Prof. Jeremy J. Baumberg FRS, FRSC, is the Harald Aspden Professor of Fundamental Physics at the University of Cambridge, directing a key UK NanoPhotonics Centre. He develops optical materials structured on the nanoscale, with strong experience at Hitachi, IBM, and his spin-offs combining academic insight with translation. He is a leading innovator in Nano (h-120), leading to awards including the IoP Faraday gold Medal (2017) and Royal Society Rumford Medal (2014). He is currently chair of the UK EPSRC Council. His recent popular science book “The Secret Life of Science: How Science Really Works and Why it Matters” focuses on research culture. np.phy.cam.ac.uk.

Speech Title: Ultra-robust recleanable SERS and SEIRA sensors using plasmonic metamaterials

David Klenerman is a physical chemist who graduated and completed his doctorate at Cambridge University working with Professor Ian Smith on infra-red chemiluminescence for his PhD in 1985. This was followed by postdoctoral research at Stanford University, California with Professor Dick Zare on high overtone chemistry. He then returned to the U.K. and worked for seven years for BP Research in their Laser Spectroscopy Group before returning to the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, progressing to a Professorship. At Cambridge his work has focussed on the development and application of physical methods, particularly laser spectroscopy and single molecule fluorescence, to biological and biomedical problems, including co-inventing next generation DNA sequencing. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Speech Title: Coming Soon

Ben Schuler is Professor of Molecular Biophysics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He studies the dynamics and interactions of biomolecules – especially intrinsically disordered proteins – using biophysical methods, in particular single-molecule spectroscopy. A key goal of his work is to achieve mechanistic understanding based on the close integration of experiments and quantitative physical models. Ben received his Ph.D. in Regensburg, Germany, and did his postdoctoral research at the Laboratory of Chemical Physics at the National Institutes of Health, USA, then briefly led an independent research group at the University of Potsdam, Germany. In 2004, he joined the University of Zurich, Switzerland, as Assistant Professor, and was promoted to Full Professor in 2009. He is a member of the Department of Biochemistry and an Affiliated Member of the Department of Physics. Among other distinctions, he received the Kazuhiko Kinosita Award in Single-Molecule Biophysics, and he is a Fellow of the Biophysical Society, the American Physical Society, and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

Speech Title: Probing rapid biomolecular dynamics with single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy