Francesc Illas (1954) obtained his chemistry degree and Ph. D at the Universitat de Barcelona where he became Full Professor of Physical Chemistry in 1992. He visited different research centres (IBM Almaden Research Center and Los Alamos National Laboratory)  and has been invited professor at Universita’ della Calabria  and Université Pierre et Marie Curie. He received the Distinguished Professor Mention for the Research Promotion awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya in 2001, the Bruker Physical Chemistry Research Award of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry in 2004 and the ICREA Academia Award in 2009 and again in 2015. In 2009 was elected Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences. In 2012 he joined the Editorial Board of Surface Science and of Theoretical Chemistry Accounts. In 2017 he was elected member of Academia Europeae. He published over 600 papers which received more than 22000 citations (WoS h-index = 73; Google Scholar h-index = 80). 

Giancarlo Franzese leads the Statistical Physics of Complex Matter group at UB. Ph.D. in Physics with honors, Associate Researcher at several universities (Rome, Boston, Naples), Visiting Professor at prestigious institutions (Boston, Cambridge, Dublin, Beijing, Porto Alegre), he arrived at Barcelona as Ramon y Cajal Researcher and became Tenured Professor in 2008 (Accredited as Full Professor since 2012). Member of the Steering Committee and the Outreach Commission of the UB Institute for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology-IN2UB,  of the International Advisory Board of the European Molecular Liquids Group, he won several prizes (CNR 2000, UB 2012, Royal Society of Chemistry-UK 2012, Campania-Felix 2016) and scientific journals Covers (2007, 2020). He ranks within the Top Scientists in Spain and Italy in Multidisciplinary Physics and gave more than 120 Invited Talks, with more than 100 publications (with 2 Highly Cited Papers in Supercooled Water and 3 in Physics).

Jaume Casademunt (1962) got a degree in Physics in 1985 with honors, and a PhD in Physics in 1988, as MEC fellow, at the University of Barcelona. In 1989-91 got a Fulbright fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh, and in 1991-93 was a research associate at Supercomputer C. Res. I. (Tallahassee). He became associate professor at the UB in 1993, and full professor in 2017. He has been invited as visitor at I. Curie (Paris), Max Planck PKS I. (Dresden), and PBT/TU Berlin. In 2016 he was appointed International Visiting Chair at the Lab of Excellence CelTisPhyBio (I. Curie/ESPCI). His contributions span the area of nonequilibrium physics, recently focused in biophysics. He is recognized for pioneering a nonlinear physics approach to biological problems. He has led international projects and served in international funding agencies and top journals (APS outstanding referee). Member of the Editorial Board of the new open access journal ‘Biophysica’.

Marta Cascante is Full Professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at University of Barcelona (UB) and leader of the Integrative Systems Biology, Metabolomics and Cancer team. She holds a degree in chemistry and a PhD in biochemistry from UB, where she was distinguished with the Outstanding Graduate and Thesis Awards. She has authored over 270 publications, two of them cited in Stryer biochemistry textbook and supervised over 30 PhDs. She is partner of three European translational research projects (H2020) in the field of systems medicine and metabolomics and coordinator of several Spanish funded research projects. She is member of the editorial advisory boards of Metabolomics and BMC Syst. Biol. She served in the scientific committee of numerous international conferences. Marta Cascante has been distinguished with Icrea Academia Prize 2010 & 2015, the Narcís Monturiol Medal 2015 and the Antoni Caparros Prize 2016 for scientific and knowledge transfer merits