques (photolithography and soft lithography), electrochemical measurements, electrosinthesys of polymers. She gained also experience in cell culture and cell biology. EP is co-author of many scientific publications including a book chapter and 2 patents with H-index of 17.

Professor Salman Noach received his PHD in physics at 2003 from the Hebrew University Jerusalem ISRAEL. Since, he work at some startups companies and at 2007 he returned back to academy as a faculty member at the physics department at "Jerusalem College of Technology" there he founded the Solid State Lasers Laboratory. The lab is mainly engaged in applied research and development of CW and pulsed solid-state lasers, Nonlinear optics, Raman wavelength shifting and Optical amplifiers in the SWIR and mid IR range. The results of the lab research were the object of many publications in high-ranked journals in the optics and laser community and two patents. He is a senior member at OPTICA and member at SPIE.

Bosanta Ranjan Boruah obtained his PhD from the Photonics group of Imperial College London in the year 2007. Presently he is serving as a professor in the department of Physics of IIT Guwahati, Assam, India. His current research interests are confocal and super-resolution microscopy, wavefront sensing, optical trapping and free space optical communications. His research group in collaboration with Imperial College London recently built a super-resolving fluorescence microscope at IIT Guwahati. Dr. Boruah has been recognized as the senior member of OSA and SPIE in the year 2018. He also served as the managing guest editor of Dynamic Light shaping special issue of Optics Communications and the reviewer of several reputed journals of OSA, AIP and IOP. So far seven students have completed their PhD work under the supervision of Dr Boruah.

Prem Bisht is a professor (HAG) in the Physics department of Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) at Chennai. He is heading a centre of excellence in Biosensing at IITM. He has been associated with IIT Madras since 1997 after completing a JSPS fellowship program at Kyoto. Prof. Bisht has taught several courses in photonics as well as undergraduate level courses in physics at IIT Madras during last 24 years. Prem has been a visiting scientist at Herriot-Watt University under Erasmus Mundus visiting fellowship, LMU Munich under Indo-German joint project, ORC Southampton and DCU Dublin under FP7, and has held a visiting professorship at TUT Toyohashi. Prem is a member of Indian Laser and Physics Teachers Associations, Indian Science Congress, SPIE and OPTICA. In 2014, he was awarded the “Platinum Jubilee Lecture award for Physical Sciences at 101st Indian Science Congress. In 2021, Prem Bisht became senior member of OPTICA. He has over 90 peer- reviewed Journal publications, and over 150 conference publications with over 1432 citations (H-index 20). He has delivered over 90 talks at national and international universities. Prem has trained 15 Ph.D. students, several post-doctoral fellows and over 35 undergraduate students. Currently, 5 students are working under his guidance. Areas of Expertise/Research His research interests are mainly in ultrafast laser fluorescence spectroscopy of low dimensional materials with a particular interest in working with non-collinear optical parametric amplifiers and, whispering gallery modes (WGMs) of nano-micro-cavities as well as photonic nano jet. Find more information at https://physics.iitm.ac.in/~prem/

Utpal Roy did his Ph.D from Physical Research Laboratory, India. After few years of his post doctoral experience in Italy & Durban, SA, he has joined as a faculty in the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Patna, India since 2010. Currently, he is Associate Professor in Physics since 2015 and heading the 'quantum dynamics' theoretical research group at IIT Patna, which is involved towards emerging research areas in Bose-Einstein condensate & nonlinear excitations, quantum simulation, quantum optics, quantum information, quantum sensing and quantum machine learning. Recently, he was awarded with the Outstanding Teacher Award in Physics, “Science and Technology Academic, Innovations and Research Awards 2021” and Bharat Vikas Award, Physics, ISR-India, 2018. His group has made significant breakthrough by providing the first exact model for quantum simulator of bichromatic optical lattice, first exact model for negative absolute temperature, inventing the phenomena of fractional revivals for ultracold atoms, quantum simulators for a four-color optical lattice and a coupled optical lattice. Models for quantum sensors, quantum logic gates of matter waves and quantum machine learning algorithm are under exploration.

Pranabendu Gangopadhyay (Ganguly) was born in Kolkata, India, in 25th October, 1968. He graduated from Scottish Church College, Calcutta University with Physics (Honors) in 1990 and received M.Sc. (Technology) in Optics and Optoelectronics from Dept. of Applied Physics, Calcutta University in 1993. After that he worked on Fourier Optics in same Department as a research fellow for couple of months and in June 1994, he joined the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, as a mission engineer and initiated research on Integrated Optics. He got his Ph.D. in 2000 from Department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, IIT Kharagpur. Currently he is working as Senior Scientific Officer in Advanced Technology Development Centre of the institute where he is leading the Microphotonics research group. Apart from integrated optics his current research interest includes fiber optics, optical metrology, MEMS / MOEMS, and micro/nano-photonics. Dr. Ganguly has published 98 research papers in journals and conferences, has two copyrighted software in the field of Guided Wave Optics, and coauthored one book on “Photonic waveguide components on silicon substrate: modeling and experiments”. He is a life-fellow of the Optical Society of India and was a Royal Society Visiting Scientist in Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton, UK, in 2008-09.

Bishnu P Pal is senior faculty and Professor, Department of Physics at Mahindra University’s École Centrale School of Engineering. Before joining MU in July 2018 as Professor of Physics in School of Natural Sciences, he was a Consulting Professor for 1 year during 2017-18 at Bennett University in Greater Noida. He is also currently the Dean Academics at MU. Prior to these he had done a brief stint at Mahindra École Centrale (2014) and was a Professor of Physics for over 24 years since 1990 at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, during which he served as the Chairperson of the Physics Department (September 2008-December 2011) and Head of the Computer Services Centre (September 2003-August 2006). Bishnu Pal has been deeply involved in Guided Wave Optics and Photonics education since its nascent days in early 1980s. He played a key role in establishing the highly successful interdisciplinary MTech and research program on optoelectronics and a FO Laboratory @ IIT Delhi. A spin-off from this has resulted in commercialization of a FO Educational kit. Its alumni hold leadership positions in academia and industries like Facebook, Cisco, IBM, JDSU, OFS, NASA, Tejas Networks, Infinera, Cienna, Delhi Metrorail, fiber manufacturer Sterlite Tech, AlcaLuc-Nokia. OSA The Optical Society (USA), and IEEE Photonics Society (USA), respectively honoured him with the global awards namely, Esther Hoffman Beller medal during the centennial year of OSA in 2016 and Distinguished Lectureship (DL) for 2005-07. EHB medal citation reads ‘You are being recognized for over thirty-five years of guided wave photonics education, including the development of graduate students and continuing education teaching programs and laboratories in optoelectronics and optical communications at IIT-Delhi, inspiring a generation of academic and industrial scientists’. IEEE DL award is given for ‘delivering lectures at various IEEE Photonics Society (IPS) chapters around the world and is designed to honour excellent speakers who have made technical contributions of high quality and to enhance the technical programs of the IPS chapters’. Grand old Royal Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Arts (DKNVS, Norway founded in 1760) recognised Professor Pal with Honorary Distinguished Foreign membership under its Technology Division within the class of Natural Sciences for significant contributions to optical fiber communications. At the invitation of International Commission of Optics (ICO) he delivered a course of lectures on silicon photonics at the Winter College on Optics in 1998 at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste (Italy).

Amur Margaryan has completed his PhD at the age of 33 years from Yerevan Physics Institute and continued studies in the field of experimental nuclear physics at Yerevan Physics Institute; Serpukhov proton accelerator, Serpukhov, Moscow region; JLab, Newport News, VA, USA; MAX-lab, Lund, Sweden; GRAAL experiment at European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France. He is the Leading Scientific Researcher at A.I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute). He has published more than 150 papers in reputed journals. He holds one Soviet Union and one US patents. His current research interest is in ultrafast photon detectors and optoelectronic devices.

My primary area of interest is in physics principles with basic and translational research. Specifically, I am interested in applying my area of expertise in optical biopsy (OB) of cancer and tumor therapy to better characterize and understand physiological and pathological processes toward the development of diagnostic and therapeutic solutions. To realize these efforts it is my aim to lead and participate in multidisciplinary areas such as Biomedical imaging & diagnostics, Ultrafast Laser Physics, Raman & Fluorescence spectroscopy, and Nano and biomaterials. The primary focus of my research emphasizes the design, prototyping, and clinical testing of optical biopsy system to detect, diagnose, treat and monitor the molecular signatures of cancers of oral, breast, cervix and skin cancers. This includes: new OB and imaging instrumentation and molecularspecific optical contrast agents; experimental studies into the biophysical origins of measured optical signals; The fundamental basis of our work lies in the fact that optical signals arising from tissue are altered during disease progression, as the source of these signals originates in tissue microstructure and biochemical makeup. Currently, I am working on developing biocompatible nano-particles for combined diagnosis and therapy of cancers or other diseases.