PHOTONICA 2025

Valery V. Tuchin is a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of the Department of Optics and Biophotonics and Director of the Science Medical Center of Saratov State University. He also works with several other research centers. He is a laureate of many national and international awards in biophotonics and biomedical optics, has published over 40 books and 1000 articles that have been cited over 43,000 times.

Darko Zibar is currently Professor at the Department of Electrical and Photonics Engineering, Technical University of Denmark and the group leader of Machine Learning in Photonics Systems (MLiPS) group. He received M.Sc. degree in telecommunication and the Ph.D. degree in optical communications from the Technical University of Denmark, in 2004 and 2007, respectively. He has been a Visiting Professor at Politecnico di Torino, Friedreich Alexander University of Erlangen, University of California Santa Barbara and University of Colorado, Boulder. His research efforts are currently focused on the application of digital signal processing and machine learning techniques to advance classical and quantum optical communication and measurement systems. Some of his major scientific contributions include: record capacity hybrid optical-wireless link (2011), record sensitive optical phase noise measurement technique that approaches the quantum limit (2021) and record-bandwidth (S+C+L band) programmable gain Raman amplifier (2019). He is the recipient of Young Researcher Award by University of Erlangen-Nurnberg (2016), European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant (2017), Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Bessel Research Award, (2021), and Villum Investigator Award (2023). Finally, he was a part of the team that won the HORIZON 2020 prize for breaking the optical transmission barriers (2016).

Eugene Demler (born 1971) studied theoretical physics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. He then went to Stanford University in California, where he received his doctorate in 1998. He was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows, became an assistant professor at Harvard in 2001 and a full professor there in 2005. Demler is a member of the Harvard-MIT Centre for Ultracold Atoms and the Institute for Theoretical Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He was a recipient of the 2006 Johannes Gutenberg lecture award from the Mainz Graduate School. In 2015, he was the winner of a Humboldt Research Award, was elected as a fellow of the American Physical Society and became a Distinguished Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching near Munich. He was a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Theoretical Studies at ETH Zurich, a Hanna visiting Scholar at Stanford, and a Moore Distinguished scholar at Caltech.

Eli Kapon received his PhD in physics from Tel Aviv University, Israel, in 1982. He then spent two years at Caltech, Pasadena, USA, as a Chaim Weizmann Fellow, working on diode laser phased arrays. From 1984 to 1993 he was with Bellcore, New Jersey, USA, where he worked on semiconductor nanostructures and lasers, and managed the Quantum Structures and Integrated Optoelectronics groups. In 1993 he joined EPFL in Switzerland as Professor of Physics, establishing there the Laboratory of Physics of Nanostructures. His Laboratory conducted research on low-dimensional quantum nanostructures, quantum photonics, and vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs). In 1999-2003, he helped to establish the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at Tel Aviv University, Israel, and served as its first Director. In 2001, he founded BeamExpress, a startup company dedicated to the development of long-wavelength VCSELs for optical communication applications. Prof. Kapon is a recipient of a Humboldt Research Award, IEEE Distinguished Lecturer Award, and is Fellow of Optica, IEEE and the American Physical Society.

Stefano Giorgini was born in 1965 in Bolzano (Italy). He obtained the Laurea in Physics from the University of Trento in 1990 and the PhD in 1994 from the University of Padua with a thesis on “Hydrodynamic fluctuations and vortices in superfluid systems”. He then moved to Nottingham and to Barcelona as a post-doc where he worked on various aspects of the physics of superfluid 4He. In 1996 he moved to the Univesity of Trento, first as a Research Assistant and Adjoint Professor and since 2010 as an Associate Professor. In Trento he pursued his research interests in the field of quantum degenarete gases of bosons and fermions, superfluidity and macroscopic quantum phenomena, many body theories and quantum Monte Carlo simulations. He has currently more than 90 publications, including 26 Physical Review Letters and 2 Reviews of Modern Physics, with a total of more than 11000 citations and an h-index of 40 according to the ISI Web of Science.

Emmanuel Kymakis is a Full Professor at the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the Hellenic Mediterranean University (HMU) and Director of the Institute of Emerging Technologies of the HMU Center for Research & Innovation. He received his B.Eng. (First Class Honors) degree in Electrical Engineering & Electronics from Liverpool University in 1999 and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Cambridge University in 2003. He and Prof. Gehan Amaratunga are the inventors of the polymer-nanotube solar cell. Before joining HMU, he was a technical consultant offering engineering and consultancy services in the realization of photovoltaic and solar thermal power plants. His multidisciplinary research lies at the interface between nanotechnology and electrical engineering and is centred on the development of printed optoelectronic and photovoltaic devices. He has published more than 140 research articles, which have attracted over 13.000 citations and an h-index of 62, while he has an extensive experience in the management of research and industrial projects (9,5 M€ research funding, design & implementation of 67 MWp of PV parks). ?e is also included in the list of the top 2% of scientists in their respective fields by citation impact (PLoS Biol 17(8), e3000384). He serves also as scientific evaluator and member of panels of experts of various international governmental and nongovernmental agencies, member of scientific committee of various international congresses, and have been invited to give invited talks in more than 50 occasions. He has been an honorary lecturer at UConn and a recipient of an Isaac Newton and an EPSRC studentship. He was named as a 2014 ChemComm Emerging Investigator and has received two National Excellence Awards. He has served as a member of the founding General Assembly of the Hellenic Foundation for Research & Innovation (HFRI), a member of the Engineering sectoral scientific council of the National Council for Research & Innovation of Greece (NCRI) and a member of the Engineering thematic advisory council of HFRI. He is currently the Director of the interinstitutional Post-Graduate Program “Nanotechnology for Energy Applications” and serves as the work package leader of Energy Generation of the EU FET-Flagship Initiative Graphene.

Ranieri Bizzarri earned his degree (1997) and Ph.D. (2001) in Chemistry and is currently Associate Professor at the University of Pisa with affiliation with the Nanoscience Institute of the National Research Council of Italy. He leads the “Nanoscale Biomedicine” group, with research also conducted and the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa. During his Ph.D., he spent 11 months at Cornell University and after he has been a visiting scientist at CNRS (Paris), Twente University (Netherlands), and the Karolinska Institute (Sweden). His work focuses on visualizing cellular biochemical processes, with particular focus on transcriptional mechanisms engaged in cellular development, tumors, and infections. His research has been funded by several projects and has resulted in 95 international publications (h-index = 32), 7 book chapters, and 1 patent. RB co-organized two international (EBSA satellite workshops 2009 and 2025), one session at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society, and he is a member of the Scientific Council for the EBSA2025 Congress. At the University of Pisa, he teaches courses in Molecular Biology, Cellular Biophysics, Energy Metabolism, advanced Fluorescence Microscopy, and Fluorescent Biosensors. He is a member of two PhD Schools: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (University of Siena) and RNA Therapeutics and Gene Therapy (University of Naples Federico II). He is also on the Board of the Center for Instrument Sharing at the University of Pisa and has served on evaluation committees for the ERC, ANR (France), and the Italian Ministry of Welfare.
Extended CV: https://tinyurl.com/msz86az9

Luis Bañares received the B.S. degree in Chemistry in 1985 from Universidad Compultense de Madrid and received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the same university in 1990. He had postdoctoral stays at the California Institute of Technology (1990-1992) and the Institute of Physics at Würzburg University, Germany (1995-1996) with Fulbright and Alexander von Humboldt fellowships, respectively. He joined the faculty of the Physical Chemistry Department at Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 1992 as an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor in 1998 and Chair of Physical Chemistry in 2007. He is the Director of the Center for Ultrafast Lasers at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and affiliated to IMDEA Nanociencia. He has published more than 250 articles in international journals. He is Associate Editor of the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. His research interests are related to experimental and theoretical chemical reaction dynamics. His work focuses on the understanding of fundamental chemical reactions and photodissociation processes at a molecular level.

Zeev Zalevsky received his B.Sc. and direct Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Tel-Aviv University in 1993 and 1996 respectively. Zeev is currently a full Professor at Bar-Ilan University and its Vice President for academia industry relations. He is the former Dean of the faculty of engineering at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. His major fields of research are optical super resolution, biomedical optics, nano-photonics and fiber-based processing and sensing architectures. Zeev has published more than 600 peer review papers, 350 proceeding papers, 9 books (6 authored and 3 as an editor), 36 book chapters and about 100 patents. Zeev gave about 670 conference presentations with more than 250 invited/keynote or plenary talks.

Zeev is a fellow of many large scientific societies such as SPIE, OSA, IEEE, EOS, IOP, IET, IS&T, ASLMS, AIMBE and more. He is also a fellow of the American National Academy of Inventors (NAI). For his work he received many national and international prizes such as the Krill prize, ICO prize and Abbe medal, SAOT prize, Juludan prize, Taubelnblatt prize, young investigator prize in nanotechnology, the International Wearable Technologies (WT) Innovation World Cup 2012 Prize, Image Engineering Innovation Award, NANOSMAT prize, SPIE startup challenge prize, SPIE prism award, IAAM Scientist Medal Award, International Photonic Award, Dr. Horace Furumoto Innovations Professional award, The Asian Advanced Materials Award, Edison Award, IEEE distinguished lecturer award, VEBLEO Scientist Award, Joseph Fraunhofer Award/Robert M. Burley Prize, Lotfi Zadeh Memorial Award, E&T Innovation Award, CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2022 Innovation Award, German Innovation Award 2022, the Humboldt research prize, SPIE 2023 Chandra S. Vikram Award for Metrology, IVS research excellence prize, German Berthold Leibinger innovation prize, IEEE Photonics Society (IPS) 2023 Laser Instrumentation Award, 2024 SPIE Dennis Gabor Award in Diffractive Optics and more.

Besides his academic research activity, Zeev is also very active in commercializing his inventions into start-up companies. Zeev was and is involved in technologically leading of more than 10 startup companies.

Ferruccio Renzoni earned his M.Sc. in Physics from the University of Pisa (Italy) in 1993 and completed his Ph.D. at the Technische Universität Graz (Austria) in 1998. Following his doctoral studies, he held research positions in Germany at the Institut für Laserphysik, University of Hamburg, and in France at the Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (École Normale Supérieure, Paris), where he obtained his Habilitation à diriger des recherches.

Since 2003, he has been based at University College London (UCL), where he is a faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. At UCL, he leads a research group exploring a range of topics, including atomic magnetometry, cold atom physics, and nonlinear dynamics.

Professor Renzoni’s recent work has focused on the development of quantum technologies, with significant contributions to atomic magnetometry. Notably, he was the first to demonstrate electromagnetic induction imaging using atomic magnetometers. He has since advanced this technology to achieve the sensitivity necessary for biomedical imaging and security screening applications.

Konstantinos Vyrsokinos is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and co-leader of the WinPHOS research group at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Innovation, both part of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH). He holds a BSc in Physics (2001) from AUTH and a PhD (2007) from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens in Greece.

Since 2014, he has been a faculty member at AUTH. Dr. Vyrsokinos has participated in over eleven EU-funded and three nationally funded research projects throughout his career. From 2018 to 2021, he coordinated the ICT MOICANA project, and from 2020 to 2024, the ICT NEBULA project. Both initiatives focused on the development of advanced photonic and plasmo-photonic integrated circuits for telecommunications and data communications. He is currently the principal investigator (PI) for AUTH in the EU ICT ALLEGRO and EU/National HellasQCI projects.

Prof. Vyrsokinos has published more than 170 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. According to Scopus, his work has received over 1900 citations, with an h-index of 24. He also holds two U.S. patents. He has supervised two completed PhD theses and another three are ongoing.

His research interests include the design and experimental evaluation of photonic and plasmo-photonic integrated components and circuits for various applications, as well as heterogeneous integration of III-V components on the SiN platform.

Igor Meglinski is a Professor of Quantum Biophotonics and Biomedical Engineering at Aston University (UK). He is a Faculty member in the School of Engineering and Technology at the Department of Mechanical, Biomedical & Design Engineering, and is also affiliated with the Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies (AIPT) and Aston Research Centre for Health in Ageing (ARCHA). He has authored over 450 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals and conference proceedings, in addition to more than 20 book chapters, 7 books, and several patents. He has delivered over 800 presentations at major international conferences, symposia, and workshops, including over 300 keynote, plenary, and invited lectures, as well as more than 100 invited talks at universities and international research centres. In 2024 Professor Meglinski was recognized among the Top 100 in Photonics and as one of the Top 100 influencers in Life Sciences. He is a Chartered Physicist (CPhys) and Chartered Engineer (CEng), Senior Member of IEEE, Fellow of the Institute of Physics (IoP), Fellow of the International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration (IIAV), Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society (FRMS), Fellow of SPIE and OPTICA (formerly Optical Society of America). His current research interests lie at the intersection of modern physics, optics, and imaging modalities, with a focus on novel photonics-based phenomena and their practical applications in fields such as medicine, biology, environmental diagnosis, food sciences and healthcare.

Associate Professor, group leader, and co-chair of the “Kidney, Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases” research theme at the Department of Biomedicine.

I am conducting research on the mechanisms of progressive kidney disease with particular focus on the transition of acute kidney injury towards chronic kidney disease. Using longitudinal intravital 2-photon microscopy, my goal is to understand the dynamic cellular interactions contributing to disease and to identify novel drug targets to prevent and ease chronic kidney disease.

I lead a research group dedicated to deciphering the mechanisms of progressive kidney disease. In parallel, I teach pharmacology to students of medicine, molecular medicine, and dentistry, with a strong emphasis on research-based learning.

Vincenzo Amendola is Professor of Physical Chemistry at Padova University, where he established and directs the Laser Assisted Synthesis and Plasmonics lab (www.chimica.unipd.it/lasp). His research activity is focused on the mechanisms behind laser processing of colloids and its application to the synthesis of unconventional and metastable nanomaterials, that are exploited for experimental and theoretical investigations in the fields of plasmonics, sensing, nanomedicine and heterogeneous catalysis. He obtained the PhD in Materials Science and Engineering in 2008 and the Italian qualification as Full Professor in 2017, after research experience at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cambridge University. He is part of the Program Committee of the ANGEL conference series and he is member of the Nanomaterials Editorial Advisory Board. He was honoured with the Levi prize, the Semerano prize, the Young Innovators Award, the Alceste Mion Award and the Belloni prize. He is in the top 100^k scientists of the last “science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators.

Dr. Carla Hermann Avigliano is a physicist and professor at the Department of Physics at the University of Chile. She holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Université Pierre et Marie Curie and the University of Concepción. Her research spans both experimental and theoretical quantum optics, with particular emphasis on the generation, characterization, and transport of intense quantum light—both Gaussian and non-Gaussian—in free space and in photonic arrays, with and without topological features, and their potential applications in emerging quantum technologies.

Since 2024, Dr. Hermann has also played an active role in shaping public policy in science, technology, and innovation. She was invited by the Chilean Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation to participate in strategic working groups, including the expert committee for the advancement of quantum technologies, contributing significantly to the development of Chile's national quantum roadmap.

In parallel, she is a prominent science communicator. She hosts the radio show Let's Get Physical on TXS Plus, leads initiatives such as The Quantum Box: A Journey Through Light—an immersive art and science experience—and shares content on science, motherhood, and academic life through her Instagram account @quantumcarla, followed by over 60,000 people. In 2023, she was named one of Forbes Chile's "30 Most Powerful Women in Chile," and in 2017, she received the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Chile award for her contributions to scientific research and female leadership in STEM.

Prof. Edik Rafailov received his Ph.D. from the Ioffe Institute in 1992. In 1997, he joined the University of St Andrews (UK), and in 2005, he established a new research group at the University of Dundee. Since 2014, he has been based at Aston University (UK), where he leads research in photonics and biomedical optics. Prof. Rafailov has authored or co-authored over 550 peer-reviewed publications, including three books (Wiley), more than ten invited book chapters, and numerous invited talks. He has coordinated several major EU-funded projects, including the €14.7M FP7 FAST-DOT and €12.5M NEWLED projects, as well as the FET OPEN Mesa-Brain, Platforma, Neuropa and Pathfinder Gliolight projects. Over the past ten years, he has played a leading role in securing more than £65M in EU/UK research funding, with over £13M directly awarded to his group. His current research interests span CW and ultrashort-pulse laser development, generation of UV/visible/IR/MIR and THz radiation, and Biomedical Photonics.

Prof. Dr. Lutfi Ozyuzer, received his B.S. from Physics Engineering at Hacettepe University in 1991. He obtained his M.S. (1995) and Ph.D. (1999) degrees from Physics Department of Illinois Institute of Technology, USA. He worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Argonne National Laboratory (1999-2000). In 2000, he joined the Physics Department of Izmir Institute of Technology (IZTECH) as Assistant Professor. He received “Young Investigators Award of Turkish Academy of Sciences” in 2002, “Encouragement Award of Scientific and Technical Council of Turkey (TUBITAK)” in 2006 and “Research Fellowship for Experienced Scientist Award of Alexander von Humboldt” in 2008. Between 2008-2010, he worked as a Visiting Scientist at the University of Erlangen in Germany. He has been working at IZTECH as full Professor since 2011 and Head of Department of Physics since 2019. His research areas are terahertz waves, thin film material growth, electrical, magnetic and optical properties of materials, metamaterials, microelectronic and vacuum technologies. Lutfi Ozyuzer is author or co-author of above 120 papers (H-index 33, i10-index 69 received 5345 citations up to now).

Francesco Riboli obtained the PhD in 2005 at the University of Trento with a thesis in the field of silicon photonics. In 2008-2009 he worked in the US where he obtained the Certificate of Technological Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University (California, US). In 2016 he became a researcher at the National Institute of Optics where he now holds the position of senior researcher. His main research activity is in the field of photonics of complex systems, covering different aspects of applied photonics, from telecommunications to integrated optics and renewable energy up to classical and quantum cryptography. He leads the group of Cyber Physical Security at the National Institute of Optics whose main activity is the study of Physical Unclonable Functions.

After PhD in Stuttgart, Habilitation at FU Berlin, main scientific assistant in Duisburg-Essen, guest professorships in Potsdam, FU Berlin, and Bielefeld, as well as fellow at the Hanse Institute of Advanced Studies in Delmenhorst, Axel Pelster is now a senior researcher and lecturer of Theoretical Physics at RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau. His broad interests cover, in particular, the physics of ultracold quantum gases, quantum field theory and general relativity as well as nonlinear dynamical systems. Further information is available at the homepage https://apelster.physik.rptu.de.

Dr. A. Daskalova is an Associate Professor at the Laboratory of Femtosecond Optics, Institute of Electronics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IE-BAS). Since 2022, she is the Head of the Laboratory of Femtosecond Optics at IE-BAS. She obtained her PhD in 2003 from the Institute of Applied Physics at TU Wien, Austria. In 2009, she was awarded a prestigious Marie Curie Individual Fellowship at the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL-FORTH) in Heraklion, Crete.

Her research focuses on laser-based methods for the modification and treatment of various materials, with the goal of developing advanced matrices with enhanced surface properties for tissue engineering applications. Recent research topics include creation of antibacterial surfaces that would improve on the currently applied methods for temporary disinfection, providing a long-term solution and " self-cleaning" of frequently touched surfaces in everyday life.

Dr. Daskalova has led and contributed to numerous national and international research projects, including those funded by the Bulgarian National Science Fund, as well as large-scale EU programs such as HORIZON Europe (STOP 101057961 – Surface Transfer of Pathogens), H2020 (AIMED 861138 – Antimicrobial Integrated Orthopedic Methodologies), Laserlab-Europe, and COST Actions. She is the co-author of 70 peer-reviewed publications in international scientific journals and have over 340 citations. Dr. Daskalova is a member of the General assembly of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and Scientific Council of IE – BAS.

Kaiming Zhou is currently a Senior Research Fellow with Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies (AiPT) of College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, U.K. His research interests include fibre optical sensor and sensing, laser microfabrication, and mid infrared spectroscopy.

His research covers photonic technology areas including optical fibre devices, sensors and system integration, optical communication, optical fibre Bragg grating, micro/nano photonic devices, biophotonic, label-free biosensor, chemsensor, optical waveguide theory, fibre laser, semiconductor laser, ultrafast fast laser and micromachining. With a strongly application-oriented research and close collaboration with industries like BAe, Airbus and SMEs, I have been the investigator or principle researcher on a number of large research and development programmes, including InnovateUK projects and ERDF projects. The research output has been outstanding with 200 publications, 2409 citations and google H-index of 29.

Pablo Loza-Alvarez (PhD). Dr. Loza is the head of the "Super Resolution Light Microscopy and Nanoscopy" lab at ICFO. Dr. Loza-Alvarez has a strong experience in microscopy and, by introducing novel photonics tools, has developed a number of novel imaging techniques. These have been used for a wide variety of applications ranging from the imaging of large model organisms (mesoscopic level) to the visualization of subcellular components (super resolution). He has directed 8 PhD students, co-authored over 140+ publications in international journals (h=42, Google Scholar), has written 7 patents and he is regularly invited for seminars at different conferences, schools and colloquia. Dr Loza-Alvarez, has experience in leading European and national projects (public or private funding) and has been active in several Networks of Excellence and doctoral training networks. Dr. Loza-Alvarez' group participates in two Euro-BioImaging Nodes: Super Resolution Node Barcelona and Barcelona Mesoscopic Imaging Node.

Prof. Dr. Ronald Sroka, PhD is a Physicist, Scientific Director at the Hospital of the University of Munich. He received a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the Georg-August-University Göttingen. His research interests are Medical Physics, Photonics, Quantum Information, Laser, Optics, Optical Coherence Tomography, Laser Surgery, Clusters, Molecular Beams.

Ognjen Markovic is a Senior Research Scientist at QuEra Computing, where he works on neutral atom quantum computing. Hailing from Belgrade, Serbia, he completed his undergraduate studies in physics at the University of Cambridge. During his PhD at Stanford University in the group of Prof. Monika Schleier-Smith, he built a cold-atom experiment to study quantum simulation and metrology with Rydberg dressed atoms. After his PhD, he did a postdoc at Harvard University in the group of Prof. Markus Greiner, where he demonstrated quantum dipolar solids in an optical lattice system of long-range interacting erbium atoms. Since 2023, he has been working at QuEra Computing where he is developing novel fault-tolerant, large-scale quantum computers.

Emil S. Bozin is a senior physicist and European Research Area Chair at the Center for Solid State Physics and New Materials, Institute of Physics Belgrade. He is also a physicist in the X-Ray Scattering Group at the Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Division of Brookhaven National Laboratory (USA), where he has led research on pair distribution function (PDF) analysis. Dr. Bozin’s expertise includes X-ray and neutron scattering and diffraction, PDF analysis, and three-dimensional Fourier mapping of functional materials. His research focuses on hierarchical atomic structures and nanoscale fluctuations underlying precursor, emergent, and hidden states in quantum materials, particularly those exhibiting charge density waves, unconventional superconductivity, metal–insulator transitions, and high-performance thermoelectricity.

Borivoje Dakic is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Physics of the University of Vienna. His expertise lies in the quantum information theory, foundations of quantum mechanics and practical quantum information. He has made a significant contribution in the field of operational reconstructions of quantum theory, classification of quantum correlations and various theory-experimental research projects.

Ana Jakovljevic is a PhD in Biophotonics and a Research Associate at the Center for Laser Microscopy, Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade. Her research focuses on microscopy, structural neurobiology, and image analysis, with over six years of experience in neuroscience. She has participated in several international projects including H2020 AUTOIGG, DAAD bilateral collaborations, COST actions, and the Twinning project BioQuantSense. Her work has included research visits to institutions in Germany, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Costa Rica, and Slovenia, where she specialized in microscopy techniques and neurodegeneration models.

Ana actively collaborates with the Photonics Center at the Institute of Physics Belgrade and the Institute of Anatomy "Niko Miljanic" at the University of Belgrade School of Medicine. She is currently involved in the national science fund project Nimochip and has published three scientific papers in international M21-category journals. She has presented at over 15 international conferences and was awarded the Art of Neuroscience prize by the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience.

Mihajlo Radmilovic is an interdisciplinary researcher with a Ph.D. in Biophotonics from the University of Belgrade. He has expertise in advanced optical techniques, including two-photon excitation fluorescence (TPEF) microscopy, laser-based microfabrication, ektacytometry and flow cytometry. With a strong background in molecular biology and cell physiology, Dr Radmilovic integrates advanced optical methods with biophysical analysis to investigate red blood cell mechanics, biosensing, and photodynamic processes. He is the author of several peer-reviewed publications in leading journals on biophotonics and biophysics.

Tanja Pajić is a Research Associate at the Chair of General Physiology and Biophysics, Faculty of Biology with a Ph.D. in Biophotonics from the University of Belgrade. Tanja also collaborates intensively with the Photonics Center at the Institute of Physics Belgrade. Her main research activities focus on advanced laser-based optical techniques for structural and functional imaging of cell metabolism. In her thesis, she worked on the development and optimization of a method for femtosecond laser nanosurgery of the cell wall, enabling patch-clamp measurements on filamentous fungi, as well as on a nonlinear optical microscopy method for in vivo imaging of lipid and energy metabolism in fungi by combining two-photon excitation fluorescence (TPEF) and label-free third harmonic generation (THG) microscopy. Her scientific interest include the diverse potential applications of fungi in biotechnology, drug discovery and industry, biosensing and classical and quantum biophotonics.

Katarina Stevanovic is a Research Associate at the Chair of General Physiology and Biophysics, University of Belgrade – Faculty of Biology. Her doctoral thesis, which she defended at the University of Belgrade in 2023, was based on functional characterization of ion channels of the fungus Phycomyces blakesleeanus, primarily outwardly rectifying inactivating current of cytoplasmic droplets and its connection to the energy status of the cell. Her current research includes investigating the transport of organic acids in P. blakesleeanus and studying the effects of peptide extracts from Trichoderma species, a known biocontrol agent, on phytopathogenic fungi. She is also involved in a collaborative project with the Laboratory of Biophysics at the Institute of Physics in Belgrade, contributing to the development of a novel laser cell surgery method for obtaining protoplasts from filamentous fungi suitable for patch-clamp recording. This project is funded by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia. Additionally, as part of the Centre for Translational Neurosciences at the Faculty of Biology, she is researching the electrophysiological properties of chemically differentiated and magnetically stimulated human neuroblastoma cell lines. She is actively involved in teaching and mentoring early-career researchers and has co-authored six research papers to date.

Petar Bojovic is a senior doctoral candidate at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, under the supervision of Immanuel Bloch. His research focuses on quantum simulation with ultracold fermionic atoms in optical lattices, exploring the microscopic origins of exotic phases in the Fermi-Hubbard model, such as the pseudogap. He also advances quantum computing by developing high-fidelity entangling gates and hybrid analog-digital architectures for fermionic systems, enabling scalable simulations of electronic structure and strongly correlated matter.

Mirjana Stojanovic is a Research Associate at the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences, University of Belgrade. She obtained her M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Physics from the Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics, University of Niš, Serbia. Her scientific interests include both theoretical and experimental studies of photonic systems, as well as biomedical engineering.

She has participated in numerous national and international conferences and collaborated on several research projects, including the project Multi-SENSor SysteM and ARTificial Intelligence in Service of Heart Failure Diagnosis (SensSmart) funded through the IDEAS program of the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia, the innovation project DIfferential Lung Impedance in heart-Failure Estimation (D-LIFE) funded by the Innovation Fund of Serbia, and the bilateral project Optical Transitions in Photonic Lattices with Germany. She also collaborates with HeartBeam Inc. as a Technical and Clinical Measurements Lead.

Petar Atanasijevic is an Assistant Professor at the University of Belgrade, School of Electrical Engineering. He is engaged in teaching a multitude of courses, ranging from introductory physics, to sensors, applied electronics, and photonics. His research interests are wide, mostly covering bioinspired sensing and computing.

Dr. D. Galiakhmetova is an associate researcher at Aston University, who focuses on developing semiconductor and fiber laser sources for biomedical applications. She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees with first-class honours in physics from Kazan Federal University and the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) in Moscow, Russia, respectively. In 2024, she completed her PhD in photonics at Aston University, Birmingham, UK.

With over ten years of experience in laser physics, Dr D. Galiakhmetova has been recognized with seven travel grants and awards for best presentations. She has also received several prestigious honors, including the Skoltech President’s Award (2020), Best Open Research Case Study (2022), Rank Prize Research Grant (2022), and the STSM Grant from COST Action CA21159 (2025).

Her research interest includes the development of ultra-short pulsed lasers and amplifiers, medical diagnostic and treatment techniques using optogenetic tools.

Dr.sc. Josip Jakovac defended his doctoral thesis titled “Theoretical simulations of quasi-particle spectra in doped graphene” in January this year. His area of interests are numerical simulations of ARPES and EELS experimental measurements in 2D materials, in terms of developing both toy models and full calculations. The results of the latter are produced by application of the G0W0 RPA approximation to correct the DFT results, which are obtained by using Quantum Espresso PWSCF ab-initio suite. At the moment, Josip occupies a postdoctoral position in the group for ultra-fast spectroscopy (ULTRA) at the Institute of physics in Zagreb, where he characterizes HEA (High Enthropy Alloys) materials in terms of numerical simulations, to further expand his interests. Besides, he recently started to explore ab-initio phonon calculations in 2D and 3D materials.

Josip is also a radio-amateur (9A3BQY), a music composer and performer, and loves outdoor activities like bicycle riding and mountain hiking.