Luisa Torsi is internationally renowned as a pioneer in bio-organic electronic sensors and elected member of the Accademia dei Lincei. She earned a degree in Physics and a PhD in Chemistry from the Uni-versity of Bari, where she has served as Full Professor of Analytical Chemistry since the age of 40. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Bell Labs in the U.S., she developed an interdisciplinary research approach that integrates electronic devices, analytical chemistry, and organic semiconductors. She also held a position as adjunct professor at Åbo Akademi University in Finland and currently occupies leadership roles, including Vice President of the Scientific Council of the National Research Council (CNR) and President of ARTI Puglia, the regional agency for innovation and technology transfer.
Torsi has received numerous international accolades: she was the first woman to receive the Heinrich Emanuel Merck Award for Analytical Sciences and she was also awarded the Exner Medal. She was awarded the prestigious President of the Republic Prize by the Accademia dei Lincei in 2023. In 2025, she has also been awarded an honorary doctorate from Åbo Akademi University. She is also a Fellow of both the Materials Research Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry and was also the first woman elected President of the European Materials Rese-arch Society.
With over 280 scientific publications, approximately 19,000 citations, and 14 patents (10 granted), Torsi ranks among the top 0.58% most-cited chemists in the world, according to ScholarGPS®. She has given more than 200 invited talks, including over 60 plenary lectures.
She has led numerous national and EU-funded research projects, including SiMoT, a platform for ultra-sensitive biomarker detection applied to early cancer diagnosis and viral screening such as COVID-19. She currently coordinates a project focused on detecting Xylella in olive trees in Apulia. Her dedication also extends to science communication and the promotion of women in STEM—through TEDx talks, the 100Esperte initiative, and even a feature in the Italian Topolino magazine, where she appeared as “Louise Torduck,” a successful scientist from Calisota Valle;
Website: https://www.uniba.it/docenti/torsi-luisa
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0798-0780
Researcher ID & Scopus ID: G-9065-2011; 7005294241
Dr. Xing Wang is a Bioengineering professor, affiliated with the Chemistry Department, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB), Holonyak Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory (HMNTL), and Cancer Center at Illinois (CCIL) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). He received a Ph.D. from New York University, working with Dr. Ned Seeman to build biofunctional DNA motifs. He did his postdoc training at Princeton University with a focus on nucleic acid engineering and RNA biology. At UIUC, Dr. Wang directs the Nucleic Acids Programming Lab (NAPL), and his research group utilizes nucleic acid and protein engineering to evolve new molecular ligands for targeted drug delivery and create designer DNA nanostructure-based “plug-and-play” platforms for the applications in disease diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Wang is a recipient of Mikashi Award in 2021. He was selected as a Fellow of Y Combinator Founder Cohort in 2021. He received a Spoke Award in 2024. Dr. Wang’s research group is mainly supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF).
Olivier Soppera is Research Director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and leads the PHOTON research group at the Institut de Science des Matériaux de Mulhouse (IS2M, France). He graduated in Chemistry at ENS Cachan and obtained his PhD from the University of Haute-Alsace in 2003, working on photopolymerization processes in hybrid. materials. After a postdoctoral fellowship in Portugal, he joined CNRS in 2004, where he progressively developed a research program at the interface of photochemistry, nanofabrication, and materials science.
Over the past two decades, his work has focused on the use of light as a versatile tool for materials design and structuring, with a strong emphasis on sol–gel chemistry, hybrid materials, and laser-assisted processing. He has pioneered photoinduced strategies for the fabrication of nanostructured films, functional coatings, and responsive surfaces with tunable optical and chemical properties.
His current projects span several research directions, including laser-assisted nanofabrication, development of hybrid organic–inorganic materials, and the integration of metallic nanoparticles to exploit plasmonic effects . These approaches open new perspectives for advanced optical sensors, environmental monitoring devices, and biomedical applications.
Olivier Soppera has coordinated and participated in numerous national and European research projects and has established long-term collaborations with both academic institutions and industrial partners. He is the author of more than 180 peer-reviewed publications and several patents. In addition to his scientific activities, he has been actively involved in fostering international collaborations, in particular with Taiwan and contributing to the scientific networks in France on Photochemistry (SP2P at SCF) and Nanosciences (C’Nano).
Talk Title: Molecularly Imprinted Polymers Meets Plasmonics: Light-Assisted Routes to Smart Sensors
Professor Rosaria Rinaldi is currently Full Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the Department of Mathematics and Physics “E. De Giorgi” of University of Salento, and she is a member of the Academic University Senate. Since 2019 she is Member of the Ministry of University and Research (MUR) Evaluation Committee for Flag Projects and Interest Projects to be implemented by public research institutions. Prof. Rinaldi is currently in charge of the research center in "Nanomedicine, Nanobioelectronics and Nanobiotechnology", at University of Salento. In 2005 R.R. was awarded the medal of "Le Scienze" and the medal of the President of the Republic (Carlo Azeglio Ciampi) for research carried out in the field of Nanobiotechnology. Since 2010, she was head of the Natural Sciences Area of and vice-director of University excellence school ISUFI till 2020. In 2015 she was visiting professor, winning an international selection for the "Eleonore Trefftz" chair, at the Technical University of Dresden in Germany. She was the coordinator of the doctoral school in Interdisciplinary Sciences and Technologies and Nanoscience at S.S. ISUFI and the coordinator of the doctoral school in Physics and Nanoscience, till 2020. She won the "ITWIIN-High Education" award (2016) and was one of the finalists for the 2017 EuWIIN “European Women Inventors and Innovators Network” contest prize. R.R. has coordinated or been a partner in more than 30 scientific projects at regional, national and EU level, in the last 15 years. R.R. is author and co-author of about 310 papers published in international scientific journals,13 monographs and book chapters, and 12 patents (H-index:40).