Maria João Melo, is a Full Professor at NOVA FCT and a researcher at the LAQV-Requimte and the Medieval Studies Institute at NOVA, where she leads the Cultural Heritage line. After earning a PhD in Physical Chemistry (1995), she applied her expertise to the conservation of works of art, completing a postdoctoral fellowship in Florence (1996–98) at the Italian Research Council. Upon her return to Portugal in 1998, she helped establish the DCR, served as its president (2017–19), and coordinates the PhD Program in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage. Her research focuses on preserving medieval illuminations and on the causes of alteration of organic colorants in complex matrices. She has contributed to developing advanced analytical techniques for their identification in artworks, such as microspectrofluorimetry. Her current challenge is to strengthen her interdisciplinary research and approach at the frontiers of the social and natural sciences, promoting public engagement.Aldo Romani, is Full Professor at the Department of Chemistry, Biology and Biotechnology of the University of Perugia. Research activity concerns both basic and applied subjects principally involving characterization of the molecular excited states by means of the parameters that govern their radiative and non-radiative processes using spectroscopic techniques in absorption and emission. The same techniques were applied, for not destructive diagnostic purposes, in the field of the Cultural Heritage. From 2015 he is the President of the Excellence Centre SMAArt (Scientific Methodologies Applied to Archaeology and Art). He is the author of more than 200 papers in international journals and 11 books chapters. (ResearcherID G-8103-2012)Austin Nevin, PhD in Conservation (2008) is a Conservator and Chemist. He is the Head of Conservation at the Courtauld Institute of Art, and vice president of the International Institute for the Conservation of Artistic and Historic Works (IIC). His research focuses on the conservation of wall paintings and easel paintings and the application of spectroscopic methods to understand degradation. He has worked internationally in Italy, China, Greece and Sweden. His current interdisciplinary research aims to bridge gaps between imaging sciences, spectroscopy and conservation, with a focus on technical study, preventive conservation and innovative conservation treatments.Daniela Comelli, PhD in Physics (2004), is an Associate Professor at the Physics Departmemt of Politecnico di Milano, where she is the head of the ArtIS (Imaging and Spectroscopy for Art) research group. She is the author of over 100 publications in journals listed in the Scopus database (h-index 29). Her research activity is focused on the development of optical spectroscopy methods and instrumentations for the characterization of organic and inorganic compounds relevant in the Conservation Science field, with a specific focus on the use of time-resolved and spectrally resolved photo-luminescence techniques for the imaging of artworks and the photo-physical study of artist materials.
