MARIA KAFESAKI is associated Researcher at IESL-FORTH and Professor in the Dept. of Materials Science and Technology of the University of Crete. She obtained her Ph.D. in 1997, at the Physics Department of the University of Crete, and she has worked as post-doctoral researcher at CSIC, Spain, and as researcher at IESL-FORTH. Her current research is on the area of electromagnetic (EM) wave propagation in periodic and random media, with emphasis on photonic crystals and metamaterials, where she has long year theoretical and computational experience.  She has more than 110 publications in refereed journals and more than 70 invited talks at international conferences and schools. She has participated in many European projects as well as in the organization of many international conferences and schools. She is Fellow of Optica.

KONSTANTINOS KOURTZANIDIS is a Senior Research Associate in the Chemical Process and Energy Resources Institute (CPERI) of the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH, Thessaloniki Greece), as well as collaborating researcher at the Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH, Heraklion, Greece). He also serves as an adjunct lecturer in the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering at the International Hellenic University (IHU, Serres, Greece). He obtained his Ph.D. in 2014 from SUPAERO/ISAE (Toulouse, France) in collaboration with GREPHE/LAPLACE laboratory and ONERA (Toulouse, France), on numerical modeling of plasma actuators. He has worked as a post-doctoral fellow and research associate at the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics of the University of Texas at Austin (USA, 2015-2018) and ONERA– The French Aerospace Lab (France, 2018-2020). His current research focus is on atmospheric pressure low-temperature plasma discharges and their applications in sustainable chemistry, aerospace and energy sectors, including plasma-based metamaterials and photonic crystals. He has interdisciplinary expertise in multiphysical modeling, theory and numerical analysis of plasma physics, electromagnetism and fluid dynamics. He has more than 20 publications in refereed journals and has given several invited talks/seminars at international conferences and Institutions. He has participated in many projects funded by EU (Horizon Europe, H2020) as well as USA and French funding bodies.

ANNA TASOLAMPROU is Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and a collaborating researcher at the IESL-FORTH, Photonic-Phononic- and Meta-Materials (PPM) research group. Her research interests include the study of electromagnetism topics with an emphasis on wave propagation properties through random and periodic media, such as photonic crystals, liquid crystals, 2D materials, metamaterials and metasurfaces. The main goal of her study is the investigation and highlighting of exotic electromagnetic phenomena, as well as their use in cutting-edge technology applications.

ELEFTHERIOS ECONOMOU is a Researcher at IESL-FORTH and Emeritus Professor at the Physics Dept. of the University of Crete. He received his PhD in 1969 from the Physics Dept. of the University of Chicago, USA. He has been Professor at the University of Virginia, at the University of Athens and at the Physics Dept. of the University of Crete (from 1981 to 2007). He was the founder (together with colleagues) of FORTH, and its first president (1983-2004). He received honorary doctorate degrees from the Polytechnic of Grenoble (1994) and the University of Ioannina (2004). He has a strong research output on the properties of disordered systems, high Tc superconductors, amorphous semiconductors, and wave propagation in random media. In recent years he has been focused mostly on the study of elastic and electromagnetic wave propagation in complex media, mainly photonic crystals, phononic crystals and metamaterials. He is among the initiators of the field of phononic crystals. He has 266 publications in refereed journals and another 109 book chapters.  He has written thirteen books and has given many invited talks in conferences and at Universities/Institutes. He has been cited more than 18432 times according to Google Scholar (11519 citations to his papers according to Web of Science) and 2217 to his book on Green’s Functions.

COSTAS M. SOUKOULIS obtained his Ph.D. in 1978 at the Physics Department of University of Chicago. He is currently a senior scientist at FORTH and he was a Distinguished Professor of Physics at Iowa State University. He is a Fellow of the APS, Optica and AAAS. He has more than 400 publications in refereed journals and he has given more than 173 invited talks. His work on photonic band gaps (PBG), random lasers, plasmonics, graphene, metasurfaces and nonlinear systems is well known and well received. He has organized three NATO ASI on PBGs and he was the director of PECS-VI that took place in Crete in June 2005. He also has five patents concerning the potential applications of the photonic band gaps and left-handed materials. He has received the Senior Humboldt Research Award, the 2014 Max Born Award given by the Optica, the 2013 McGroddy Prize for New Materials awarded by the American Physical Society, and he has been included in the Highly Cited Researchers by Thompson-Reuters. In. He has lead R&D projects funded by the EU, NSF, DOE, DARPA, the Office of Naval Research, MUTI-AFOSR, NATO, EPRI and Ames Lab.

IOANNIS KATSANTONIS is PhD student in the Department of Materials Science and Technology of the University of Crete and at the Institute of Electronic Structure and laser (IESL) of Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH). He obtained his MSc. in Physics (Specialization in Theoretical Photonics-Lasers), at the Physics Department of the University of Patras, Greece. His current research interest is on the area of electromagnetic wave propagation in complex media, with emphasis on Non-Hermitian (PT-symmetric) metamaterials, Bi-isotropic materials (chiral metamaterials) and non-reciprocal materials.