David Sokoloff is Professor of Physics at the University of Oregon. He earned his BA in Physics at Queens College of the City University of New York in 1966, and his Ph.D. in AMO Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972 under Ali Javan. For over two decades, he has studied students' conceptual understandings, and developed active learning approaches (with NSF and U.S. Department of Education, FIPSE support) including the four modules of RealTime Physics: Active Learning Laboratories (RTP) and Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILDs), (both developed with Ronald Thornton and Priscilla Laws and published by John Wiley and Sons). He has conducted numerous international, national and local institutes and workshops to disseminate these active learning approaches. Since 1999, he has been part of a UNESCO team presenting active learning workshops in developing countries, such as Active Learning in Optics and Photonics.. He is the editor of the Training Manual for the ALOP workshop that has been presented in Ghana, Tunisia, Morocco, India, Tanzania, Brazil, Mexico, Zambia, Cameroon, Colombia and Chile. The American Physical Society awarded him its 2010 Excellence in Physics Education Award (with Priscilla Laws and Ronald Thornton), and the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) awarded him the 2007 Robert A. Millikan award  for “notable and creative contributions to the teaching of physics.” He is currently the AAPT President Elect, and will assume the role of President in 2011.

Graciela Punte was born in Buenos Aires Argentina. She obtained the PhD in Physics from the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP), Argentina, where she is Professor of Physics at the Physics Department. She is Senior Researcher of the Argentinean National Research Council, CONICET, Head of the X-ray Diffraction National Facility, LANADI (UNLP). She has been Vice President of the Argentina Crystallographic, Association (2004-2008), and a Member of the Structural Chemistry, Commission, IUCr (1996-2005). Currently she is the director of the research group on New technologies and Science Education of the Engineering Faculty of the UNLP, group that she help to create in 1994. She has organized several workshops based on active learning in Argentina and joined the ALOP team for Latin America this year in Chile.

Vengu, after graduating from high school in California, went to Madras, India, where he earned a bachelors and masters degrees in physics and math. After spending a year at the University of Oregon, he moved to the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his Ph.D. Subsequently, he spent six years at Berkeley as a member of the research faculty. Following a two year stint in the medical optics industry, he joined the University of Missouri at St. Louis, where he held joint appointments in optometry and physics. He moved to the University of Waterloo in 2006. He has also held faculty positions as an adjunct associate professor in the Dept. of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California at Irvine and at Waterloo in the mid-90s and has been a visiting professor at other institutions, most recently at the Indian Institute of Technology at New Delhi. He has also been a KITP Scholar at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Professional service includes being a Director of the Optical Society of America, Chair of the United States Advisory Committee to the International Commission for Optics, member-at-large of the US IUPAP committee, member of the Trieste System Optical Sciences Advisory Committee at the International Center for Theoretical Physics. He is a founding member of the UNESCO project on Active Learning in Optics and Photonics and has served on the editorial boards of many journals.

César Eduardo Mora Ley was born in Guadalajara, México. He obtained Bachelor degrees on Math education (1990) and Physics (1991) from the University of Guadalajara. He obtained his M. Sc. in Physics in the CINVESTAV, Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN), México City, and his Ph.D cum Lauda in Physics from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana at Iztapalapa (2001). He is Full Professor at the IPN since 1994.. In 2005 he joined the IPN Research center on applied science and advanced technology (CICATA), unit Legaria, where he is Academic Sub Director and Coordinator of the graduate program in Physics Education.   In 2007 he obtained a Bachelor’s degree on Philosophy from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). He was the Executive Secretary of the Latin American Physics Education Network (LAPEN) (2005-2008) and associate member of the International Committee on Physics Education of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (ICPE-IUPAP) (2006- 2008). Since 2007 he has been the Editor in Chief of Latin American Journal of Physics Education and member of the Editorial Committee of the International Journal of Physics “RAJPHYSICA”. Since 2008 he is a member of the Editorial Committee of the Revista Areté sobre Enseñanza de las Ciencias, from the Universidad Normal de Manaus, Brazil, and in 2009 he became a Member of the Inter American Committee on Physics Education