Dr Maria Wall is associate professor at the Division of Energy and Building Design, Lund University, Sweden. She has a MSc in Architecture and a PhD in Engineering. Over the years, her research has included different issues related to energy-efficient buildings as well as solar energy strategies. She is presently leader of the research project IEA SHC Task 63 on Solar Neighborhood Planning (2019-2023), including both passive and active solar energy strategies. She was former leader of the IEA SHC Task 41 on Solar Energy and Architecture (2009-2012) that focused on active solar technologies for buildings, especially architectural aspects, and was then appointed as leader for the IEA SHC Task 51 on Solar Energy in Urban Planning (2013-2018).

She was the main initiator and developer, and is also the Director of the 2-year Master’s Programme in Energy-efficient and Environmental Building Design at Lund University. This programme is enrolling international students from different backgrounds, both in architecture and in engineering, since interdisciplinary teamwork is needed when designing sustainable buildings and neighborhoods.

Prof. Ricardo Rüther is a Professor of Solar Energy at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (www.ufsc.br) in Florianopolis-Brazil, where he carries out R&D and academic activities in the field of solar photovoltaics, solar irradiation resource assessment, electrochemical storage and electromobility. He completed a BE with honours and a M.Sc. degree in Metallurgy and Materials Science at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, and obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Western Australia at the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering. He was an Alexander von Humboldt post-doctoral research fellow at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Germany, and was tenured at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in 2000, where he is the director of the Solar Energy Research Laboratory Fotovoltaica/UFSC (www.fotovoltaica.ufsc.br). Prof. Rüther was a member of the ISES Board of Directors in the 2005-2007 and 2008-2010 periods. He joined ISES in 1991, and became an ISES  lifetime gold member in 2008.

Dr. Renné served as President of the International Solar Energy Society from 2010 - 2019.  From 1991 until his retirement in 2012 Dr. Renné managed the solar resource assessment activities at the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).  In 2012 he formed the consultancy Dave Renne Renewables.  He is dedicated to the concept of urgently achieving 100% renewable energy to meet all of our end use energy requirements as the best solution to the climate crisis.

Geoff Stapleton specialized in solar (PV) energy in the final year of his electrical engineering degree in 1981. He has worked in the solar industry since 1987. In 1998 he was one of the co-founders of Global Sustainable Energy Solutions Pty Ltd (GSES). GSES is a multi-disciplinary organization specializing in professional engineering and training services across the Renewable Energies sector. In 2010 through funding from REEEP, GSES acted as project manager and helped the industry in the Pacific create their own industry association known as Sustainable Energy Industry Association of Pacific Islands (SEIAPI). 

Dr. Viktoria Martin is Professor in Energy Technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. A graduate from KTH (MSc in Chemical Engineering 1993) and the University of Florida (PhD in Mechanical Engineering 1998), she has pursued a career in international research collaborations within the International Energy Agency as well as the EU, providing insight into a variety of leading research and education arenas. Dr. Martin has over 25 years of experience in education, research, and entrepreneurship in the area of sustainable energy, with special focus on thermal energy storage and heat driven heat pumping technology. She is the author/co-author of 100+ publications within her research area. Equally important to research is her work on high quality education within the field, and she is presently the director of a two-year MSc degree programme in Sustainable Energy Engineering with participants from all over the world.

Dr. Kemal Gani Bayraktar is Marketing Director of Izocam, with a mechanical engineering background in the field of energy. His interests are mainly focused on energy, renewables, insulation and construction technologies, policy, environment and climate change, low carbon economy, innovation, sustainability, clustering and vocational training. He is actively participating to regulatory works and working in NGOs. He represents Solar Energy industry as the Past President of Turkish Solar Energy Society and HVAC industry as the General Secretary of Turkish Society of HVAC & Sanitary Engineers, TTMD. He is also representing Republic of Turkey as ExCo Member in the IEA Solar Heating Cooling Program. 

Professor Klaus Vajen is director of the Institute of Thermal Engineering at the University of Kassel, Germany, where he holds the chair of Solar- and Systems Engineering, and furthermore distinguished professor of the Technical University of Kyrgyzstan in Bishkek. He holds a PhD in applied physics and is (co-)author of 300+ publications about (solar) thermal engineering, university education and energy policy. He is founder and director of the MSc-programme “Renewable Energies and Energy Efficiency” at the University of Kassel, as well as founder and head of the council “University Educations on Renewable Energies” with 120+ professors from German speaking countries. He developed and coordinates the Europe-wide PhD-education on solar thermal technology, together with Professor U. Jordan.

Klaus was member of the ISES Board of Directors from 2003-2011 and is a member again since 2018. He was Vice-president of ISES 2006-2007, founder of Young ISES (together with J. McIntosh) and Chair of the Solar World Congress 2011 in Kassel.