Dr. Pierre J. Verlinden is Managing Director of AMROCK, a PV technology consulting company, and Adjunct Professor at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, and at Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China. Dr Verlinden has been working in the field of photovoltaics for more than 40 years and has published over 200 technical papers and contributed to a number of books. From 2012 to 2018, Dr Verlinden served as Chief Scientist, Vice-President and Vice-Chair of the State Key Laboratory of PV Science and Technology at Trina Solar, China, one of the world’s largest PV manufacturers. Previously, he has managed the R&D department or served as Chief Scientist in several PV companies in USA and Australia, including SunPower, Origin Energy and Solar Systems. He is also an Independent Director of several companies involved in photovoltaic technology development, including Oxford PV and BT Imaging. Dr Verlinden is the recipient of the 2016 William Cherry Award, awarded by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and the 2019 Becquerel Prize, for his dedication over the past three decades at the forefront of PV technology and commercialization, leading technology advances including the interdigitated back contact cell, silicon and multijunction III-V CPV cells, and his overall leadership of key R&D organizations. Dr Verlinden is also recipient of the 2017 Chinese Government Friendship Award, the highest award given by China to foreigners

Prof. Stefan W. Glunz received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany, in 1995. He is professor for Photovoltaic Energy Conversion at the Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg and the director of the division “Photovoltaics –Research” at Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Freiburg, Germany. The research focus of the division includes the development and characterization of high-efficiency crystalline silicon, III-V, organic and perovskite solar cells.  
Prof. Dr. Glunz is the author/coauthor of more than 200 journal and 300 conference papers and founding editor of the IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics. He is a scientific committee member for several conferences and workshops in the field of photovoltaics and has initiated an international conference on crystalline silicon photovoltaics (SiliconPV). In 2008, he received the Eni Award for the promotion of science and technology in the field of renewable energies and in 2014 the Becquerel Award for Outstanding Merits in Photovoltaics.

Prof. Dr. Angèle Reinders is a full professor of 'Design of Sustainable Energy Systems' at the Department of Mechanical Engineering in Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). In her research she focusses on the integration of solar energy technologies in buildings and mobility by means of simulation, prototyping and testing. A strong interest exists in designs that enhance user acceptance and reduce environmental impact. Angèle Reinders studied experimental physics at Utrecht University, where she also received her doctoral degree in chemistry. Next she developed herself in Industrial Design Engineering. Besides TU/e’s professorship, she is an Associate Professor at University of Twente and she was a full professor in Energy Efficient Design at TU Delft. In the past she also worked at Fraunhofer Institute of Solar Energy, World Bank, ENEA in Naples and Center of Urban Energy in Toronto. She is known for her books “Designing with Photovoltaics” (2020), “The Power of Design” and “Photovoltaic Solar Energy From Fundamentals to Applications”. In 2010 she co-founded the Journal of Photovoltaics for and she chaired COST Action PEARL PV, see https://www.pearlpv-cost.eu/ Also she initiated many projects and has a strong publication record.

Prof. Dr. Francesco Frontini is the head of the Building Sector and of the Swiss BIPV competence Center at the SUPSI in Switzerland. He graduated in Building Engineering and Architecture from Politecnico di Milano. In 2009 he got a PhD in Building Engineering where he developed, together with different manufacturers, a new multifunctional BIPV façade for solar and glare control. He worked as post-doc researcher in the Solar façades group at Fraunhofer ISE (in Germany), where he gathered extensive experience in Building simulation and in BIPV solutions. Research activity are always supported by experimental works on the design of actual buildings and solar envelops.  Prof. Frontini is member of several standardization bodies and co-Manager of the IEA PVPS Task 15 aiming to accelerate the penetration of BIPV products in the global market of renewables. He is author of different publications in the field of Energy in buildings, Daylighting and Building Integrated Photovoltaic system and participates in several European projects.

Dr. Ryan France is a senior scientist in the high-efficiency crystalline photovoltaics group at NREL, where he has researched III-V materials and multijunction solar cells for 15 years. He has developed high-performance metamorphic III-V material, and designed record efficiency inverted metamorphic multijunction devices with two to six junctions. He earned a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, a master’s degree from Boston University where he researched III-nitride LEDs, and a doctorate in materials science from the Colorado School of Mines while researching III-V materials at NREL. He also researched single- and multi-crystalline silicon solar cells at the University of New South Wales, and investigated III-V on Si growth and devices at Fraunhofer ISE. France's current research interests include high efficiency multijunction solar cells, novel III-V materials, and III-V devices for thermophotovoltaics and space PV.

Prof. Christophe Ballif is director of the Photovoltaics and Thin-Film Electronics Laboratory @ EPFL and of the  Sustainable Energy Center @CSEM and, which specializes in research and technology transfer along the value chain of photovoltaics and energy systems. With his teams, he has contributed to numerous innovations, products and start-up in the field of photovoltaics and energy (PV) and collaborates with close to 40 companies in Switzerland and worldwide. His current research and industrialization interests include materials and manufacturing processes for PV, high-efficiency crystalline and tandem perovskite/silicon solar cells, module technology and reliability, specialty PV products for building integration or mobility, as well as all aspects linked to storage and management of energy systems. He is (co-) author of more than 600 scientific papers and of numerous patents. In 2016, he received the Becquerel award for his contribution to the field of Photovoltaics and he is an elected member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Dr. Sarah Kurtz obtained her PhD in 1985 from Harvard University and now works at the University of California Merced after more than 30 years working at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in Golden, CO.  She is known for her contributions to developing multijunction, GaInP/GaAs solar cells, supporting the Concentrator Photovoltaic (PV) industry, and leading efforts on PV performance and reliability.  Her work has been recognized with a jointly received Dan David Prize in 2007, the Cherry Award in 2012, C3E Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016, and induction into the National Academy of Engineering in 2020.  At the University of California Merced she is working both to help the university grow and to support the Energy Transition through a variety of studies, including a current study on long-duration storage.

Prof. Dr. Arno Smets is professor in Solar Energy and Director of Extension School Education at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Smets research focuses on the development of technologies that convert solar energy in to useful forms of energy, like electricity or artificial fuels. In a bi-lateral collaboration with HyET Solar he currently works on materials, device architectures, processing, and up-scalable lab-to-fab solutions that contribute to a circular value chain of lightweight and flexible thin-film silicon PV technologies and applications. In his role as director of Extension School education he is responsible for development of life-long learning programs and portfolio’s in the engineering topics like Energy Transition, Sustainable Cities, Future Transport, Quantum Technology, Medical Technologies, Digital Societies and Engineering skills. As lecturers he developed and is offering courses in renewable energies and solar energy engineering in both on-campus BSc & MSc programs and online courses and programs to reach out to the continuing education needs of professionals. He is co-author of the academic textbook ‘Solar Energy, the physics and engineering of photovoltaic conversion technologies and systems’. Smets received his PhD in 2002 at Eindhoven University of Technology. From 2005-2009 he worked as a visiting researcher at AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) in Tsukuba In Japan. He received the edX Award (Paris, 2016) and has been appointed as Mission Innovation Champion (Vancouver, 2019).