Plenary & Keynote Lectures

Alexandra Boltasseva is the Ron and Dotty Garvin Tonjes Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with a courtesy appointment in Materials Engineering, at Purdue University. She received her PhD in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in 2004. Her research focuses on nanophotonics, quantum photonics and optical materials. She is the 2023 recipient of the R.W. Wood Prize (Optica) and a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, and received the 2013 IEEE Photonics Society Young Investigator Award and the 2013 Materials Research Society Outstanding Young Investigator Award. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, MRS, IEEE, Optica and SPIE, and a former Editor-in-Chief of Optical Materials Express.

Svetlana V. Boriskina is a Principal Research Scientist in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she leads the Multifunctional Metamaterials (META) Lab. She holds a PhD in Physics and Mathematics from Kharkiv National University, Ukraine, and worked at the University of Nottingham, Kharkiv National University and Boston University before joining MIT in 2012. Her research blends nanophotonics, plasmonics, thermodynamics and mechanics, with projects on smart photon-managing fabrics, new meta-materials that manipulate light, and solar-harvesting platforms. Her honours include the MIT Water Innovation Prize (2021), the TechConnect Innovation Award (2019) and the Joint Award of ICO and ICTP (2007).

George V. Eleftheriades is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, where he holds the Velma M. Rogers Graham Chair in Engineering. A recognized pioneer of metamaterials, he introduced in 2002 the concept of using transmission lines to realize negative-index metamaterials, and more recently pioneered Huygens’ metasurfaces and their antenna applications. His awards include the 2025 IEEE Electromagnetics Award, the 2008 IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Technical Field Award, the 2015 IEEE AP-S John Kraus Antenna Award and the 2019 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society’s Distinguished Achievement Award. He is an IEEE Fellow, a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and of the Royal Society of Canada, and was elected in 2026 an international member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. His research group focuses on electromagnetic and optical metamaterials and on metasurfaces for 6G and radars.

Ortwin Hess is Chair Professor of Quantum Nanophotonics and Research Ireland Professor in the School of Physics and the CRANN Institute of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, Co-Director of Rinn Quantum, and Editor-in-Chief of the gold open-access journal APL Quantum. Previously he held the Leverhulme Chair in Metamaterials at Imperial College London and was a professor at the University of Surrey. His research bridges quantum nanophotonics with semiconductor and metamaterials physics, laser science and bio-medical photonics; he discovered the ‘trapped-rainbow’ principle and pioneered active nanoplasmonics and optical metamaterials with quantum gain, for which he received the Royal Society Rumford Medal. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and of Optica.

Mona Jarrahi is a Professor and Northrop Grumman Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California Los Angeles, where she directs the Terahertz Electronics Laboratory. Following postdoctoral research at the University of California Berkeley and an Assistant Professorship at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, she joined UCLA in 2013. Her research develops ultrafast electronic and optoelectronic devices and integrated systems for terahertz, infrared and millimeter-wave sensing, imaging, computing and communication, using novel materials, plasmonic nanostructures and quantum structures. Her work has resulted in more than 400 publications and 280 invited talks. Her awards include the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, a Moore Inventor Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the IET A F Harvey Engineering Research Prize. She is a Fellow of AAAS, IEEE, Optica, SPIE, APS and the Institute of Physics.

Natalia Litchinitser is a Michael J. Fitzpatrick Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Professor of Physics and Mechanical Engineering, and Materials Science at Duke University. Her research focuses on nonlinear and quantum optics in engineered nanostructures, metamaterials, and topological photonics, as well as on the engineering of light beams themselves. Natalia Litchinitser was previously a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, and a Senior Member of Technical Staff at Tyco Submarine Systems. She authored 8 invited book chapters and more than 350 journal and conference papers. She is a Fellow of IEEE, APS, Optica, and SPIE. She serves as the Research Program Director of the Photonics Materials Program at the Fitzpatrick Institute of Photonics.

Peter Nordlander holds the Wiess Chair and is Professor of Physics and Astronomy, of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and of Materials Science and NanoEngineering at Rice University. He received his doctorate in theoretical physics from Chalmers University of Technology in 1985, held postdoctoral positions at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, AT&T Bell Laboratories and Rutgers University, and joined Rice in 1989. His research concerns the theoretical and computational modeling of plasmonics and nanophotonics. He has authored more than 350 refereed articles and has been a Highly Cited Researcher since 2013. His awards include the Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics (2013), the Frank Isakson Prize for Optical Effects in Solids (2014), the R. W. Wood Prize for Optics (2015) and the Eni Energy Transition Prize (2022). He is a Fellow of the APS, AAAS, SPIE, Optica and MRS.

Vladimir M. Shalaev is Scientific Director for Nanophotonics at the Birck Nanotechnology Center and Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. His research spans nanophotonics, plasmonics, optical metamaterials and quantum photonics. His awards include the APS Frank Isakson Prize for Optical Effects in Solids, the Optica Max Born Award, the Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, the IEEE Photonics Society William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award, the Rolf Landauer Medal of the ETOPIM International Association and the UNESCO Medal for the development of nanosciences and nanotechnologies. He was recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher in physics by the Web of Science Group in 2017–2023. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, APS, SPIE, MRS and Optica.