Moshe Matalon received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Tel Aviv University and his Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Cornell University. After two years on the faculty of the Aerodynamics Laboratories of the Polytechnic Institute of New York, he joined the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University where he served on the faculty of the department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics for twenty-six years. Since 2007, he has been the Grainger College of Engineering Caterpillar Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests are in Combustion Theory. He is particularly known for the derivation and hydrodynamic theory of premixed flames and the well-known flame-speed/flame-stretch relation, the characterization of intrinsic instabilities in premixed and diffusion flames, the analysis of the reaction zone of diffusion (non-premixed) flames for distinct and non-unity Lewis numbers, the structure and dynamics of lifted diffusion flames, and theories of turbulent flames in the flamelet regime of turbulent combustion. Matalon was recipient of the Ya. B. Zeldovich Gold Medal of the Combustion Institute, the Numa Manson Medal of the Institute for Dynamics of Explosions and Reactive Systems, and the Fluid Dynamics and Pendray Aerospace Literature Awards from AIAA. He is a Fellow of the Combustion Institute, AIAA, APS and IOP. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Combustion Theory and Modelling.

Henry Curran received his PhD degree in experimental and numerical studies of combustion kinetics from the University of Galway, Ireland in 1994 and a DSc degree by research from the National University of Ireland in October 2011. He is director of the Combustion Chemistry Centre and a member of the Board of Directors of the Combustion Institute. He is a member of the editorial board of Progress in Energy and Combustion Science and has served on the editorial boards of Combustion and Flame, the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute and Combustion Theory and Modeling. He is a founder member of the Irish Section of the Combustion Institute, a fellow of the Combustion Institute, the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland and the Royal Society of Chemistry. He was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in March 2015. He was awarded the Boyle-Higgins gold medal in Chemistry by the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland in April 2017 and the Yakov B. Zeldovich Gold Medal by the Combustion Institute in July 2022. He has been named by Clarivate Analytics as being among the top 1% of researchers cited in his field every year from 2014–2022. He was appointed Chief Technical Advisor for Chemical Kinetic Modeling by Convergent Science in 2017. He has more than 30 years’ experience in developing detailed chemical kinetic models to describe the combustion of hydrocarbon and oxygenated hydrocarbon fuels.

Venkat Raman received his PhD from Iowa State University in the Department of Chemical Engineering and was a NASA/Center for Turbulence Research Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University. Before joining the University of Michigan, he was on the faculty at The University of Texas at Austin. He is now a tenured professor at the University of Michigan in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. Raman received an NSF CAREER award in 2008, a distinguished paper award at the International Combustion Symposium in 2013, and he held the Eli. H and Ramona Thornton Centennial Fellow in Engineering at UT Austin from 2013-2014. He is a recipient of the George J. Huebener, Jr. Research Excellence Award from the University of Michigan. He was elected Fellow of the Combustion Institute in 2022 and serves as an Associate Editor of Combustion and Flame and the AIAA Journal of Propulsion and Power. As a faculty member, Raman has advised/is currently advising 40 PhD/MS students and has published more than 175 peer-reviewed articles in archival journals and conferences. Raman’s research interests lie in the broad area of computational propulsion but have more recently focused on detonation engines and scramjet-based hypersonic propulsion. Raman will serve as the Program co-Chair for the 41st International Symposium on Combustion, to be held in Kyoto, Japan, in 2026. 

Angela Violi is the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Associate Chair for Research in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan, also holding professorships in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Chemical Engineering. Her research uses molecular simulations and machine learning to investigate nanosystems, combustion, and biomedical applications. Notably, she developed the first atomistic model for particle formation in combustion (SNapS) and a machine learning pipeline for nanoscale interactions (NeCLAS). Her work spans from modeling novel fuels to studying the interactions of nanomaterials with biological systems. She has an extensive publication record and maintains active national and international collaborations. 

Nicole Riemer is a Professor at the Department of Climate, Meteorology, and Atmospheric Sciences and an Affiliate of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her Doctorate degree in Meteorology from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. Her research focus is the development of computer simulations that describe how aerosol particles are created, transported, and transformed in the atmosphere. Her group uses these simulations, together with observational data to understand how aerosol particles impact human health, weather, and climate. Nicole Riemer received the NSF CAREER award and the AGU Ascent award. She is an editor for the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Peter Sunderland is Professor of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland. His research is in fire dynamics and combustion, including pyrometry, laminar diffusion flames, soot formation and oxidation, microgravity combustion, and fires involving firebrands, refrigerants, hydrogen, highway vehicles, and spacecraft. His research has been funded by DOE, NASA, NIST, NSF, and industry. His degrees are from Cornell University (B.S.), the University of Massachusetts (M.S.), and the University of Michigan (Ph.D.). He is a Fellow of the Combustion Institute. He is co-author of over 70 journal articles and over 200 conference papers.