Agustín’s research focuses on the creation of nanophotonic structures using a scalable nanofabrication technique called soft nanoimprinting lithography. This method involves the use of elastomeric pre-patterned stamps to nanostructure a wide range of materials, including colloids, biopolymers, and semiconductors. The resulting patterned structures can cover areas as large as 1 cm² and showcase photonic properties such as lasing, circular dichroism, and enhanced light absorption or emission.

Dr. Mihi earned his Ph.D. in physics in 2008 from the Institute of Materials Science of Seville (Spain). He was awarded a Beckman postdoctoral fellowship in 2008 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA) after which he joined the Institute of Photonic Sciences ICFO with a Marie Curie COFUND fellowship in 2011. Since 2015, he is part of the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) leading a research group dedicated to the creation of large-area nanophotonic architectures to improve the performance of optoelectronic devices. Agustín leads several Spanish national projects and also, he has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant, an ERC proof of concept and participates in two EIC Pathfinder actions.

Marleen Kamperman heads the Polymer Science group within the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials at the University of Groningen. Her group focuses on the bioinspired design of polymeric materials. She is particularly interested in mimicking spider silk processing, using microfluidics to understand the design rules and using novel 3D printing techniques to produce the bioinspired silk.

Kamperman received her PhD in Materials Science & Engineering from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, where she worked in the group of Prof. dr. Wiesner. From 2008 to 2010, she was a postdoctoral researcher in the Functional Surfaces group of Prof. dr. Arzt at INM – Leibniz Institute for New Materials in Saarbrücken, Germany. She started her group ‘Bioinspired Functional Polymers’ as Assistant Professor at Wageningen University in the Physical Chemistry and Soft Matter department in September 2010. In 2018 she was appointed Full Professor in Polymer Science at the University of Groningen.

Frank Smallenburg is a computational statistical physicist, whose research focuses on many-body systems in soft matter. He received his PhD in 2012 at Utrecht University (Netherlands), with a thesis on self-assembly in colloidal systems. After that, he worked as a post-doc at La Sapienza University (Rome, Italy) and at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (Germany).  Since 2017, he is a CNRS researcher at the Laboratoire de Physique des Solides in Orsay. His current research lines include the structure and dynamics of glassy fluids, the self-assembly of a variety of colloidal systems, and crystal nucleation.

Pawel Majewski is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Warsaw, Poland. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Yale University in 2013 for studies of anisotropic charge transport in magnetically-ordered soft materials under the guidance of Prof. Chinedum Osuji. In the same year, he joined Prof. Oleg Gang’s group at Brookhaven National Laboratory where he worked as a postdoctoral researcher under the supervision of Dr. Kevin Yager investigating laser-induced self-assembly of BCP thin films using synchrotron X-ray scattering methods. Since 2016 he has been leading an experimental group that focuses on structure and functional properties of soft materials at the University of Warsaw. His research interests include studies of photothermally directed self-assembly of block copolymers and liquid crystals, development of rapid methods for BCP patterning, and soft-material templated synthesis of functional nanostructured materials

Debora is Full Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, University of Florence, where she leads the BioSoftMatter group. Debora’s work focuses on Soft Matter systems, from design to applications in several areas, mainly in biologically relevant fields. Throughout her career, Debora has pioneered the application of radiation scattering methods, such as small angle scattering and reflectivity, to characterize the structural details of self-assemblies with biological relevance. Her research topics include hybrid nano and micro particle/lipid assemblies for responsive drug delivery, interaction of nanostructured assemblies with model membranes, design and application of nanostructured fluids

Debora Berti has a  well-established  track record of her work, with more than 120 authored or co-authored research papers and several chapters contributed in specialized books. She is co-Editor of the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science (Elsevier), member of the Ownership Board of the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, (Royal Society of Chemistry), member of the Review Panel of the  Partnership for Soft Condensed Matter(PSCM,  ILL-ESRF).  She  was  the  President  of  the  European  Colloid  and  Interface Society  (2013-­‐2015), member of the Soft Matter group of the scientific panel of the HZB-­‐Berlin  and  member  of  the  Elettra  Proposal  Review  Panel  for  the  SAXS beamline.

Katherine is the Canada Research Chair in Microfluidics for Drug Discovery and Health Care, a Michael Smith Health Research BC Scholar in partnership with the Canadians for Leading Edge Alzheimer Research (CLEAR) Foundation, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Victoria, Canada. Her group develops microfluidic (lab-on-a-chip) technologies to build bespoke artificial cells and tissues for drug discovery and development applications.