Manuel Heitor was born in Lisbon, in 1958.

He holds a PhD from Imperial College of London in Mechanical Engineering, in 1985, and a post doctorate in California University, in San Diego, in 1986. He pursued his academic career at Instituto Superior Técnico, in Lisbon, where he developped investigation activity in Fluid Mechanics and Experimental Combustion.

He is Professor in Instituto Superior Técnico, in Lisbon, where he heads the Center of Innovation, Technology and Development Policies Studies, IN+ and coordinates PhD’s programs concerning Engineering and Public Policies and Engineering of Conception and Advanced Manufacturing Systems.

He was Secretary of State of Science, Technology and Higher Education between March 2005 and June 2011.

He was Invited Professor at Harvard University, in the United States, in 2011 and 2012.

He was co-Chairman of Instituto Superior Técnico between 1993 and 1998. During the 90’s, he studied politics of science, technology and innovation. In 1998, he founded Center of Innovation, Technology and Development Policies Studies, IN+, at Instituto Superior Técnico, in Lisbon. In 2005, this center was ranked on the Top 50 global centers of research on Management of Technology, by International Association for the Management of Technology.

He is Research Fellow of Texas University, in Austin, at the Institute of Innovation, Creativity and Capital. He founded and coordinated several international conferences related to Technology Policy and Innovation and is co-editor of the Purdue University Press book collection on Science and Technology Policy. In 2002, he was also co-founder of the international network Globelics – the global network for the economics of learning, innovation, and competence building systems.

Recently, he was one of the promotors of the European network step4EU, science, technology, education and policy for Europe, and the International Observatory of Global Politics for the Exploitation of Atlantic Ocean. In July 2015, he promoted the manifesto «Knowledge as Our Common Future».

José Paulo Esperança is Full Professor of Finance at ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon. He was Director of ISCTE Business School of April 2015 to April 2019, the date on which he assumed the Vice Presidency of FCT. He has a degree in Business Organization and Management from ISCTE and obtained his MBA from the New University of Lisbon. PhD in Economics from European University Institute of Florence with a thesis on the decision investment by service multinationals. His research areas include entrepreneurship and SME financing Business, corporate governance and the impact of a common language on international business. He was the founder and president of the AUDAX-ISCTE Entrepreneurship and Family Business Support Center and BGI - Building Global Innovators, a Start-Up Accelerator dedicated to Technology Transfer under the MIT Portugal Program. He was Portuguese Delegate for the instruments dedicated to SMEs in the Horizonte2020 and member of the Board of Directors of the Portuguese Confederation of Defense Associations of the environment. Born on October 13, 1957, in Vila Garcia, municipality of Guarda.

Dr. Miller established Science for Decisions in early 2013. From 2015 through 2017 he has also served as Director of the Science and Technology for Sustainability program at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He served as Assistant Director for Ocean Sciences at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) from 2009 through early 2013 prior to establishing Science for Decisions. He was instrumental in the creation of the United States' first National Ocean Policy and the development of its foundational science priorities. He was founding co-Director of the National Ocean Council Office and later served as its Deputy Director for Science and Technology. In addition to his policy work, Dr. Miller addressed science and technology aspects of major disasters including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the tsunami-induced Fukushima nuclear accident by fostering engagement of the academic community with federal agencies during and after the events.

Before taking on his role at OSTP, Dr. Miller was Technical Director and Director of Research at the Consortium for Oceanographic Research and Education (now the Consortium for Ocean Leadership) where he had management and oversight responsibilities for the program offices of the US National Oceanographic Partnership Program, the national and international Census of Marine Life programs, and other community-wide activities. As Associate Director for Ocean, Atmosphere, and Space Sciences at the Office of Naval Research – London, he built international programs in ocean and atmosphere modeling as well as remote sensing. At the Naval Research Laboratory and while on the faculty at Old Dominion University, he developed interdisciplinary numerical and observational projects focused on coastal environments. He collaborated with experts in microwave technologies to create an airborne surface salinity sensor and generated the first remotely-sensed images of sea surface salinity ever obtained.

Dr. Miller grew up on a family farm in coastal South Carolina and now lives near Washington, DC, with his spouse, a classical pianist and music historian from Los Angeles.

Lori Collins is an Environmental Programs Consultant for the NC Department of Environmental Quality. She is focused on business sector and local government stakeholder engagement for development of NC’s Clean Energy Plan under Executive Order #80 and wrote the Jobs and Economic Outlook section of the plan.

Prior to DEQ, Lori served as executive director of Joules Accelerator, a clean energy startup incubator funded by Duke Energy; and she was president of Abundant Power, an energy financing venture. Prior to these roles, Lori was on the executive team at LendingTree; head of marketing for Bank of America's mutual fund business; VP of Marketing at Fidelity Investments; and Director of Marketing at American Express.

Lori holds a Master of Science in Carbon Management from the University of Edinburgh; an MBA from Kellogg at Northwestern University; and graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill.