Honorary researcher of the Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy, whose director she was for 15 years (1990-2005); President of the Astronomy Education and Development Commission of the International Astronomical Union – IAU (2006-2009), President of the IAU Working Group The Future Development of the Ground-Based Astrometry (2000-2009), President of the Working Group Astronomy and Cultural Heritage of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture – SEAC (from 2004), member of the International Society for Science and Religion – ISSR, of the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research – CIRET, of the Romanian Committee for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, President of the Institute for Transdisciplinary Studies in Science, Spirituality and Society – IT4S and of the Association for Dialogue between Science and Religion in Romania – ADSTR, Officier de l'Ordre National du Mérite (France, 2005).

More than 300 scientific articles, of which more than half in peer-reviewed journals, hundreds of articles and scientific papers for the public. Co-editor of the series „ Ştiinţă şi Religie / Science and Religion”, „ Ştiinţă, Spiritualitate, Societate / Science Spirituality, Society”, „Curtea Veche” Publishing. Editor or co-editor of several volumes, such as: Theoretical and Observational Problems Related to Solar Eclipses (1997), Advances in Solar Research at Eclipses from Ground and from Space (2000), Leçons d’astronomie (2003), Astrometry for Astrophysics (2013), 14 Steps to the Universe (2015).

Author or co-author of many books: Astronomical Observatory, 75 Years of Existence (1983), Cometa Halley / Halley Comet (1985), La drum cu Pământul / On the Road with the Earth (1986), Coopération entre astronomes roumains et français − une longue tradition (1995), Întuneric în plină zi / Darkness in Broad Daylight (1999), Mic dicţionar al eclipselor / Small Dictionary of Eclipses (1999, in English 2000), Timpul de-a lungul...timpului / The Time along… the Time (2002), După 122 de ani: Venus şi Soarele / After 122 years: Venus and the Sun (2004), Histoire celeste. Entre Roumanie et France (2008), Bucharest Observatory Centennary (2008), Istoria astronomiei româneşti / History of the Romanian Astronomy – DVD (2014), Constantin Pârvulescu, erou şi cercetător al cerului / Constantin Pârvulescu, Hero and Researcher of the Sky (2015), Astronomul Nicolae Donici; enigme descifrate / The Astronomer Nicolae Donici, Deciphered Enigma (2015), Astronomia şi Academia Română / The Astronomy and the Romanian Academy (2016).

Jeffrey J.P. Tsai received a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. He is the President of Asia University, Taiwan. He was a Professor of Computer Science and the Director of the Distributed Real-Time Intelligent Systems Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Chicago, an Adjunct Professor at Tulane University, a Visiting Professor at Stanford University, a Senior Research Fellow of IC2 at the University of Texas at Austin, and a Visiting Scholar at the University of California at Berkeley.

His current research interests include bioinformatics, ubiquitous computing, services computing, intrusion detection, knowledge-based software engineering, formal modeling and verification, distributed real-time systems, and intelligent agents. His research has been supported by NSF, NSC, DARPA, USAF Rome Laboratory, Department of Defense, Army Research Laboratory, Motorola, Fujitsu, and Gtech.Tsai authored Knowledge-Based Software Development for Real-Time Distributed Systems (World Scientific, 1993), Distributed Real-Time Systems (Wiley, 1996), Compositional Verification of Concurrent and Real-Time Systems (Springer, 2002), Security Modeling and Analysis of Mobile Agent Systems (Imperial College Press, 2006), Intrusion Detection: A Machine Learning Approach (Imperial College Press, 2010), and coedited Monitoring and Debugging of Distributed Real-Time Systems (IEEE Computer Society Press, 1995), Machine Learning Applications in Software Engineering (WSP, 2005), Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing (Springer, 2006), Machine Learning in Cyber Trust: Security, Privavcy, Reliability (Springer, 2009) . From 2000 to 2003, he chaired the IEEE/CS Technical Committee on Multimedia Computing and served on the steering committee of the IEEE Transactions on Multimedia. From 1994 to 1999, he was an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering and he is currently an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Services Computing. Tsai served as the Conference Co-Chair of the 16th IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering, the 9th IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia, the 1st IEEE International Conference on Sensor Networks, Ubiquitous, and Trustworthy Computing, and the 3rd IFIP International Conference on Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing.

He is currently the CoEditor-in-Chief of the International Journal on Artificial Intelligence Tools and Book Series on Health Informatics. Tsai has served on the IEEE Distinguished Speaker program, DARPA ISAT working group, and on the review panels for NSF and NIH. He received an Engineering Foundation Research Award from the IEEE and the Engineering Foundation Society, a University Scholar Award from the University of Illinois Foundation, an IEEE Technical Achievement Award and an IEEE Meritorious Service Award from the IEEE Computer Society. He is a Fellow of the AAAS, the IEEE , and the SDPS.

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Professor Orhan Guvenen is an expert in the fields of Strategic Decision Systems, Information Systems, Econometrics and International Economy. He holds a B.Sc. in Econometrics from Istanbul Universitesi, and his M.Sc., in Econometrics, from the Universita Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), France. He was awarded his Ph.D. in Econometrics and International Economy, also from La Sorbonne, in 1975. From 1979-1988, Prof. Guvenen was Research Director and Professor of Applied Econometrics at the Universita Paris, during which time he also worked with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Paris.

Prof. Guvenen joined Bilkent University in 1988, as Professor of Strategic Decision Systems, Econometrics and International Economics, and as founding director of the Institute of World Systems, Economies and Strategic Research (DSEE). He has been Chair of the Department of Accounting Information Systems since August 2000, and is also a member of the executive board of the UNAM National Nanotechnology Research Center, as well as chairman of the Advisory Committee on Strategy, Economy and Industry at Bilkent. From 1997 to 2009, he worked closely with the Prime Ministry of Turkey and held various administrative roles for UNESCO. He is currently the president of the Applied Econometrics Association. Prof. Guvenen has published numerous books and papers internationally and in Turkey, and holds many awards and honors. As well as being a native Turkish speaker, he also speaks fluent English, French and Italian.

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Dr. Hiroshi Yamaguchi received his B.S. degree in Instrumentation Engineering from Keio University and the Dr.  Eng.  degree in information Security from Chuo Uni-versity in Japan.  He originally joined NEC Corporation in 1963, in the Computer Software Development Department and has served as the vice president in NEC Soft. LTD. He was a Director of the basic operating systems of a super-computer, large scale computer and personal computer.  He also pioneered the Information Security Research Institute and the collaboration with the Universities in the USA. He worked as a head of the research and development team on the next generation electronic voting system funded by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) in Japan.  He was serving as a Visiting Professor in the Bioinformatics Research Institute, Waseda University, Japan since 2004.  Currently he is serving as a Full Professor in the Research and Development Initiative, Chuo University, Japan.  He served as a President of Software Engineering Society (The SES), and currently serving the research fellow of the Society of Development and Process Science (The SDPS) and a Vice President of Academy of Transdisciplinary Learning & Study Studies (The ATLAS). He is currently engaged in the research project funded by the National Institute of Information and Communication Technology (NICT). He is currently working as a subdirector of the Melt-up Forum participated from Japanese Government, major IT venders in Japan.  His research interests focus upon the cryptographic theory, modern logic cryptology and cognitive science.  He received the best paper award on information sharing on DOD 14th ICCRTS, 2009.  He has been a keynote at several international conferences, such as IEEE-ICTAI, HASE, IEEE-BIBE, SDPS, and Advanced Concept of Information Security Comprehensive Science IEEE-ISM.

As vice chancellor, Banks oversees coordination and collaboration among the engineering, academic and research programs at seven universities throughout the A&M System, as well as three state agencies: the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI). Banks also is TEES director, overseeing research administration of more than 4,400 projects and $157M million in sponsored research awards.

As dean of the Look College and holder of the Harold J. Haynes Dean's Chair in Engineering, Banks leads one of the largest engineering schools in the country, with more than 13,000 students and nearly 400 faculty. Recently, Dr. Banks initiated the 25 by 25 program, which will increase the engineering enrollment at Texas A&M to 25,000 by 2025.

Banks was previously the Bowen Engineering Head for the School of Civil Engineering at Purdue University and the Jack and Kay Hockema Professor at Purdue. She received her B.S.E. from the University of Florida, M.S.E. from the University of North Carolina, and Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering from Duke University.

Banks is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers. She has received numerous awards including the ASCE Petersen Outstanding Woman of the Year Award, ASCE Rudolph Hering Medal, Purdue Faculty Scholar Award, Sloan Foundation Mentoring Fellowship and the American Association of University

Dr. Bosheng Zhou is the founder and honorary Dean of Software Engineering Institute of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astrophysics (BUAA). He was the Chief scientist and project manager of China's first national software project on Integrated Software Engineering Environment, which pioneered China's software industry. He was also the first Chief CMMI instructor in China. He is Chairman and founder of Cyber Keji Park Inc. in USA and Beijing Cyber Science and Technology Inc. in China partnership with Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU/SEI) to provide the process improvement services in China. Prof. Zhou has received numerous awards including First Class Awards in Science and Technology in China as well as Distinguished Contribution Award from Beijing Science and Technology Committee. He has published more than 100 papers and translated more than 20 books on a variety of topics in software engineering and management.

Jin-Fu Chang was born in 1948 in Taiwan. He received his B. S. in Electrical Engineering from the National Taiwan University (1970) and Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California at Berkeley (1977). In his past, he had held teaching and research positions at the National Taiwan University, National Central University, and National Chi Nan University in Taiwan and the Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, California, USA.

He also has held a number of administrative posts in Taiwan including Department Head of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University; Director of the Office of Science and Technology Advisory Office, Ministry of Education; Dean of Academic Affairs, National Central University; Deputy Minister of the National Science Council; President of the National Chi Nan University; Minister of the Executive Yuan (Cabinet) of the Government of Taiwan, Board Chairman of Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), and Governor of Taiwan Province.

He is presently President of Yuan-Ze University and Board Chairman of Institute for Information Industry (III). His recent research interest is wireless communications, particularly wireless mobile communications under very high mobility.

Theoretical physicist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris, France. Professor at the Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Member of the Romanian Academy. Professor Extraordinary at the School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Founding member of ISSR. President-Founder of the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research and Studies (CIRET), a non-profit organization (165 members from 26 countries), which has a web site at : http://ciret-transdisciplinarity.org/index.php. Founder and Director of the Transdisciplinarity Series, Rocher Editions, Monaco, of the Romanians in Paris Series, Oxus Editions, Paris and of the Science and Religion Series, Curtea Veche, Bucharest (in collaboration with Magda Stavinschi). A specialist in the theory of elementary particles, Basarab Nicolescu is the author of 130 articles in leading international scientific journals, has made numerous contributions to science anthologies and participated in several dozen French radio and foreign multimedia documentaries on science. Basarab Nicolescu is a major advocate of the transdisciplinary reconciliation between Science and the Humanities.

He published many articles on the role of science in the contemporary culture in journals in USA, France, Romania, Italy, United Kingdom, Brazil, Argentina and Japan. His books include : From Modernity to Cosmodernity - Science, Culture, and Spirituality, State University of New York (SUNY) Press, New York, 2014, Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity, State University of New York (SUNY) Press, New York, 2002; Nous, la particule et le monde, Rocher, Monaco, 2002 (2nd edition) ; Science, Meaning and Evolution - The Cosmology of Jacob Boehme, Parabola Books, New York, 1991. He “recently” edited Transdisciplinarity -Theory and Practice, Hampton Press, Cresskill, New Jersey, 2008. A complete biobibliography of Dr. Basarab Nicolescu can be found on the page: http://basarab-nicolescu.fr/.

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Professor Paul Gibbs is Director of Education Research at the University of Middlesex. His first degree in Psychology was awarded by the University of Wales, his Masters in Education (Education and Trust) is from Cambridge University, and his three doctoral awards were received from Southampton University (Ph.D.) and Middlesex University (Doctor of Professional Studies (Transdisciplinary Studies) and D.Litt. (Higher Education)). He is a professor of the University, founder of the Centre for Education Research and Scholarship and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Open University in Hong Kong and the University of Cyprus. He is an educator and researcher having taught notions of transdisciplinarity alongside social realism and Heideggerian hermeneutics, and has over 30 successful transdisciplinary professional doctorate students. He has published 20 books on topics ranging from the marketing of higher education to vocationalism and higher education, and has published more than 80 academic articles. His particular approach to transdisciplinarity that informs his work is through the works of Heidegger, neo-Confucian thought and the insights of Basarab Nicolescu. He is currently completing two books: one on Transdisciplinary Higher Education and one on Happiness. He is also Series Editor of SpringerBriefs on Key Thinkers in Education and Debating Higher Education: Philosophical Perspectives for Springer Academic Press and Series Editor of Praxis in Education with Bloomsbury Press. He remains active in transdisciplinary educational research leading a cross-cultural research group studying happiness and trust in higher education, funded by Charles Lam.