John is Professor of Biological Chemistry with particular interests in chemical ecology involving chemically mediated interactions between various organisms including pests attacking plants and animals.

John’s contributions to the field of chemical ecology have been acknowledged with the 1995 Rank Prize for Nutrition and Crop Husbandry, election to Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1996, election to Membership of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina in 2001 and received the International Society of Chemical Ecology Medal in 2002. John was appointed to CBE for Services to Biological Chemistry in 2004.

In 2008 he was jointly awarded the Wolf Foundation Prize in Agriculture. He presented the Royal Society’s premier lecture in the biological sciences, the Croonian Prize Lecture in 2008, and the Cornell University Lecture in 2009. He was awarded the International Congress of Entomology Certificate of Distinction at the XXIV International Congress of Entomology held in Korea, August 2012. He was elected International Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2014. He became President of the Royal Entomological Society in 2014 and in August 2017 gave the Sterling B Hendricks Memorial Prize Lecture at the 254th Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Washington DC. In 2020, John was elected Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.

Siegfried Roth graduated from the Max Planck Institute in Germany in 1990 and conducted postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and Princeton University in the United States. From 1998 to February 2025, he has been working at the Institute of Zoology, University of Cologne, Germany. In April 2025, he was introduced as high-level talents from Shanxi University. Siegfried Roth is an internationally renowned entomologist with a proven track record in the field of insect development and evolution.

His main research filed include the evolution and gene regulation of cell-to-cell communication in insects, the self-regulatory patterns and molecular mechanisms of insect somites and morphogenesis, and the influence of the evolution of insect morphogenesis on ecological development and evolution. Prof. Siegfried Roth has received 13 grants, including the German Science Foundation, and has published more than 100 papers in internationally renowned journals such as Nature, Cell, Science，Nature communications, Current Biology, eLife, BMC Genomics, Development Cell, etc., with a total of more than 8000 citations. With an H-index of 52 he enjoys an important academic reputation.

Dr. Ryusuke Niwa is a professor at the Life Science Center for Survival Dynamics, Tsukuba Advanced Research Alliance (TARA) at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. He earned his Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 2002, followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Tokyo (2002–2005) and Yale University (2005–2008). He joined the University of Tsukuba as an assistant professor in 2008. He was then promoted to associate professor in 2012 and became a full professor at his current institute in 2019.

Dr. Niwa’s laboratory investigates the molecular, cellular, and neuroendocrine mechanisms of interorgan and interspecies communication, primarily using Drosophila melanogaster and its parasitoid wasps. His work has provided key insights into developmental timing, reproductive regulation, nutrient homeostasis, and host–parasite interactions. He also contributes to the development of environmentally friendly pest control strategies through chemical biology approaches.

Dr. Niwa has authored over 60 peer-reviewed original research articles in journals such as Cell, Science Advances, Nature Communications, Current Biology, PLoS Biology, BMC Biology, and eLife, with his work cited more than 6,500 times.

Dr. Gary W. Felton, a professor and head of the Department of Entomology at Penn State University. He is internationally recognized for his research on insect-plant interactions, and in particular on the role of herbivore saliva in evading plant defenses.
  Felton was born in Norfolk, VA in 1953, but soon moved to California where he grew up. He completed his B.S. in biology in 1975 at the University of California, Irvine, where he was inspired by Howard Schneiderman to study insect physiology. After taking several years off from his education to start a family, Felton completed his M.S. in entomology in 1983 at the University of Kentucky, where he studied under Douglas Dahlman. He then moved to the University of California, Davis, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1988 with Sean Duffey. After a short postdoctoral study with Duffey, he became an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Arkansas in 1990. He attained the rank of full professor in 1998 and then accepted the position as professor and head of Entomology at Penn State University in 2000.

Felton’s research focuses on mechanisms of plant defense and the adaptations that herbivorous insects use to avoid them. This research has uncovered unique ways in which insect herbivores use salivary secretions to suppress the induced responses of their host plants and has been published in journals such as Nature and the Proceedings of the  National Academy of Science. He has published more than 100 refereed papers, including numerous review articles for book chapters and journals such as Plant Physiology, Current Opinion in Plant Biology, and Annual Plant Reviews. 

Dr. Adam Steinbrenner is a Professor at the University of Washington. Dr. Steinbrenner received a Ph.D. in Plant Biology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2015, and a B.S. in Biology from Tufts University in 2010. The Steinbrenner lab studies the molecular bases of plant immunity to pathogens and pests. We are interested in recognition and signaling functions of cell surface receptors and evolutionary processes driving novelty in plant immune systems. He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed papers, including articles in PNAS and The Plant Cell.