Graham Bruce leads the Optical Manipulation group at the University of St Andrews. His work focuses on harnessing light for measurement, interleaving optical trapping, imaging, spectroscopy, wavefront shaping and speckle metrology to probe and analyse complex systems. His PhD in St Andrews focussed on holographic atom trapping, followed by postdoc work at Strathclyde on quantum simulation with ultracold atoms and a postdoc in St Andrews centred on levitated optomechanics. His recent work includes optical spectroscopic profiling through scattering media, alongside applications such as authenticating spirits in sealed bottles and detecting toxic pigments in historic materials, and has been recognised by awards including STEM for Britain and the Museums and Heritage Awards.

Dr Tom Charrett is a Lecturer in Optical Sensors within the Centre for Engineering Photonics at Cranfield University in the UK. He has been involved with optical instrumentation for over twenty years, with experience in a range of optical techniques including laser speckle correlation and speckle interferometry, full-field imaging instrumentation, and fibre optic and bulk optical interferometry. His current research includes the development of novel optical instrumentation for application in robotics, and automation and manufacturing including for Wire and Arc Additive manufacturing and laser processing.

Lucy is a senior postdoctoral researcher at Durham University, specialising in applications of Rydberg atom quantum technology for sensing and imaging. She was awarded her PhD from Durham in 2020, in which she focused on the development and characterisation of a novel terahertz imaging system using highly-excited atoms. As a postdoc, she has worked on several related projects including an InnovateUK collaboration exploring the commercial viability of this technology. She currently plays an active role in the UK Quantum Hub for Sensing, Imaging and Timing (QuSIT). Lucy is passionate about science communication and coordinates the development and delivery of outreach activities.

Professor Julian Fells gained a first class degree in Electronic Engineering from UCL in 1991 and a PhD from Bath University in 1995. He then spent 10 years within Corporate Research Centres, GEC Marconi and Nortel Networks, where he worked on a variety of optical devices and systems. He was then R&D Manager at Cambridge University spin-out Splashpower. In 2009 he joined the leadership team of Stingray Geophysical, where he led the development of an off-shore seismic optical fibre sensor system. In 2015 he moved to the University of Oxford, where he established and leads the Optical Fibre Sensors Group.

Originally a laser physicist, Tim worked in Munich, Oxford and Trento before settling in Southampton, where for 20 years his research group has explored the use of optical fields to manipulate atoms, particles and microstructures. The group’s current research interests focus on cold atom matterwave interferometry for inertial sensing, and the design of modulated pulses to achieve fidelity and stability in the presence of variations and inhomogeneities. Tim is the Director of the EPSRC CDT in Quantum Technology Engineering, and author of Introduction to the Physics of Waves.

Dimitars Jevtics (PhD, MInstP) received his Master of Engineering in Electronic Engineering and Nanotechnology from the University of York in 2015. That same year, he joined the Institute of Photonics at the University of Strathclyde as a PhD student, working on the heterogeneous integration of nanophotonic components, particularly nanowire lasers, using advanced micro‑transfer‑printing techniques. He now works as a senior Research Associate in the Integrated Optics group led by Prof. Michael J. Strain, where his research focuses on the design, fabrication, integration, and characterisation of next‑generation nanophotonic emitters for quantum and optical computing applications.

Samer Kurdi is an Assistant Professor at Heriot-Watt University’s Quantum Photonics Laboratory and holder of a Dutch NWO Veni Fellowship. His research explores spin and charge transport in quantum materials – including superconductors and twodimensional magnets – using nanoscale magnetic imaging using spin defects in wide bandgap semiconductors. His PhD at the University of Cambridge was part of the Marie Curie SELECTA network, focusing on magnetic materials and spintronics, complemented by research visits in Japan, Germany, and Italy. Before joining Heriot-Watt, he worked on quantum sensing and time-resolved magnetism at TU Delft and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Charalambos Louca is a physicist working at the frontier of atomically thin materials, polariton physics, and ultrafast nanophotonics. As a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, he studies and engineers strong nonlinear optical behaviour in low-dimensional semiconductors, hybrid light–matter quasiparticles, and plasmonic systems. His work has delivered advances in enhanced dipolar exciton–polariton nonlinearities and femtosecond switching in microcavities based on two-dimensional semiconductors. With research experience in Sheffield, Milan, and Cambridge, he is developing novel nanostructures for next-generation ultralow-energy optical technologies.