Dr Bidlot has a PhD in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics from Florida State University, USA. Dr Bidlot is a senior scientist in the Coupled Processes Team within the Earth System Modelling Section at ECMWF. He conducts research on the interactions of wind waves with the atmosphere and the oceans and how to carry these developments to operations. He also plays an active role in the use of wave observations for data assimilation and model validation.

Dr Luigi Cavaleri studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Padua, Italy, and then Aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology. As a fellow of the Italian National Research Council, he became first Director of Research and then Director of the Institute. Since retirement, he has been acting as Associated Researcher. Chairman of the WISE Group since 1992, his interest is focused on wind waves and all the related processes, including generation, dissipation, and the now key aspects of air-sea interactions and how these are modulated by waves. He has fundamental expertise on basic physics of waves, their measurement and modelling

Dr Dias received a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA. He is a Professor of Applied Mathematics at University College Dublin, Ireland, where he leads the Wave group. His areas of expertise are extreme wave events, wave energy, wave impact, slamming, tsunamis, storm surges and wave breaking, including direct field observations, numerical modelling and analytical developments

Miguel Onorato received his PhD in Fluid Mechanics from the Politecnico di Torino in 2000.  He is now Associate Professor in Condensed Matter Physics in the Physics Department of the University of Torino. His work focuses mainly in the dynamics of nonlinear dispersive waves with application to surface gravity waves, Bose-Einstein condensates, nonlinear optics and solid states physics. He has given an important contribution to the understanding of rogue waves in the ocean.  Since June 2017, he is member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

Dr Babanin has a PhD in Physical Oceanography from the Marine Hydrophysical Institute, Russia. He isProfessor in Ocean Engineering at the University of the Melbourne. His areas of expertise are wind-generated waves, maritime and coastal engineering, air-sea interactions, ocean turbulence and ocean dynamics, climate, environmental instrumentation and remote sensing of the ocean. These include extreme Metocean conditions, from tropical cyclones to Arctic and Antarctic environments.

Mr. Erick Rogers is a wave modeler with the Ocean Sciences Division of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). He has 25 years of experience with wave model development (both model physics and numerics), application, validation, and transition to operations, and has been a key contributor to the SWAN and WAVEWATCH III models, with contributions related to propagation numerics, irregular grids, wind input source functions, and dissipation by whitecapping, viscous mud, and sea ice.

Francisco Ocampo-Torres is an Oceanographer from Marine Science School of University of Baja California (1980), MSc in Physical Oceanography from CICESE (1982), and PhD from Oceanography Department, University of Southampton (1989), with experience with studies of ocean surface wave dynamics and related processes. His research interest is mainly associated with ocean surface wave dynamics and applications, air-sea interaction with emphasis in carbon dioxide and momentum transfer between the ocean and atmosphere. More recently with focus in ocean wave energy and the potential conversion to practical uses, dealing with resources evaluation and with the development of experiments in the laboratory and at sea, to make progress on designing and building new devices to convert the ocean wave energy. Active member of the WISE (Wind Waves in the Earth System) group since 1994, and of its Scientific Committee since 2014. Member of the Mexican Academy of Science since 2000, and of the Mexican National System of Researchers, at Level 3 since 2016. Active in CEMIE-Océano, a National project for marine energy.

Nelson Violante-Carvalho is an oceanographer interested mainly in wind waves, currently working as Associate Professor at the Rio de Janeiro Federal University, Brazil. He received his Doctorate in Physical Oceanography from the University of Southampton, UK.

Mr. Erick Jesús Portilla is researcher at MODEMAT and Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Quito, Ecuador. His research is focused on ocean surface waves with emphasis on spectral approaches and partitioning techniques, addressing several aspects such as wave modeling, in-situ and remote sensing observations, data assimilation, wave model evaluation, climate analysis, and engineering applications.