Min Gu, a University Distinguished Professor in optoelectronics, is Director of the Centre of Micro-Photonics at Swinburne University of Technology and Node Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Ultrahigh-bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems . His research interests span nanophotonics and biophotonics with internationally renowned expertise in three-dimensional optical imaging theory. Professor Gu is an elected Fellow of both the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and the Australian Academy of Science. He is also an elected Fellow of the Institute of Physics (UK), the Australian Institute of Physics, the Optical Society of America and the International Society for Optical Engineering. Professor Gu is a sole author of two standard reference books, Principles of Three-Dimensional Imaging in Confocal Microscopes (World Scientific) and Advanced Optical Imaging Theory (Springer-Verlag), published in 1996 and 2000 respectively. He has published over 550 publications (including over 270 papers in internationally refereed journals). He is a member of the 13 Editorial Boards of top international journals. He has been a member of the Advisory/Steering/Organizing committees of many international conferences (more than 100). He was/is a plenary/invited/keynote speaker on many international conferences (more than 100 conferences). He was/is President (2002-2004) and Vice President (2004-2010) of the International Society of Optics within Life Sciences. He is Vice President of the International Commission for Optics (2005-2011).

Andrew Holmes is an ARC Federation Fellow and Inaugural VESKI Fellow at the Bio21 Institute in the University of Melbourne. He is interested in making molecules and materials that will enable collaboration at the interface of synthetic chemistry with biology and materials science, and sees huge opportunities in these fields. He coordinates an International Science Linkage network and a Victorian State Government project on the development of organic photovoltaic devices.

Satoshi Kawata received his BSc, MSc and PhD all in Applied Physics from Osaka University in 1974, 1976 and 1979 respectively. After his experience as a JSPS post-doctoral fellow at Osaka University and as a research associate at the University of California, Irvine, he joined the Department of Applied Physics, Osaka University as a faculty member. In 1993, he was promoted to full professor, and served as the Director of Frontier Research Center, from 2001 to 2003, and is currently the Director of the Photonics Advanced Research Center . Since 2002, Professor Kawata is jointly at RIKEN as a Chief Scientist (the head) of Nanophotonics Laboratory. He has started the company NanoPhoton Corp in 2003, which manufactures laser-scanning Raman and SHG microscopes and related devices.

He is known as one of the pioneers in nanophotonics. He has contributed to the community via a number of inventions, publications, and conference organizations in fields including near-infrared spectroscopy, laser-scanning microscopy, near-field optics, plasmonics, biophotonics, laser nanofabrication and signal recovery. One of his research projects was featured in the “Guiness World Records 2004” as the smallest laser sculpture, appearing with a photo and was also published in a textbook of mathematics for junior high school in the United States . He has also published over 25 books.

He has been serving as the President of Spectroscopical Society of Japan (2004-2007), the Editor for Optics Communications (2000-present), Honorary Professor at Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science, Program Officer at Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and a joint professor at the Department of Physics at Gakushuin University . He is a fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), Institute of Physics (IOP), the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) and the Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP).

He received the Medal with Purple Ribbon awarded by the Emperor of Japan (2007), the Minister's Award on Science and Technology by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Japan (2005), Shimadzu Award (2003), Ichimura Award (1998), DaVinci Excellence, Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (1997) and the Japan IBM Science Award (1996).

Jooho Kim received his BSc from Yonsei University and PhD from Chungbuk National University, South Korea. He then undertook his postdoctoral research in developing near-field optical disk technology at the Centre for Applied Near-field Optics Research, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Japan (1998-2001). He joined Samsung Digital Media R&D Laboratory (Tera Storage Lab), Samsung Electronics, in 2002 to further develop advanced near-field, magnetic and plasmonic disk technologies.

Byoungho Lee received his Ph.D. degree in EECS, University of California at Berkeley in 1993. Since 1994 he has been with the School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul National University, Korea, where he is a full professor now. Currently, he is the Director of the National Creative Research Center for Active Plasmonics Application Systems. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and a Fellow of the SPIE. He serves as a topical editor or associate editor of Applied Optics and the Journal of the Society for Information Display, and has served as an associate editor of Optical Fiber Technology and the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics. He is a Director-at-Large of the Optical Society of America during 2006-2008. He has published more than 220 international journal papers and more than 350 international conference papers including about 50 invited papers. His research areas are plasmonics and diffractive optics.

Henri Lezec is a Physical Scientist at the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg , MD , USA . He received B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Following postdoctoral research at NEC Fundamental Research Laboratories in Tsukuba, Japan, he worked as an applications specialist for Micrion and FEI Corporations in both Germany and in the USA , and subsequently as CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) Research Director at Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg, France . Most recently, before joining NIST, he was a Visiting Research Associate at the California Institute of Technology. Henri's research at NIST focuses on nanoplasmonics, nanophotonics, and nanofabrication with focused ion beams; he is currently leading a project to develop and exploit negative-index metamaterials at visible frequencies.

Shawn-Yu Lin received his Ph.D degree from Princeton University and is currently a University Constellation Chair Professor and professor of Physics at Rensselaer Institute of Technology. Professor Lin's research interest is in the area of photon-matter interaction at the near-field regime and its applications to nano-photonics, plasmonic photonics, 3D control of light, enhanced infrared detection, and photon management for solar energy conversion.

Max Lu is a Federation Fellow and Professor of Nanotechnology in Chemical Engineering at the University of Queensland . He is the Inaugural Director for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials. His research expertise is in nanoparticles and nanoporous materials for clean energy and water purification technologies. With over 270 journal publications in high impact journals including Nature, JACS, Angew Chem., Adv Materials, he is also co-inventor of 12 international patents. Prof Lu is a highly cited researcher in chemical engineering and materials science with over 4000 citations (with h-index of 33). He has received numerous prestigious awards nationally and internationally including the Orica Award, RK Murphy Medal, Le Fevre Prize, ExxonMobil Award, IUMRS Young Scientist Award, Top 100 Most Influential Engineers in Australia (2004). Top 50 Most Inspiring Chinese in the World (2006). He is elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and Fellow of IChemE. He is currently Deputy Chair of the IChemE Board in Australia . He served on the ARC's College of Experts (2002-2004), and Expert Advisory Groups of the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and Innovation Council (2004, 2005). He also served as Chair for the Federal Government's Research Quality Framework Panel on Engineering and Technology. He serves as editor and editorial board member for 12 international journals. His current research interests include photocatalysts for solar cells and hydrogen production, and energy storage, nanoparticles for drug and gene delivery.

Masud Mansuripur received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1981. He worked at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, was a member of the technical staff at Xerox Research Centre of Canada, and was on the faculty of Boston University before joining the University of Arizona (Tucson) in 1988, where he is currently Professor and Chair of Optical Data Storage in the College of Optical Sciences. Dr. Mansuripur's published books include: "Introduction to Information Theory" (Prentice-Hall, 1987), "The Physical Principles of Magneto-Optical Recording" (Cambridge University Press, 1995), and "Classical Optics and its Applications" (Cambridge University Press, 2002; Japanese expanded edition, 2005). A Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), he has published over 250 articles in the areas of optical recording, macro-molecular data storage, magnetism and magnetic materials, radiation pressure, and nano-photonics.

Michel Orrit received his Doctorat d'Etat at Université Bordeaux I, France in 1984. From 1984 to 2001, he was at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), served as a director (1993-2001), coordinator (1995) of European Network 'Single Molecule Spectroscopy' in the frame of the HCM programme, and a Member of the French Comité National de la Recherche Scientifique. He has more than 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals, 9 chapters in books, 90 invited conferences in international meetings, supervisor or co-supervisor of 19 completed PhD theses and co-editor of two books. His pioneering work in 1990 on detecting single molecule fluorescence has led to the birth of field, the single molecule spectroscopy. Since then he received Hughes Prize and Paul Langevin Prize at the French Academy of Sciences, Gay Lussac-Humboldt Prize from the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation, Hans-Sigrist Prize awarded by the University of Bern, Switzerland and Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer lecture and medal in Germany. He’s now a professor of Molecular Physics at Leiden University in Netherlands from 2001.

Romain Quidant, born in 1975, received M.Sc. (2000) and Ph.D. (2002) degrees from ‘The University of Burgundy' in Dijon (France) in laser-matter interaction and nano-optics, respectively. Since 2002 he has worked in Barcelona at ICFO-The Institute of Photonic Sciences within the field of plasmon optics. In 2006, he was appointed junior Professor and group leader of the Plasmon Nano-Optics group at ICFO. His team investigates how surface plasmons can be used to revisit different aspects of conventional optics and extend them beyond the diffraction limit.

Gregory Scholes is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Chemistry. He joined the faculty there in 2000. He obtained B.Sc.(Hons.) (1990) and Ph.D. (1994) degrees from the University of Melbourne, then undertook postdoctoral studies at Imperial College in London from 1995–1997 as a Ramsay Memorial Research Fellow and at the University of California, Berkeley from 1997–2000. His present research focuses on elucidating the principles deciding electronic structure, optical properties, and reactions of nanoscale systems by combining synthesis, theory, and ultrafast laser spectroscopy. Recent awards include the 2007 Royal Society of Canada Rutherford Medal in Chemistry, a 2007 NSERC Steacie Fellowship, the 2006 Canadian Society of Chemistry Keith Laidler Award, and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (2005–2006).

Zhengrong Shi is Founder and CEO of Suntech Power Co., Ltd., a company he established in 2001 to specialize in manufacturing silicon solar cells, modules and systems. Under Dr. Shi's leadership, Suntech has grown at a phenomenal rate, increasing its manufacturing capacity by more than an order of magnitude in less than three years. In December 14, 2005 , Sunech had a successful IPO (Initial Public Offering) on the New York Stock Exchange. Through the IPO, Suntech Power issued 26.38 million American Depository Shares (ADS) priced at US$15 per piece. The company raised a total of US$400 million through the IPO, becoming the Chinese private enterprise to raise the largest amount of funds in the New York Stock Exchange. According to Forbes magazine, Dr. Shi ranked the richest man in China in 2007. Due to his outstanding achievement, Dr. Shi has been honored with many awards and prizes from the Chinese Central Government and the local government.

Prior to founding Suntech in 2001, he was a research director and executive director of Pacific Solar Pty., Ltd., an Australian PV company engaged in the commercialization of next-generation thin film technology, from 1995 to 2001. From 1992 to 1995, he was a senior research scientist and the leader of the Thin Film Solar Cells Research Group in the Centre of Excellence for Photovoltaic Engineering at the University of New South Wales in Australia , the only government-sponsored PV industry research center in Australia .

Dr. Shi is the inventor for 11 patents in PV technologies and has published or presented a number of articles and papers in PV-related scientific magazines and at conferences. Dr. Shi received a bachelor's degree in optical science from Jilin University in China in 1983, a master's degree in laser physics from the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1986, and a Ph.D degree in electrical engineering from the University of New South Wales in Australia in 1992.

Din Ping Tsai is a Distinguished Professor of Department of Physics at National Taiwan University, and an Adjunct Research Fellow at Research Center for Applied Sciences, Academia Sinica. He is also the Director General of the National Instrument Technology Research Center in Hsinchu, Taiwan. He is a Fellow of International Society of Optical Engineering (SPIE), Optical Society of America (OSA), American Physical Society (APS), Electro Magnetics Academy (EMA) and Physics Society of R.O.C., respectively. He is a Senior Member of IEEE as well. He is author and coauthor of 92 SCI journal papers, 32 book chapters and conference papers, and 32 technical reports and articles. He had 25 patents in USA , Japan, Canada, Germany and Taiwan . Three of his patents have been licensed to the world's largest optical disk manufacture company, Ritek Company in 2004. He had four technologies transfer to four different companies in last four years. His current research interests are nano-photonics, plasmonics, meta-materials, bio-photonics and their applications. He serves as a member of editorial boards of “Optics Communications” ( Elsevier Journal Publication), “Plasmonics” (Springer Journal Publication), “JEOS Rapid Publication” ( Journal of the European Optical Society: Rapid publications - ISSN 1990-2573) and “Opto-Electronics Letters,” respectively. He is also the chief editor of “Nano Newsletters” and “Optical Engineering” in Chinese. He is a member of technical committee of IEEE/LEOS nanophotonics. He is also a member of the OSA Fellows and Honorary Members Committee.