Luis G. Arnaut, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Coimbra, authored ca. 100 journal articles & book chapters, 2 patents & one book by Elsevier on “Chemical Kinetics”. His research interests include chemical reactivity, photochemistry, photodynamic therapy & solar cells. awarded the Gulbenkian Prize for Science (1994) & the BES Innovation Prize (2008). He is presently the Chair of the Science Council of his Chemistry Department.   

 Alessandro Bagno was born in 1958 & graduated in Chemistry at the University of Padova in 1981. During 1985-2002 he was CNR Researcher at the Centro Meccanismi Reazioni Organiche (CMRO), Padova. In 1989 he had a post-doctoral fellowship with prof. George A. Olah at the University of Southern California. Since 2002 he is Full Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Padova.  His research interests are centered on the characterization of molecular structure & weak interactions by nuclear magnetic resonance techniques, with strong emphasis on the modeling of NMR parameters, especially of heteronuclei. Areas of investigations include the structure of natural substances & heavy-metal complexes, as well as reaction mechanisms & NMR of complex liquid phases such as strongly solvated systems & ionic liquids.

Michael Bendikov was born in 1971 in Ukraine. He came to Israel in 1991 and got a B. A., M. Sc. & Ph. D. in Chemistry from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology under the direction of Professor Y. Apeloig. In 2001 he joined the group of Professor F. Wudl at UCLA as a postdoctoral researcher. Since 2004 he is a Faculty Member at Department of Organic Chemistry at The Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. During his Ph. D. studies he received The Israel Chemical Society Prize and Wolf Foundation Prize for Ph. D. students. He is also a recipient of 2007 DuPont Young Professor Award. His research interests include Design of Novel Organic Electronic Materials & Physical Organic Chemistry.

Matthias Bickelhaupt did his masters studies in Theoretical Chemistry & Organic Chemistry at the Vrije Universiteit (VU), Amsterdam. He then carried out his doctorate research at the Universiteit van Amsterdam with professors Nibbering & Baerends in the field of mass spectrometry & theoretical chemistry. Thereafter, he worked as a postdoctoral associate with professors Schleyer (Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg), Ziegler (Calgary), Hoffmann (Cornell University) & Baerends (VU Amsterdam). In the years 1997 - 1999 he was an Assistant Professor at Philipps-Universität Marburg. In 1999, he was appointed tenured Assistant Professor at the VU Amsterdam and, in 2003, Associate Professor.

R. Stan Brown is a Professor of Chemistry & Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada. He received a Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego, in 1972 & after a PDF period at Columbia University in New York, joined the University of Alberta. In 1995 he moved to Queen’s University as Head of the Chemistry Department. His research encompasses model enzymes, bio-organic & bio-inorganic chemistry, catalysis & mechanistic physical organic studies. This work has generated more than 156 research publications, eight patents/patent applications & nine book chapters. Much of this work is incorporated into leading textbooks at the undergraduate & graduate levels. 

Guy Lloyd-Jones FRSC studied at Huddersfield Polytechnic (BSc, 1989), Oxford University (DPhil, 1992, with John M Brown FRS) & Basel University (Postdoc with Andreas Pfaltz) before moving to Bristol in 1996. He is interested in the stereochemical aspects of transition metal catalysis, sulfur-based rearrangements, & stoichiometric organometallic reactions & reagents. His has been recipient of the RSC Hickinbottom Fellowship (2000), an AstraZeneca Academic Award (2003), the Liebig Lectureship of the GDCh (2003), the RSC Corday Morgan Medal (2004), the RSC Organic Reaction Mechanisms Award (2007) & a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2008).

Jérôme Lacour obtained in 1993 his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin. After post-doctoral studies at Harvard University, he joined the Organic Chemistry Department of the University of Geneva in 1995. Since 2004, he holds a full professor position in the department. He is the author or coauthor of more than 100 publications & 130 lectures. He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Chemical Communications. He is also a member of the International Scientific Committee of the International Symposium on Chirality & a member of the Organizing Committee of the EUCHEM “Bürgenstock” Conference on Stereochemistry.

Detlef Schröder is a well-recognized mass spectrometrist with broad experience in all areas of gas-phase ion chemistry. His interests range from fundamental questions on diatomic molecules over organic & inorganic reaction mechanism to questions of astrochemical interest or gas-phase models for biochemical processes. His records comprise more than 300 publications in peer-reviewed journals & over 80 invited lectures. A key contribution is the development of the concept of Two-State Reactivity (Acc. Chem. Res. 2000, 33, 139), which was discovered for the "four-atom reaction" FeO+ + H2, but is meanwhile considered of relevance in various areas of oxidation catalysis and biochemistry. 

Hendrik Zipse is associate professor of organic chemistry at the Ludwig-Maximilians University München. He received his doctorate (1991) in organic chemistry at the University of Basel (Switzerland). After postdoctoral research at UCLA Los Angeles (1992/93) he moved to the Technical University of Berlin. There he completed his Habilitation in 1998 & moved on to the LMU München in the same year. Hendrik has been the recipient of a Liebig-Fellowship (1993 - 1995), a Dozenten-Fellowship (1998 - 2002), & was awarded the Carl-Duisberg Memorial Award in 2001.