Plenary Speakers

 Plenary Speakers

 Prof. Thomas Ebbesen. Thomas Ebbesen is professor of physical chemistry at the University of Strasbourg, internationally recognized for his pioneering contributions to nanoscience. He earned a BA from Oberlin College (USA) and a PhD in photo-physical chemistry from Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris. After research positions at Notre Dame Radiation Laboratory and NEC in Japan and Princeton, he joined Strasbourg’s Institute of Supramolecular Science and Engineering (ISIS) in 1999, serving as director from 2005 to 2012. He currently leads the International Center for Frontier Research in Chemistry (ICFRC) and the University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study (USIAS).

Prof. Ebbesen’s research has transformed optics and chemistry. At NEC, he worked on carbon nanomaterials and discovered extraordinary optical transmission, showing that light can pass efficiently through subwavelength holes in metals—contradicting accepted theory and enabling applications from optoelectronics to sensing. Since 2005, he has pioneered polaritonic chemistry, exploring strong light–matter coupling to control chemical properties. His achievements have earned major honors: EuroPhysics Prize (2001), France Telecom Prize (2005), EPS Quantum Optics Prize (2009), Kavli Prize in Nanoscience (2014), CNRS Gold Medal (2019), and honorary doctorates from Oberlin College and the University of Leuven. He is a member of several prestigious academies, held the Liliane Bettencourt Chair at Collège de France, and was named Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 2017.

 Prof. Gregory D. Scholes.  Greg Scholes is the William S. Tod Professor of Chemistry at Princeton University. Originally from Melbourne, Australia, he later undertook postdoctoral training at Imperial College London and University of California Berkeley. He started his independent career at the University of Toronto (2000-2014) where he was the D.J. LeRoy Distinguished Professor. He was appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters in 2019. Dr. Scholes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (London) in 2019 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2009. He served as Chair of Department at Princeton 2020-2023 and Director of an Energy Frontier Research Center (BioLEC) since 2018.

 Prof. Scholes provides extensive experience in multidisciplinary areas relating to physical chemistry, materials science, quantum information, and biophysics. He employs both theory and experimental tools to understand photo-initiated processes in biological and chemical systems. Significantly, he has made seminal contributions in understanding nature’s ability to harness light to facilitate reactions such as photosynthesis. Prof. Scholes is consistently breaking new ground in molecular photophysics and photo-initiated dynamics by intermixing experimental techniques such as multidimensional electronic spectroscopy, with quantum chemical and theoretical approaches. Apart from studying ultrafast dynamics, he also actively investigates a diverse array of topics ranging from strong light-matter coupling to coherence phenomena in chemistry.

 Prof. Jonathan R. Woodward.  Jonathan R. Woodward is a Professor in the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo. He received his combined bachelors / masters degree in chemistry from the University of Oxford and his DPhil in physical chemistry from the same University. He undertook postdoctoral research positions at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) in Japan and then back in Oxford. In 2001 he was appointed as Lecturer in Chemistry at the University of Leicester, becoming Senior Lecturer in 2007. In 2008 he moved to Tokyo Institute of Technology (now Institute of Science, Tokyo) before joining the University of Tokyo in 2011. He was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Teaching Award in 2007.

 Prof. Woodward’s research focusses on the effects of electron spin on chemical reactions and biological processes. His interdisciplinary research group develops and employs new experimental methodologies to investigate the effects of magnetic fields on photochemical processes, in systems ranging from simple chemical reactions to complex processes in living systems. He provided the first demonstration of the modulation of chemical reaction yields using radiofrequency radiation and has more recently pioneered the microscopic imaging techniques to study spin correlated radical pairs in living cells. He is particularly interested in the potentially harmful or helpful effects of magnetic fields on humans, with an aim to characterize the roles played by electron spin-dependent reactions. He also has a strong interest in science education and outreach with a focus on finding intuitive ways to explain challenging concepts.

 Dr. Hiroshi Murakami is a research scientist in National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST). He received PhD in physics from Osaka university and studied in Riken and JAEA (Japan atomic energy agency). He works on condensed matter physics using various laser spectroscopies including ultrafast methods in the spectral range from X-ray to terahertz. Dr. Murakami is currently focused into studies on Fröhlich’s cell model based on terahertz vibrational condensation.

 As the first step to explore its physical aspects, he developed a setup of in situ spectroscopies such as terahertz spectroscopy under microwave (2.45 GHz) irradiation for nanoscale reverse micelles and was successful in observing the terahertz vibrational condensation.