El-Beltagy served as Egypt’s Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation. He is currently Chair, International Drylands Development Commission (IDDC); Professor, Arid Land Agricultural graduate studies & Research Institute (ALARI), Ain Shams University; Chair, Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt, Board Member of the Egyptian Academy for the Scientific Research & Technology; Chair, Food and Agriculture Research Council, Egyptian Academy of Science; Former President, governing board, CIHEAM; Chair, Global Forum for Agric. Research (GFAR); DG, ICARDA; The Golden Medal of CIHEAM & France Commander of the Order of Agric. in recognition of enhancing the Ag development in the Mediterranian ; Member of: Russian Acad. of Agric. Sciences, Moscow; Tajik Acad. of Agric. Sciences; Kyrgyz Agrarian Acad.; and Scientific Council, Azerbaijan Agric Acad. Awards include: Fellow of Univ. of Wales, UK; Al-Istiklal Medal, HM King Abdullah II bin Hussein of Jordan; Golden Medal Award, Armenia; hon. DSc, Univ. of Khartoum, Sudan; and member, Sultan Qaboos ‘first class’ order for Culture, sciences&Arts for enhancing Develop.of Ag in the Dry Areas.

Egamberdieva is the Head of the research group at the Faculty of Biology, National University of Uzbekistan. She received her PhD in agricultural sciences from the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. On the national level she has played a leading role in the implementation and evaluation of the national programmes and projects in agricultural research for sustainable development, and acts as a Chair of the Executive Committee of the OWSD Central Asia National Chapter, and Vice-Chair and National Focal Point Representative to the UNESCO-STEPAN (Science and Technology Policy Asian Network). Egamberdieva is also involved in science policy, and served on the advisory committee of the German Council of Science and Humanities (WR). She currently serves on the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE), the science-policy interface of the UN Committee on World Food Security, and also acts as the Country Ambassador for the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). She is a member of the Global Young Academy (GYA). In 2023 she has been awarded with UNESCO Carlos Finley Prize for Microbiology.

Dube is Emeritus Scientist of Indian National Science Academy and Csir JC Bose National Fellow, Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, India. Her research focus is on the endemic organism Leishmania sp., a protozoan parasite causing Kala-azar, a neglected tropical disease and a major health problem in pockets in the Indian sub-continent. She identified novel vaccine and drug targets using functional genomics and proteomics, leading to the development of indigenous protein vaccines. This also led to the detection of new biomarkers for drug resistance in Leishmania. She developed and established the first non-human primate model for preclinical evaluation of a potential antileishmanial drug/vaccine, and generated fluorescent Leishmania organism for rapid drug screening which were recognized nationally and internationally. Member of the three Indian science academies, she has received awards such as Sir J.C. Bose National Fellowship, Indian Council of Medical Research Kshanika Oration, and Dr. B.N. Singh Memorial Oration among others.

Djimde received a pharmacy doctoral degree from the Ecole Nationale de Médecine et de Pharmacie of Bamako, Mali in 1988. He conducted post-doctoral research at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) under the supervision of Thomas E. Wellems in the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases. While at the NIH, he started new training under the supervision of Christopher V. Plowe for a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, USA, which he obtained in 2001. During his PhD project he conducted seminal studies describing the first reliable molecular marker for chloroquine resistance and proposing a model for field monitoring of drug resistance using molecular markers, resulting in first-author publications on the New England Journal of Medicine and on The Lancet. He returned to Mali to start his own laboratory at the Malaria Research and Training Center (MRTC-Parasito), at the University of Science, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako, Mali. The primary goal of his research is antimalarial drug resistance, genetics, antimicrobial resistance and clinical drug development. With his team and collaborators he conducts field and laboratory based studies.

Djeffal is professor, University of Batna-2, Batna, Algeria. His contributions to materials science, solid-state devices and artificial intelligence (AI) have gained substantial research acclaim in the field of electronic device modeling and fabrication, specifically in the area of development of new high-performance and low cost microelectronic devices for renewable energy and environmental sensing applications, as evidenced by the number of citations for his published papers in a short span of time. In the context of microelectronic devices for renewable energy and environmental sensing applications, Djeffal has successfully developed new approaches and design techniques of microelectronic devices using soft-computing and AI-based methods. These approaches are now widely used by several scientific centers. He has published more than 280 journal articles and conference papers and is the author of some books and book-chapters in the field of photovoltaic devices/environmental sensors and soft-computing. Member of the African Academy of Sciences, he has received the Abdul Hameed Shoman Award for Arab Researchers and Microsoft-TWAS-AAS Award, among others.

Prof. Jian Ding is a renowned Chinese cancer pharmacologist and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and he’s made extraordinary contributions to research and development of new drugs. He is currently a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, and was Director of SIMM(2004-2013). Prof. Ding serves as the editor-in-chief of Acta Pharmacologica Sinica and editorial board member of several international academic journals such as Eur J Pharmacol and Mol Pharmacol. Focusing on biomarkers and drug resistance mechanisms of anti-tumor drugs, Prof. Ding is the co-inventor of more than ten innovative drug candidates, and all of which are currently at clinical trials with one of them has been conditionally approved in China and Japan and 4 of them running additional clinical tests in U.S, Japan & Australia. More than 340 papers have been published in journals including Cell、Cancer Cell etc. Over 150 patents have been authorized. Multiple awards have been bestowed to Prof. Ding to acknowledge his tremendous contribution to the area of cancer treatment, including but not limited to, 2 Second degree of National Natural Science Award.

Dikshit has made significant contributions to molecular pharmacology with special emphasis on redox/NO biology and metabolism. In the area of neutrophil biology she enhanced our understanding of how nitric oxide modulates neutrophil differentiation, survival, free radical generation, NETosis, chemotaxis, and microbicidal activity. She has investigated the role of iNOS in metabolic regulations and insulin sensitivity. She led the anti-thrombotic drug discovery team at Central Drug Research Institute, and one of their new chemical entities has received permission for phase I clinical trial in India. She initiated a programme on drug and biomarker discovery in the area of fatty liver disease at the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, with significant contributions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, under a Department of Biotechnology - Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) project, she undertook preclinical and pharmacokinetic evaluations of AYUSH herbal formulations for mitigating SARS- CoV2 and associated pathologies. Dikshit has published 200+ papers, 23 reviews, and 8 patents, edited 3 books, and has supervised 37 PhD and 10 MD theses.

Sandra Díaz is Professor of Ecology at Córdoba National University, senior member of the Argentine National Research Council and Visiting Professor at the School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University. She is interested in plant functional traits and syndromes, their effects on ecosystem properties and their interactions with global change drivers. She has advanced theory and practical implementation of the concept of functional diversity and its effects on ecosystem properties and benefits. She combines her ecology studies with interdisciplinary work on how different societies value and reconfigure nature. She founded Núcleo DiverSus on Diversity and Sustainability, and co-founded the Global Communal Plant Trait Initiative TRY. She co-chaired the Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. She is a member of the Academies of Sciences of Argentina, USA, France, Norway, Latin America and the Developing World, and Foreign Fellow of the British Royal Society. Her awards include; Margalef Prize in Ecology, Gunnerus Award in Sustainability Science, Kew International Medal and BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge.

Diab is Emeritus Professor of Environmental Sciences at the Univ. of KwaZulu-Natal, the former Executive Officer of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) and currently serves as Special Advisor to GenderInSITE. She obtained her PhD from the University of Virginia, USA, in 1983. She is a fellow of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the South African Geographical Society, the African Academy of Sciences and TWAS, and a member of ASSAf. She was a Fulbright Senior Scholar and has served on numerous international committees such as the International Ozone Commission. She currently chairs the Gender Advisory Committee of TWAS. She serves on the African Union High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies and was recently Co-Chair of an OECD Expert Group on Reducing the Precarity of Young Researchers’ Careers.

Dhar obtained his MSc in physics from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur and PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology. He has been at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai since 1978. He has worked on the problems in disordered systems, in particular relaxation in disordered magnets. His most influential work has been in the area of self-organized criticality, finding models which can be solved exactly. He is a fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, and of the National Academy of Sciences. He is recipient of the Young Scientist Award, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Physics, the JR Schrieffer Prize of the ICTP, TWAS prize in Physics, and the SN Bose medal of the Indian National Science Academy.

Desiraju obtained his BSc (1972) from the U. of Bombay and PhD (1976) from the U. of Illinois, Urbana. He was in the U.of Hyderabad between 1979 and 2009. In 2009, he joined the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. He is a very well known structural chemist. His books on crystal engineering (Elsevier, 1989) and the weak hydrogen bond (OUP, 1999) are now standard works with 4000 and 6000 citations respectively. He co-authored a textbook in crystal engineering in 2011. He is on the past or present editorial advisory board of Angewandte Chemie, Chem. Communications and the J. of the American Chem. Soc.. He is a Past President of the International Union of Crystallography. He received the Humboldt Forschungspreis in 2000 and an Honorary Doctorate from the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba in Argentina in 2013. He received the ISA Medal for science of the University of Bologna in 2018. He is one of the most highly cited Indian scientists with an H-index of 101.

del Pino is emeritus professor of biological sciences at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE). After obtaining her PhD at Emory University, del Pino returned to Ecuador in 1972 and has since worked at PUCE. Her honours include: an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (1984-85), a diploma from the World Wildlife Fund for the Education for Conservation in the Galapagos Islands (1986); the L'Oreal/UNESCO Award For Women in Science (2000); the Sheth Distinguished International Emory Alumni Award (2003); the TWAS Medal (2005); the Eugenio Espejo Prize in the Sciences, Govt. of Ecuador (2012), and the 2019 Prize of The Latin American Society for Developmental Biology (LASDB). She is hon. foreign member of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, member of the Latin American Academy of Sciences, hon. foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences and founding member of the Ecuador Academy of Sciences.

Deen is a Distinguished University Professor, Senior Canada Research Chair in Information Technology and Director of the Micro- and Nano-Systems Laboratory at McMaster University, Canada. His current research interests include nano-/opto-electronics, nanotechnology and data analytics and their emerging applications in health and environment. His research records include more than 600 peer-reviewed articles and two textbooks “Silicon Photonics-Fundamentals and Devices” and “Fiber Optic Communications-Fundamentals and Applications”. He was awarded four honorary doctorate degrees in recognition of his exceptional research and scholarly accomplishments, exemplary professionalism and valued service, especially to the developing world. He is elected to Fellow status in twelve national academies and professional societies including the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences – India, IEEE, ECS and APS. He served as the elected President of the Academy of Science, RSC from 2015 to 2017. Most recently, he was elected to the Order of Canada (July 2018), the highest civilian honor awarded by the Government of Canada.

Deekshatulu (PhD 1964, IISc Bangalore) is distinguished Fellow, Institute for Research and Development in Banking Technology(IDRBT) (Govt. of India), Hyderabad. He previously was: Professor, IISc; dist. scientist and dir., Natl. Remote Sensing Agency (NRSC), Hyderabad; dir., Centre for Space Science and Technology Education for Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP), 1995-2002; vis. prof., Dept. of Computer Sciences, U. of Hyderabad (2002-2011). His honours include: National Systems Award (Gold Medal), India; Sir M. Viwesraya Award; Brahmprakash Award, INSA; Biren Roy Award; Padma Shri; Om Prakash Bhasin Award; Sivananda Eminent Citizen Award; and the Bhaskara and Aryabhatta awards. His membership includes: Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Delhi; Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore; IEEE, USA; National Academy of Agricultural Sciences Newdelhi, National Academy of Engineering, India, Computer Society of India. Hon Member Asian Assocn. for Remote Sensing.

De Mello obtained his BSc in biochemistry in 1968, MD in 1972, MSc in biophysics in 1973 and PhD in 1980. He is professor of biophysics at the Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas Filho since 1993 and head of the Laboratory of Neurochemistry since 1982. He was previously: Fogarty visiting scientist at the National Institutes of Health from 1973-76; assistant professor, vice director, and director at the Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas Filho between 1978-97; research associate professor at Northwestern University between 1984-86; and Guggenheim fellow in 1984. He was awarded the Gustavo Lessa Award from the Brazilian-American Institute in 1982. He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and the Latin American Academy of Sciences. In April 2015 he became Emeritus Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

De los Reyes is Founding Director of the Ecuadorian Research Center for Mathematical Modeling (MODEMAT) and Professor of Mathematical Optimization at Escuela Politécnica Nacional de Ecuador. He obtained his PhD in 2003 at the University of Graz, Austria, and worked as postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University of Berlin (2005-2006). In 2009 he was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers to carry out research in Germany, and in 2010 he was awarded a J.T. Oden Faculty Fellowship at The University of Texas at Austin. He has held Visiting Professor positions at the Humboldt University of Berlin (2010), the University of Hamburg (2013) and the Weierstrass Institute of Berlin (2021). He is former Director of Research of Escuela Politécnica Nacional de Ecuador (2019-2021), former President of the Ecuadorian Mathematical Society (2012-2014), Fellow of the Ecuadorian Academy of Sciences (since 2015), and Fellow of TWAS (since 2016). Dr. De los Reyes has served as member of organizing committees of various academic events worldwide, and has promoted the creation and strengthening of scientific networks in Latin-America.

de la Cruz is A-1 researcher, Centro Atómico Bariloche-CNEA (retired since 2007), and hon. prof. of physics, Instituto Balseiro. After his PhD (1968) at the Instituto Balseiro (Universidad de Cuyo), he did postdoctoral work at Brown Univ. He returned to Bariloche, Argentina, in 1971, where he has been professor and researcher at the Centro Atómico and Instituto Balseiro for 36 years. His awards include: Teófilo Isnardi, Academia de Ciencias; Chevalier des Palmes Academic, France; Ricardo Gans, Universidad de la Plata; Premio Konex Platino, Fundacion Konex; and Premio Fundación Bunge Born a la Ciencia, 2004. He is fellow of APS and IOP; member, Academia Nacional de Ciencias and Academia de Ciencias Físicas y Naturales, Argentina; and foreign member, US National Academy of Sciences. Premio Houssay en Física 2010 He has been advisor of 23 PhD students and over 30 master students in physics.

De Gouveia Dal Pino (PhD in astronomy, University of São Paulo, 1989) is full professor, Department of Astronomy, Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics, and Atmospheric Sciences, University of São Paulo (IAG-USP), Brazil. She had postdoctoral affiliation at Harvard University (1991–1993), and was associated researcher at International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Italy (1994–2001). She introduced in Brazil high-performance magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) numerical simulations to model astrophysical sources: from solar interior, star formation regions, jets and black holes, to galaxy clusters. She has pioneering studies on MHD turbulence, magnetic reconnection, and cosmic ray acceleration in magnetized systems. She is Brazilian principal investigator of the largest gamma-ray observatory in construction, the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), and of ASTRI Mini-Array—precursor of CTA. She is Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and the Brazilian Astronomical Society. She was awarded the Claudia Prize of Woman in Science (2017), and holds the Jabuti Award for Best Scientific Book (2001). She supervised PhD thesis with national honors and Best Theses in Astronomy of IAG-USP.