Maryam Moridsadat holds a master degree in Photonics Engineering (nanophotonics) from University of Tabriz, Iran (2017) with a focus on semiconductor plasmonic at THz range. She also received her Bachelor degree in Electronics Engineering from Shahid Chamran University, Iran (2012). During her PhD journey she works on neuromorphic photonics systems. Furthermore, she likes to spend her free time hiking, skiing and travelling.

Bicky Marquez received her Ph.D. in Optics/Photonics from Bourgogne-Franche-Comté University, France in 2018, where she worked for Professor Laurent Larger. She also holds a Bachelor's (2012) and Master's (2014) degrees from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) and the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC), respectively. Her interests and directions are focused on nonlinear and complex dynamical systems, machine learning & AI photonic hardware. Additionally, she likes to spend her free time traveling and painting/drawing. Check out her website for more information.

Hugh is pursuing his graduate degree at Queen’s researching neuromorphic silicon photonic systems. He received the B.A.Sc from Queen's in Engineering Physics with an option in Computing. His undergraduate thesis was on the simulation of silicon photonic neural network architectures. His interests are in novel computing systems and artificial intelligence.

Bhavin J. Shastri is a Canada Research Chair in Neuromorphic Photonic Computing, an Assistant Professor of Engineering Physics at Queen’s University, Canada, and a Member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada. He earned his Honours B.Eng. (with distinction), M.Eng., and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (Photonics) from McGill University, Canada, in 2005, 2007, and 2012, respectively. He was an NSERC and Banting Postdoctoral Fellow (2012–2016) and later served as an Associate Research Scholar (2016–2018) at Princeton University. Dr. Shastri’s research interests include nanophotonics, photonic integrated circuits, neuromorphic computing, and quantum neural networks. He has published over 105 journal articles, 135 conference proceedings, and seven book chapters, and has delivered more than 110 invited talks and lectures, including eight keynotes. He is a co-author of the book Neuromorphic Photonics (Taylor & Francis, 2017), a term he coined alongside Prof. Paul Prucnal (Princeton). He is also a Faculty Affiliate at the Vector Institute and a Visiting Faculty member at Princeton University.

Dr. Shastri is the Scientific Co-Director of NUCLEUS, a pan-Canadian photonic computing program funded by NSERC CREATE, bridging artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum information. He was named a 2025 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Physics and, in 2024, was recognized by Science News as one of its SN 10 Scientists to Watch. A Senior Member of Optica and IEEE, his accolades include the 2022 SPIE Early Career Achievement Award and the 2020 IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Optics, awarded by the International Commission of Optics (ICO) “for his pioneering contributions to neuromorphic photonics.” Dr. Shastri has received numerous other awards, including the 2024 Early Researcher Award from Ontario, the 2022 iCANX Young Scientist Award, 2014 Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Government of Canada, the 2012 D. W. Ambridge Prize for the top graduating Ph.D. student at McGill, the 2011 IEEE Photonics Society Graduate Student Fellowship, the 2011 NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship, the 2011 SPIE Scholarship in Optics and Photonics, and the 2008 NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship. Dr. Shastri has also received multiple Best Student Paper Awards, including at the 2014 IEEE Photonics Conference, the 2010 IEEE Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems, the 2004 IEEE Computer Society Lance Stafford Larson Outstanding Student Award, and the 2003 IEEE Canada Life Member Award.